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No one is happy about unsatisfactory pad performance. Not you. Not us. And maybe most of all, not the consumer. That’s why we looked at the issue of stay-in-place performance from every conceivable angle and came to some important realisations. Then, we turned that knowledge into innovation. Introducing: StayX™ Adhesive Technology and Staybility™ testing!

“Better hold on!” More than just a tagline, it’s at the very heart of Bostik’s two recent breakthroughs. The first is our new Staybility™ test for stay-in-place performance of feminine hygiene and light urinary incontinence pads. The second, StayX™ Adhesive Technology, our industry-changing new pad attachment adhesive.

“It started in 2018, when we decided to investigate the needs of feminine pad users, and adults who use absorbent pads for light incontinence. We heard first hand that what they wanted is a pad that held up to the demands of daily life and throughout the night,” says Diane Toonen, Bostik Global Director of Strategic Marketing. 

Consumer dissatisfaction with pad performance was a perennial concern for manufacturers. Pads could detach too easily. They could grip too strongly. They might shift. In short, pads just wouldn’t stay in place for the twists and turns of a busy life. “But to provide better pad attachment performance, we needed to truly understand what had been keeping the industry from delivering it,” Toonen explains.
 

Taking a fresh look at the science of pad attachment


We realised one important factor fairly quickly. In general, the industry was using peel testing as a surrogate for predicting stay-in-place performance. Though when you think about it, the forces involved aren’t the same. “To accurately predict what the consumer would experience, we needed a different kind of test,” Toonen notes. 

Our all-new Staybility™ testing by Bostik’s team of R&D experts was the result.
Then it was time to check our work: Did Staybility do what we intended? We tested a variety of sanitary pad products using Staybility. Next, our analytical team at Arkema compared the results to consumer comments, positive and negative.  There was a clear statistical correlation. Products with higher Staybility scores received better consumer reviews for stay-in-place performance. We were on the right track.

With our new test method put into practice and proven effective, we set about creating an adhesive that offered excellent Staybility stay-in-place performance results on a variety of fabrics. (Read our related blog post about underwear fabrics here.) That’s how StayX™ Adhesive Technology was developed.
 

StayX: Next-level stay-in-place adhesive technology


With additional testing, we confirmed that StayX meets and exceeds expectations across all important design attributes for pad attachment. StayX demonstrates:
-    Excellent stay-in-place performance
-    Consistent performance across substrates
-    Stable peel across temperatures
-    No adhesive residue

It’s clear. StayX and Staybility from Bostik can help you deliver what consumers say they want: pads that stay in place for every move. “It’s been a long ride, but now we’re ready to help our customers and their consumers comfortably and confidently make their way through the twists and turns of daily life,” concludes Toonen. 

For more about StayX, Staybility, and the science behind them both, request a copy of our whitepaper.

Request Whitepaper
 

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