Panty Raid

I see London, I see France. Let’s talk about some underpants.

The people of ShopSmart magazine conducted a telephone survey of 1,008 women 18 and older about intimate apparel. It turns out that women own an average of 21 pairs of underwear, and many say an ill-fitting or ugly pair can ruin their day.

Almost half of women (47 percent) said they feel sexier and more confident wearing a nice or special pair of panties.

(Side note: I hate the word “panties.”)

Anyway, the findings reported included:

• 27 percent said their mood is affected by wearing an ill-fitting or unattractive pair of undies.
• 10 percent of women own 35 or more pairs.
• 65 percent buy neutral colors, with white being the most popular, followed by black and beige.
• Overall, 46 percent of women say briefs are the style they wear the most often. However, women age 18-34 are more likely to wear the bikini style.
• 56 percent of women fold their panties; 27 percent just toss them in the drawer.
• 1 in 10 women admit that they will venture out of the house without underwear.
• Half of women have complaints about the way their underwear fit, with "wedgies" (30 percent) topping that list, followed by "doesn’t lay flat under clothes" (19 percent) and "not enough coverage in the rear" (14 percent).

I conducted an informal survey with myself and the findings reported included:

• I own a total of 64 pairs of underwear. This is ridiculous, as I only wear around 20. The others are either too small or uncomfortable in some way, yet I hold onto them like there will be a skivvy shortage any day now. (It’s weird because unlike pants or shirts, you can’t just donate them to Goodwill or something. Throwing them away seems wasteful in some way. Yes, that’s my excuse on this one.)
• Clean is my favorite color. Fun designs catch my eye, but I don’t really sit around starting at my underwear, so it’s not of the utmost importance.
• Women actually fold their underwear?
• While I’m rather hippie-dippy on a lot of things, I don’t leave the house without my hand sanitizer, much less underwear. Who is this one person? Presumably not someone who folds her underwear. 
• Wedgies are an issue, although I have no shame on fixing the situation in a stealth-like manner. “I would rather fix it and bear the shame than leave it there and bear the pain.” We all need a mantra.
• “Not enough coverage in the rear?” My grandma once told me she was going to buy me padded panties to give me an actual ass, so lack of coverage is not an issue. Sigh…above or below.

Conclusion?

Anything that causes discomfort can ruin your day, so an ill-fitting pair of underwear is no exception. The kicker is that I will usually forget how uncomfortable they were after I wash them and find them in the back of my drawer months later and wonder, “Why don’t I ever wear these anymore?” Then I’m forced to chant my mantra until I get home, throw them in the wash and forget about them again.

Thus, the cycle continues.

Ugly underwear don’t have the power to sway my day, at least they haven’t yet, and I don’t really feel some superpower from wearing something fancy. This could be because I don’t (usually) prance around in my underwear. But it’s true that when I feel good and confident in whatever I have on, it just translates into everything else I do.

(Another side note: Truthfully? If I still looked the way I used to and was given the option, I would be an underwear/sexy costume/runway model in a heartbeat. I love occasionally wearing something that let’s me show my inner sass on the outside and yes, I am an attention whore at times.)

But admit it ladies.

We all have the “special” drawer of underwear that we go to when we want to put a little extra pep in the step, am I right?

Everyone should have a special drawer filled with something small (or medium, or large) you can do for yourself that no one has to know about. Even if no one ever sees the contents of it in action, a little extra color or some leopard print design might be just what you need to get your proverbial panties out of a bunch some days.

And while some days I wish there was a pair of underwear I could slip on that would magically help me find an emotional balance somewhere between a thong and granny panties, so to speak, I know you can’t expect miracles from underwear.

Ask my push-up bra.

How do you rank with the survey results—not mine, but the actual survey?

Do you have a favorite pair? A lucky pair?