Previously I tried to rate the softness of cups by comparing how squishy the rim felt, now I’m rating based on squishing the rims together and comparing how much each cup rim compressed. I’ll refer to this as the “Squish test”.
This squish test of often done by taking 2 cups and pressing them together, like this:
This shows that the cup on the top has flattened more than the cup on the bottom, so the top cup is presumably made from a softer silicone, because it compresses more than the other cup.
This is a fairly good indication of which cup is softer than the other. However, I have noticed in doing this myself, that if you have 2 cups with a similar degree of squishyness, the bottom cup will always flatten more. It seems there is more pressure on the bottom cup than the top cup. Also when you squash 3 cups together, the centre one squishes more. So to get a more accurate indication of which cup is softer, you really need to compress 2 cups, from the sides.
So I bought a caliper so I could more accurately test squishing 2 cups together :)
I have measured the “squishyness” or Softness of the cups based on Squishing them all with the same cup – Lunette – setting calipers to 50.00mm, inserting the Lunette and one other cup together between the slides of the caliper, and measuring how compressed the rim of the cup I’m testing against the lunette is (measuring from the outsides of the rim, to account for the fact the cups have different thicknesses of rim)
Now, this is not a perfectly accurate reading, however it can be used to give an indication of relative “squishyness” of the brands. The smaller the number, the more compressed the cup was, so the softer or more “squishy” the cup is.
If anyone has any particular requests as to which cups to compare together, comment here and I can compare them for you.
Large Sizes
Tested against a Large Lunette – using all Large size cups (except the Luv Ur Body, which I used the “medium” size since it was closer in size to the Large sizes of other brands and the single sized cups)
- Nameless ebay moon stem cup – (20mm)
- Lunacup (21mm)
- Miacup [old] (21mm)
- Juju (23mm)
- Sckoon (23mm)
- Vcup [one size] (24mm)
- Fleur Cup (24mm)
- Lily Compact (24mm)
- Ruby (25mm)
- Claricup (25mm)
- Femmecup [new] [one size] (26mm)
- Luv Ur Body (26mm)
- Lady Cup (27mm)
- Lily Cup (27mm)
- MeLuna [Classic] (27mm)
- Mpower (27mm)
- Femmycycle (28mm)
- Lunette (28mm)
- Mooncup uk [old] (29mm)
- Yuuki – [new] (30mm)
.
Small Sizes
Tested against a Small Lunette – using all Small size cups.
- Keeper (26mm)
- Diva [old] (26mm)
- Luna cup (26mm)
- Femmycycle (26mm)
- Luv Ur Body (27mm)
- Sckoon [prototype] (27mm)
- Juju (27mm)
- Lunette (27mm)
- Claricup (27mm)
- Yuuki [new] (27mm)
- Lily compact (27mm)
- Femmecup [new][one size] (27mm)
- Vcup [one size] (28mm)
- Femmecup [old] (30mm)
- Mooncuk uk [old] (33mm)
My “new” MeLuna was from 2011, I assume it is a “Classic”, but it’s HEAPS softer than their old cups. The “new” Yuuki I’m not sure which version it is, probably the “classic”
— disclaimer —
Now, I would like to mention that when I get new cups in, I have to compare them to the old cups I have to know where to rank them, and I’m not sure if silicone changes softness over time (when stored in a dark box and not used – as my samples are). So that may affect my ratings.
Cups apparently get softer the more they are used (particularly through repeated boiling) – so my cups that are used once or twice then put in a storage box, will probably not be as soft as a cup that is used by someone regularly.
Please note that I can only test the cups I actually have – so this is a list of the cups I own. Please do not ask me to test any cups not on this list.
I will update the list whenever I obtain a new cup (I do have a few cups on the way)
