Period Panties: The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread
In my 15+ years of bleeding, I have tried everything under the sun - starting with all manner of disposable products. The pads, the wings, the pantyliners, the tampons, all the different brands, all the different categories, all the different flow ratings. Even if we overlook the waste created and the shitty chemicals they're made of that we're putting right up against our vaginas and then into the landfill - there's still the fact that you've got a big, bloody, gross pad in your underwear, or your vagina is stuffed with a piece of cotton and you don't have anyway to know it's reached it's maximum capacity until it leaks on you.
None of that really screams Revolutionary! to me.
Enter all the reusable options: menstrual cups, sea sponge tampons and cloth pads. Let's be real about all this. It's all a step up from the disposable products, yes. But not perfect.
Menstrual cups
A flexible silicone cup that you have to lube up and then fold up and wrangle all the way up deep into your vaginal canal to basically have it suction cup itself to your cervix. And then go digging for it when it's time to be changed. And if you need to change it, you kinda have to be right next to a sink because there's gonna be blood and schmutz all over your hand, and you want to rinse the cup before you reinsert it. Because that just feels better. They have a retrieval "stem" you can pull on, but I don't really see the point of this. You can't just yank strait down and pull your cup out. You have to dig up there and grab it from the top to sort of release the suction and not feel like you're pulling out your uterus right along with it. Also, the stem is in your vagina. That feels weird. Yes, you can trim it. But then you've got the exposed edge that you trimmed sort of lightly scratching the walls of your vagina. This isn't fun either. Overall - not a huge fan of the cups, aside from if I need to go swimming when I'm bleeding.
Sea sponge tampons
Oh dear god the fucking sea sponges. So they're super absorbent, yeah? But this also means the absorb pee, too. So every time I would pee it was like the bottom end of the sea sponge would soak up some pee splash. It was like a fucking magnet for liquid. In addition to the blood. And then if I would shower, it would absorb some water. Which led me to standing in front of a friend, cracking up at her joke only to find that my laughter had squeezed my sea sponge, which was now squeezing a steady stream of blood and piss and water down my leg pooling on to my floor, which thankfully was tile. And this continued to happen every time I would laugh or otherwise contract my abs/vag. Because they’re just sponges! So basically, fuck the sea sponges. In my humble opinion
Cloth pads
Ok I get it. They're cute, but you're just gonna bleed all over them and then they're not cute anymore. Also they're expensive, and you need a bunch of them because they don't absorb a lot. They're also super fucking bulky, which sucks. And they technically absorb the blood, but they don't keep you very dry. So you're walking around in a big swampy diaper and then you probably will end up with a taint rash because of the warmth and moisture and lack of air flow. They also super duper bunch up inside your underwear. So you end up with this mangled clump of cloth in your underwear. And every time I would pull down my underwear to pee, the fucking pad would flip itself upside down and then I'd have to readjust it and that's just a pain in the ass.
All of this brings me to Period Panties
I was skeptical because I'd tried all the reusable options already and they're all far from perfect. So why would these $30-a-pair panties be any different? Trust me, they are. First of all, they're thin and cute as hell - look (these are even the biggest pair they make - the heavy flow style):
They look and feel like a regular pair of panties. This by itself is amazing. They're incredibly soft and comfortable and they absorb so much blood. I don't even understand how this works. The next best thing is they keep you amazingly dry. They absorb all the blood, but you are dry and fresh feeling. When you start to feel wetness - this is when they are starting to reach their capacity.
But you know what's great? They don't leak. I have pushed my panties waaaaaay past the "feeling wet" stage. One time they were wet as I was going to sleep on my heaviest day and I was like - fuck it, I don't feel like putting on a new pair. So I just went to bed. And I woke up the next morning to no leaks whatsoever. At all. Nothing.
The crotch piece is a panel of thin fabric and what happens when they start to feel wet is simply that the wetness spreads. Initially when they feel wet, it's just a little spot right in the middle. But if you don't change them the wetness feeling just starts to spread and you can feel the crotch piece getting wetter and wetter. Like - eventually, if you push it, you'll feel wet all the way up to the top of your butt crack where the crotch piece ends. But you still won't be leaking.
There's no diaper feeling, nothing bunching up in your underwear, nothing bulky, and so much air flow that rashes are not going to happen either. And they're easy to care for - you just wash them with the rest of your laundry, and hang to dry.
I found 3 pairs of heavy flow style panties to be the perfect amount for me to start. I'm wearing one pair, another pair is in the wash, and then the third pair is ready to go. I used their perfect fit sizing chart to determine my size and they fit like a glove.