My funny friend, Robyn Welling, is the kind of lady who will hold candid convos on almost any subject. So when I got curious about the period panties that Facebook keeps showing me in my newsfeed, I checked in with her. She admitted to having them in two different styles, cheeky and hiphugger.
In case you haven’t heard, the idea behind period panties (like Thinx) is that you wear what looks like a cute pair of panties during your period, instead of tampons, cups, or pads. According to marketers, the underwear has been engineered to hygienically hold various levels of liquid, so, supposedly, if you have your period, you could wear this underwear without worrying about leaks. Same deal if you pee when you sneeze.
And, apparently, period panties feel pretty good.
“The hiphuggers were totally comfy from day one, but I love them both now,” Robyn shared. “They’re slightly thicker than regular underwear, but you hardly notice once you have them on. I actually have one really nice pair of ‘real’ lingerie undies, and the fabric quality is similar to the period panties that I own.”
“My husband said it was sort of unfair to make period panties so sexy, though it was difficult for me to muster much sympathy for him,” she added.
But, uh, do they leak?
“I’ve never had mine leak but I mostly wear them on the days leading up to my period,” she admits. “You never know when you’ll just be walking along minding your own business and then OH HI IT’S YOUR PERIOD, I’M HERE NOW SORRY YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GROCERY STORE, SUCKS TO BE YOU.”
She added that she’ll also wear period panties in the days after her period to help deal with the times when her “period acts like it’s over but it comes back for that last hurrah surprise revisit.”
If she does wear them during the heaviest days of her period, Robyn says she wears a tampon as back-up.
“I have worn them overnight and woken up to a lady surprise, and the period panties saved me from having to wash the sheets,” she says. “So I’m willing to bet they’d hold up to regular daytime flow. I’m just not that brave.They did replace the nighttime pads I used to rock when I was waiting for my period to start, though, so that’s been nice!”
So, let’s get real for a second, the one question we all really want to know is…do they smell? I mean you change tampons and pads regularly, so what about period panties? “Not as far as I can tell!” she says.
OK, but do they feel gross?
“I mean, I wouldn’t wear them nonstop all week or anything,” she says. “When I’m changing out of them I just wear them into the shower to rinse them out, then run them through the regular laundry.”
The rinse out in the shower is actually pretty smart. I wouldn’t have thought of that.
Photo: Getty
