Types of Underwear: Every Cut, and Who Each One Suits
Choosing a cut when comfort is the priority
Most guides to underwear cuts are written around how a garment looks under clothing. This one is written around where it sits on the body — because if your skin reacts, the deciding factor is not the silhouette. It is where the elastic lands, how much the fabric moves against you, and how much heat gets trapped.
Three things determine that: rise (how high the waistband sits), leg opening (how high the leg is cut), and coverage (how much fabric is at the back).
Brief
Full coverage at the back, waistband at or just below the natural waist, leg opening cut at the top of the thigh. The default shape, and the one with the most fabric between skin and outer clothing.
Suits: anyone who wants maximum coverage and minimum movement. Fewer edges means fewer places to rub.
Watch for: the leg elastic sitting in the crease of the thigh, which is where heat rash and chafing tend to start in warm weather.
High-waisted
Same coverage as a brief, but the waistband sits above the hip bone rather than across it.
Suits: anyone whose waistband is the problem. Moving the band above the hip bone takes pressure off a tender spot — which matters after abdominal surgery, during bloating, or if your skin marks easily.
Low-rise
The waistband sits below the natural waist, so it never crosses the stomach.
Suits: the opposite problem — scars, stoma sites, or simply a stomach that objects to any band across it. Also the least visible under low-cut trousers.
Boyshort (also called hipster, or boy short)
Longer in the leg than a brief, full coverage at the back, waistband low on the hip. The leg is cut straight across the top of the thigh rather than up over the hip.
Suits: chafing along the inner thigh. This is the cut people move to when the problem is skin-on-skin rather than fabric-on-skin, because the leg extends past the point of contact.
Naming note: “boyshort” and “hipster” are used interchangeably in most of the market. We have historically called ours women's boxers, which is the same garment.
High-cut
Full coverage at the back with the leg opening cut high on the hip, so there is very little fabric across the inner thigh.
Suits: warm weather and anyone who overheats. Less fabric in the leg crease means less trapped heat — the inverse of the boyshort solution to the same problem.
Bikini
Between a brief and a high-cut: moderate rear coverage, moderate leg opening, waistband on the hip. The middle option, and usually the one to try first if you do not yet know which variable is causing the trouble.
Cotton bikini briefs and panties
Thong
Minimal rear coverage, so the fabric is concentrated at the front and the gusset.
Suits: anyone avoiding a visible line, or who finds rear seams uncomfortable — there are none.
Watch for: with less fabric, what the remaining fabric is made of matters more, not less. A synthetic thong puts a small amount of material in the most sensitive possible place.
How to choose if your skin is reacting
Work backwards from where the irritation is.
- Marks or itching at the waist — change the rise. Go high-waisted or low-rise so the band moves off the spot entirely, or choose a drawstring waist with no elastic at all.
- Irritation in the leg crease — change the leg. High-cut takes fabric away; boyshort extends past it. Both work, for opposite reasons.
- Irritation everywhere — the cut is not the problem. It is the fibre, the elastic or the finish, and changing shape will not help.
Every cut above is available in the same 100% organic cotton, made without latex, spandex or elastane, so you can change shape without changing what touches your skin. Several are also available with a drawstring waist instead of any elastic at all.
Related reading
What is a gusset · Clothing for elastic allergy · Nothing But Cotton
