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AUGUST NEWS

Nadya Okamoto in Rolling Stone talking about the pressures of being an entrepreneur and a viral TikToker at the same time.

Within her first year and a half on the platform, Nadya Okamoto has grown a following of over 4 million on TikTok. In this piece, she sits down and gets real about the challenges of having such a viral following and the pressures of maintaining a strong flow of new content on a daily basis. Nadya has primarily used her platform to help bring further attention to her brand, August, which is a lifestyle period brand making more sustainable tampons and pads.

Nadya says that when she launched the brand, while she knew that TikTok would be a strong tool for her to grow the business as a Gen Z founder, she was not expecting it to reach such effective and efficient success as it eventually did.

“Harvard grad Nadya Okamoto, the queer, Asian American co-founder of August, a period care company, brought this question to TikTok — where she went viral — when she explained that she designed tampons with the intention of actually fitting a vagina, and they don't open cylindrically…

“Our tampons open axially, so they open to the sides,” she explained to me, just as she does in her TikTok videos. “This won't put pressure on the sides of your vaginal walls. At the same time, it will fill up with blood from the top part, where the cervix opens, but it will still stay slimmer at the bottom so that when you pull it out, it's more comfortable.” — VICTORIA VOULOUMANOS in BUZZFEED

“If periods are talked about at all in schools, they’re done so in gender-segregated classrooms that, one, reinforce the gender binary but also teach young girls that this is something you only talk about in hushed voices behind closed doors,” said Nadya Okamoto, co-founder of August, a period care and wellness company.  

Growing up with two sisters and raised by a single mom, Okamoto thought she was equipped, but when she got her period for the first time in fifth grade — it was terrifying. Now in her last semester as an undergraduate student at Harvard University, the 23-year-old is partnering with friend and co-founder Nick Jain to take back the narrative of period health through the Ask August education initiative. — THE HILL, by Anagha Srikanth

Founded by college students Nadya Okamoto and Nick Jain, Ask August is a new online tool making period education more accessible with straight-forward, no-frills answers to commonly asked questions. The website’s medical board of doctors answer burning queries including “Will taking testosterone stop my period?” and “Is using a tampon equivalent to losing your virginity?,” questions people might be too embarrassed to bring up in-person. Using genderless language to tackle topics ranging from period pain to reusable pads, Ask August is an inclusive resource for anyone who menstruates. — HYPE BAE, by Alexandra Pauly

Nadya Okamoto has no problem talking about her period. Growing up in a household with a single mom and two sisters kept the floor open for all things menstruation. At age 16, during morning commutes to school, she would chat with homeless women who first introduced her to period poverty, a global issue affecting women and girls who don’t have access to sanitary products.

After researching the crisis more, Okamoto realized she had yet to hear about the issue because of the stigma surrounding menstrual cycles. It’s not widely known that 40 U.S. states tax tampon sales. Recognizing her privilege as a woman with access to hygienic and safe period products, Okamoto launched PERIOD, an organization fighting to end period poverty and stigma. But her advocacy didn’t end there. In 2018, she released her debut book, Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement, and two years later co-founded August, a community-centered lifestyle brand working to reimagine periods. — GEN Series, by Brianna Holt