Tomima’s Blog – Lingerie & Underwear Expert

I know you may think this sounds like a silly question, but are you?  Are you pulling your underpants up too high?  I bring this up because I realized that with some of my panty styles, I was. 

Here’s a little background.  The thong as a mainstream panty option hit about 15 years ago.  And, if you remember, the initial trend setters complained it was not comfortable.  Further research discovered that these women were putting on the thongs and pulling them up so that the waistband rested high on their hips – this was the problem.  Women didn’t realize at the time that the thong was designed to sit lower on the hips. After all, low rise pants were not yet making their debut on the market.  Only strippers and showgirls knew that thongs were to rest lower on the hips.  Since then, manufacturers either made thongs with longer rises so that women could pull them up to their waist, or put tags on them to let women know they were low-rise.

Okay, so back to my question.  I was going through my panty assortment the other day and singling out the panties that I felt were not comfortable to wear.  I have all styles in my drawer – boyshorts, thongs, bikinis, briefs–you name it, I have it.  When I had finished sorting out the ones I didn’t like, I noticed something; they were all low-rise.  So it got me thinking.  I grabbed a pair and put it on like I do all my panties and realized I just instinctively pulled them up too high.  When getting dressed, I have a bit of a ritual and move from item to item without much thought. All my panties were treated the same, regardless of style.

So, this time, I put on a low-rise bikini, but instead of my normal mindless pull-up, I thought about where it should be placed and I lowered the waistband to rest more on my hips.  What an epiphany!  This panty was now comfortable.  I wore it all day and it felt great.  I can’t believe I was doing this.

Here’s the lesson; stop and think about the style of panty you’ve just picked before mindlessly putting it on.  If you have some panties you have been avoiding because of comfort, go back and look at them through new glasses.  I think you’ll be as surprised as I that many pairs really are comfortable when put on correctly.

Find thongs and other styles at HerRoom in these departments:
Panties

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I think all of us at one time or another have wondered about the proper sequence of undergarments.  Let’s say you have a pair of pantyhose, a panty, and a piece of shapewear.  In what order do you put them on?  Do you wear all of them or forfeit something?

We posed this question to 13 of our shapewear vendors including Spanx, Bali, BodyWrap, Va Bien and TC Fine.  We were stunned to hear they all had the same response.  It was, forget the panties, put on your pantyhose, and then put on your shapewear.

Are you surprised?  We here in the office were.  For starters, most of us felt panties should be worn.  The reason the manufacturers feel they aren’t necessary is because they all make shapewear with a cotton crotch or an accessible crotch.  Therefore, shapewear is specifically designed to eliminate the need for panties.

I took a poll of the women in our office about this.  The responses fell roughly along age lines.  Our younger crowd agreed about not wearing panties.  Many had tried panties on under their shapewear, but found that the panty created an additional line – even when they tried laser edge cut panties like Commandos.  Our more mature crowd simply likes the idea of panties and wouldn’t consider not wearing them.

The reason pantyhose go on first is because if put on over shapewear, they tend to slide down due to the slick nature of the shapewear fabric.  You can spend the night feeling your pantyhose inching down your body and finding yourself in the ladies room several times in order to pull them back up. The panthose can also cause a line that otherwise would be smoothed out if shapewear was put on over it.  Now, that said, there are several shapewear pieces that have silicone gripper tape along the legs to keep the shapewear in place. Putting this gripper tape on top of pantyhose renders it worthless, and could possibly cause a run in the pantyhose.  So, there can be some conflicting results in this situation.

Personally, this is what I do.  I don’t wear panties.  I also don’t wear pantyhose.  If I want leg covering, I buy thigh-high stockings.  Since my shapewear of preference is a biker short style, I first put on my thigh-highs, pull up my shapewear, and make sure the top of my stockings are secured by my shapewear.  Now, I really only have one layer on, I’m comfortable, not hot, and have a very simple solution when I need to visit the ladies room.

Does anyone have any better ideas here?  If so, I hope you’ll post them here in comments.

Find shapewear at HerRoom in these departments:
Shapewear

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One of the most common issues fielded by my fabulous customer service department is inquires about nipples showing through a bra and how to prevent this. It’s actually kind of fun reading how women try to pose this inquiry. It can be as subtle as "I’m looking for a bra that provides modesty" to "I need to turn off my headlghts" to "I want a bullet proof bra" to "I’m trying to hide my huge erect nipples!"

I have heard various lingerie experts claim that nipple show-through can be handled many ways. For example, some feel a lined bra will do the trick. Others have said that placing the nipple on a bra seam in the cups will mask the look. And, of course, there are those contour bras where the cups have a thin layer of foam or padding fused inside the bra cups.

Being skeptical of some of these claims, I decided to bring in a model of ours who has constantly erect nipples (For the uneducated, one side-effect of breast augmentation can be permanent nipple erection). I had her try on a standard molded bra, a lined bra, a seamed bra and a contour bra. I then had her put a t-shirt on over each of the bras. Let’s see what worked.

Molded	Lined

Seamed	Contour

As expected, the molded bra did nothing to conceal the situation. The lined bra seemed to have little or no impact as well. I found this a little surprising given that so many women and manufacturers swear by this solution. But, if you look at the t-shirt shots, the molded and lined bras look virtually identical.

The seamed bra did a pretty good job of reducing the "headlights." However, you have the two-edged sword of having the seam show through the t-shirt. So, basically, you sacrifice "bullets" for seams.

The contour bra option, also known as the t-shirt bra was the best performer. A thin layer of padding or foam can turn your headlights right off. But, the downside to this style of bra is for women with larger breast size who don’t want to add volume. Even that small amount of foam can make their breasts look larger.

Though I only showed these 4 bra styles, I want to also let you the reader know that there are other solutions to this problem. For example, an earlier blog post of mine discusses the Bali Concealer bras currently on the market. They too are contour, but have a very rigid flower shaped decal on the inside of the cup to keep a woman smooth across her breasts. Other options are to put one of the nipple concealer products directly over your breasts. This will smooth over your nipples and allow you to wear your existing bras. Some of the more popular products include Dimr’s, Smooth’m nipple concealers, No Peek Pads, Sassybax Nips and FashionForms Breast Petals.

For a link to all these options, go to:
Nipple concealers