A livestreamer's pad brand hit ¥75M/month — then buyers found black debris sealed inside

In late 2024, China's sanitary pad industry was rocked by a length-shortage scandal — established brands were caught cutting centimetres off their products. 赵子涵, a Linyi-based livestreamer with 1.2M followers, positioned her brand 绵绵的羊 (Mianmian de Yang) as the honest alternative: a 'full-women team' making pads you could trust. The timing was perfect. She gained 2M followers in a single month and by April 2025 her flagship '月光宝盒' (Moonlight Box) pads were pulling ¥75M a month in online sales — more followers on Douyin than Sofy or Whisper.

Then the same consumers who had fled to her brand started finding things in her pads. In February 2025 the first complaints appeared: red stains, yellow discolouration, and black foreign matter embedded in the cotton. One buyer posted photos of a 'Moonlight Box Pro' pad manufactured on 11 March 2025 with a visible black inclusion. Another reported developing an infection after wearing the brand's overnight pants, obtained a medical certificate confirming a pathogen, and said the company still refused to compensate her.

On 15 April 2025 the story hit Weibo's trending list. Regulators in Linyi and Dongying descended on the brand's cloud warehouse and its OEM factory the same day. The brand halted all sales on 22 April. Its public letter argued that every product met national standards and no harmful substances were found — which was confirmed by the Linyi market regulator on 23 April. But meeting the floor of national standards did not explain why customers were finding black objects in sealed pads, and public trust had already broken.

The brand's own quality-control report, later obtained by reporters, told a different story: a batch had been graded 'D-level defective' due to uneven hot-melt adhesive application. And in July 2026, the Hangzhou Yuhang District market regulator opened an investigation into whether the brand's much-advertised '绵绵的羊研发中心' (R&D Center) actually existed — a customer-service agent had admitted it was 'just an internal department.' The brand was still livestreaming sales of the same Moonlight Box Pro pads a year later.