Period Panties: Our Dirty Little Secret

Were you to peek in my top drawer, you would find lovely bikini underwear in colorful cottons and silks, chic (not trashy) thongs to wear with special-occasion dresses and a pair of sassy boyshort briefs, for when I'm feeling particularly hip. At first glance, I live a practical but sophisticated, stylish life—a life unstained.

Unless you dig deeper, that is, behind the scented sachets and ironic Underoos. It is in those depths—at the very back of the drawer—that you'll find my period panties, complete with shot elastic, frayed seams and, yes, faded splotches.

For my personal battle with the crimson tide, I have a "panty graveyard." Whenever a pair loses its color, its elasticity or its general charm (i.e. one my boyfriend liked to call "the pair that makes your butt look like you belong in a rap video"), it is relegated to the graveyard and ready to serve front-line duty every 28 days. Sometimes a still-sexy pair is accidentally maimed, and therefore it has to go to the back of the drawer.

Am I alone in this secret stash, I wonder? What exactly are women wearing when Miss Scarlett comes to town?

Mary Lofgen, 24, is a comfort fan. "All my period underwear is Hanes Her Way," she says, adding that she prefers cotton, high-waist briefs with lots of coverage so that they're "wing-friendly." Repeated calls to Hanes for a comment about their period-favored status went unreturned. Spoil sports.

Other favorites include "black Gap cotton hipsters" for Katie Claypoole, 26, and "Old Navy cotton" for Aly, 30. But it's not just the old standby brands that are feeling the flow—some women want to wear sexy undies, all the time.

Kristine Solomon, 28, is a diehard thong fan. "I don't buy or own 'period panties,'" she says. "Why should I buy special underwear just for my period?" She admits, though, to choosing more tatty thongs when the curse arrives. "When you paint you wear old clothes, right?"

Right. And when dabbling in color, you can't go wrong with, well, a matching shade. "I have a special red satin pair that I wear on the first day of my period," says Jillian Rhodes, 25. Jenica Carlley, 28, says her red underwear provides protection from "nasty stains" but the thong style makes her feel "somewhat normal" and still sexy.

The topic of period panties is even making waves in the art world. Rachel Walker, 28, a grad student at New York's Pratt Institute, manufactured six pairs of "Euphemism Panties" for a sustainable design project. "I made pink cotton panties and stained them with different teas to get pretty, rosy brown spots," she says. "The women in my class all wanted a pair."

But even if we're ready to talk about them—in terms of brands, styles, works of art—period panties are not for the faint of heart (i.e., men). "My husband found my period panties in the laundry," says Lindsey Plumer, 29. "He was mortified, and when I explained the concept of 'period panties' he exclaimed, 'Really?! This is normal?!' It took him a month to get over the shock."