What is the difference between winged pads and non-winged?

Answer 1

Wings are little flaps with adhesive on the two sides of the pad. You attach them to the other side of your underwear. Pads without wings are more likely to fold while you are wearing them. This could cause menstrual fluid to leak and saturate the underwear. The wings help prevent this from happening, not to mention that a pad that is peeling up is really uncomfortable!

Answer 2

Simply put pads with wings have little flaps either side of the pad that fold under the underwear to help keep them in place and give a little extra protection at the side of the pads, wingless don't. Some people prefer wingless when they are wearing skimpy outfits because no risk of wings showing under the clothing and they often don't gather-up as much as winged pads.

Cloth pads tend to have wings by default because that's how they're held in place - whereas disposable pads stick into the underwear with adhesive, cloth pads have wings that wrap around the underwear and snap into place. Cloth pads will sometimes have extra wings to act as protection too.