I'm rather split on this one.

They should be free of charge. End of story.

I think it's worth pointing out here that "pink tax" and sales tax (US) and Value-Added Tax (EU) paid on sanitary products are different issues. "Pink tax" refers to the inflated price of items targeted at women when there's another version that retails for less - the classic example is pink disposable razors, which often cost considerably more than the identical blue ones targeted at men. This is easy to get around: just buy the blue ones. The same is true with products such as shampoo - the stuff in the $2 blue bottle is identical to the stuff in the $6 pink bottle.

Sales tax has to be charged by retailers but is paid to the government rather than adding to the retailers' profits, and certain items considered essential are exempt from it: for some reason, sanitary products are not considered sufficiently essential to be exempt, though some countries/states have chosen to charge a reduced rate (5% in the UK, compared to the standard VAT rate of 20%). Persuading governments to change this will take a bit more effort as we can't simply stop buying some products, including sanitary products, which clearly are essential; instead, we need to do things like start petitions. In the EU, VAT will no longer be charged on sanitary products from 2022; as constituent nations can choose a certain number of products to be exempted, it's still worth petitioning against women being unfairly taxed (I don't know what the situation is outside the EU).

It's notable that a few retailers, such as British chain Tesco, feel the same about "tampon tax" - the company doesn't add VAT to the price of sanitary products and instead pays what it has to give the government from its own profits rather than passing on the cost to women. This is probably more to do with good PR than altruism, however: they have to pay it anyway, and if they were able to keep the extra 5% they might not be quite so keen to do this - they do, after all, still charge more for pink razors etc.

I can see makeup as a luxury item, my body doesn’t “need” it. Tampons and pads though? That’s a need. Do you want to see blood dripping down my legs every month?

Nice. That has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I've heard of. I was in total disbelief when I read that.