A TikTok video of a woman finding a mysterious object among her tampons has gone viral, prompting Proctor & Gamble to make a statement to reassure consumers that it was “a sample from our quality control process”.
The video has been viewed almost 9 million times following its posting on 12 July.
TikTok user Celia Piemontes says in the video that she got Tampax tampons instead of the organic kind she usually gets because of a shortage.
All of the tampons in the footage had a purple applicator apart from one that was red and that was marked with the letters “SS”. Inside, a small shiny, seemingly metal object could be found.
“So I just opened it up,” she says in the footage. “What is that? What the f***?”
The post has racked up almost 10,000 comments and has been liked more than a million times.
A number of commenters noted that it could be a quality control item that made it into circulation, something later confirmed by Proctor & Gamble, but one commenter wrote that “my brain instantly said tracker”.
“Bestie, this is your sign to stick to organic,” the company The Honey Pot & Co wrote in the comment section.
In a second video, Ms Piemontes said that the object was “clearly a metal piece”.
In yet another video, she says that Tampax sent her a direct message on the platform, offering compensation.
Ms Piemontes also said in another video that got the tampons from a friend who works at Tampax and that she didn’t buy them at a store, according to Insider.
The parent company of Tampax, Procter & Gamble, told Fox News that “we are aware of the TikTok video and have looked into the matter”.
“We want to reassure you this was an isolated issue,” the company added. “This was a sample from our quality control process that was inadvertently gifted to a consumer by an employee. Quality control samples are not sold to consumers.”
One commenter wrote that the object in the video was “probably a test one that slipped through undetected”.
“Factories usually put metal or something to make sure their machines sort them out,” the TikTok user said.
“It looks like it could be a defect detection tester? So they put it on the line to see if their quality control system picks up that it is defective,” another commenter said.
