Cooliea

About Cooliea

Cooliea is a Netherlands-based health-tech start-up founded in Den Haag (The Hague) by a team spanning the Netherlands, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The brand was created with a clear environmental mission: to reduce the enormous volume of single-use menstrual waste generated every year by offering reusable, high-performance alternatives that are as comfortable and reliable as the disposables they replace. Cooliea makes period-proof underwear and swimwear — garments that serve double duty as both everyday underwear and functional swimwear, removing the need for separate products and reducing overall consumption.

The Problem Cooliea Is Solving

The scale of menstrual waste is staggering. Every year, more than 12 billion pads and tampons are thrown away globally, with an estimated 90% ending up in landfills. Each individual who menstruates disposes of approximately 12,000 pads or tampons over their lifetime. These products are predominantly made from plastic and synthetic fibres, meaning they do not biodegrade and persist in the environment for hundreds of years. They also require significant raw material inputs — cotton, plastic, adhesives, packaging — at every cycle of their short, single-use life.

Cooliea’s response to this problem is straightforward: design garments durable enough to be used for years, making each purchase a meaningful reduction in a person’s lifetime menstrual waste footprint. A single Cooliea product, properly cared for, replaces hundreds of single-use products. The brand actively communicates this impact, making the environmental math clear for customers.

Products and Materials

Cooliea’s product range includes period-proof cotton underwear in hipster and lace styles, period-proof swimwear, a reusable menstrual cup, and a reusable makeup remover glove. The cotton underwear lines are made from organic cotton — a material chosen for a combination of sustainability and comfort properties. Organic cotton is ultra-soft and biodegradable, grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Its fine fibres work as a natural temperature regulator, remaining breathable and odour-resistant across extended wear. The material is gentle on sensitive skin, making it well-suited for intimate garments designed for active use.

Cooliea’s swimwear — the product that originally launched the brand via a successful Kickstarter campaign — was designed from the ground up using recycled fishing net. Ghost fishing nets are one of the most persistent and damaging forms of ocean plastic, continuing to trap and kill marine life long after they are lost or discarded. Transforming this material into high-performance period-proof swimwear is a genuinely circular approach: a waste stream that damages aquatic ecosystems is diverted and turned into a product that itself serves an environmental purpose by replacing disposables.

Each garment in the Cooliea range is designed to hold several tampons’ worth of flow capacity, with the Lily Lace Maxi variant providing protection for up to eight tampons’ volume. The products are water-resistant and fast-drying, functioning seamlessly in the pool, ocean, or everyday settings. They are easy to maintain with a standard cold-water rinse followed by machine washing, designed to last for years of regular use.

Sustainability Philosophy: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

Cooliea operates around the sustainability principle of reuse, reduce, recycle — applied specifically to menstrual health. The brand’s mission is to contribute to society with sustainable products that serve their purpose well enough that customers genuinely want to use them long-term. This is an important distinction: many reusable alternatives to single-use products fail because they require too much compromise in performance or convenience. Cooliea has built its product range around the premise that sustainability should not mean sacrifice.

By choosing eco-friendly products that address daily life needs, Cooliea gives individuals a practical way to reduce their environmental footprint without requiring significant lifestyle change. The underwear looks, fits, and functions like regular underwear; the swimwear functions like regular swimwear. The sustainability benefit is built in, not bolted on.

A Community of Sustainability-Minded Individuals

Cooliea was built by a small, internationally diverse team that shares a belief in the power of product design to address environmental challenges. The Kickstarter campaign that funded the brand’s launch attracted backers who were drawn to both the innovation — period proof underwear that doubles as swimwear — and the environmental story behind it. That early community of supporters reflects the kind of consumer Cooliea serves: people who want their purchasing choices to align with their values, who are looking for products that work well and do good simultaneously.

Why Cooliea Belongs in the Green Directory

Prakati’s Green Directory lists businesses that are genuinely working on sustainability. Cooliea qualifies clearly: it makes reusable products designed to replace thousands of single-use items over a lifetime, uses organic cotton and recycled fishing net in its materials, and is built around an explicit mission to reduce menstrual waste going to landfill. The brand is part of a growing category of sustainable fashion and reusable personal care products that represent some of the most impactful choices consumers in the Netherlands and globally can make for the environment. Cooliea’s combination of genuine material choices, clear environmental mission, and practical product design makes it a strong addition to any green directory.