Four Female Entrepreneurs Showing Serious Love For Your Lady Parts
Ready for a sustainable and socially conscious overhaul to your underwear drawer? These ladies have you more than covered.
Over the last few years, there’s been a real focus on the advancement and empowerment of women. Along with this, a new generation of young, confident ladies have become big players among a community of entrepreneurs with creative and innovative solutions to women’s issues that men just don’t know how to solve.
The types of problems women are tackling for themselves run the gamut from everything to shopping and makeup to time management and networking. But lately, feminine products and undergarments have definitely been a popular market for change (and given that not much in that department has changed in decades, it’s probably about time).
Ladies, your lady parts are getting a lot more love these days. Here are four companies, founded and run by bad ass women, you have to thank for this.
THINX
Shhh… just don’t talk about it.
Not if you’re a founder of THINX!
On a mission to break the taboo about periods and help girls around the world get the critical health education they deserve, THINX shares loud and proud about their period underwear that can either replace or supplement traditional tampons. The “high-tech” underwear can absorb up to two tampons worth of flow.
I have these and wear them, sometimes as a supplement and sometimes as a replacement, depending on the day. They’re reusable (and washable with your regular laundry), so they offer one more small step toward eco-friendly, zero waste goals.
I really like them and recently bought a couple more pairs. I’m a convert, and I’m more than pumped to help girls around the world stay in school.
Update: It’s been almost two years since I initially wrote this post. I still have my THINX underwear, and they’re seriously the best. I would recommend them to anyone, any day.
Also, THINX just launched a line of period underwear for teenagers. Where was THINX when I was 14?! While not all girls react the same to getting their period, I cried. I was so upset. It was all so gross, inconvenient and incredibly annoying, not to mention stressful if there ever was a risk of leakage. These underwear would have made it all a little bit less stressful.
If you have a daughter (or neice or granddaughter), definitely check out this new line. Of course I haven’t used them, but if the women’s line is any indication of the quality, they’ll be incredible.
LOLA
If you’re a regular around here, you know I’ve written about LOLA before and am a subscriber. If not, you can check out my whole post. In short, LOLA offers another option for women who want to know what the heck they’re putting in their body and want it delivered to their door.
Stop wondering what chemicals you’re introducing into your body and know that it’s simply cotton.
Negative Underwear
I’m not sure who decided women’s underwear had to be cheap, uncomfortable and adorned with unnecessary accessories. But that’s what floods most of the market.
Crappy, complicated underwear no more!
Negative Underwear makes really high-quality, intentionally-designed, minimalist pieces that flatter and are forgotten. They’re so comfortable that you’ll forget you’re wearing them (no shifting, twisting, pinching or scratching) until you undress and your partner reminds you how great they look on you.
I love mine and made them my go-to brand, which I mentioned in my recent post about saving time by being obsessively loyal to your favorite brands.
Naja
Taking a different approach to modern undies, Naja empowers women around the world without forgetting about the environment.
They offer their factory workers, mostly single Colombian women, a host of health and family benefits that aim to help them flourish.
Naja also employs production processes that reduce water waste and incorporate use of fabrics made from recycled plastic bottles. Through production, they want to take the plastic waste out of the ocean and leave the water where it belongs.
Sexy Underwear Marketing
About those sexy underwear ads, does it strike you as odd that women’s lingerie is marketed, essentially, to men? I mean, women’s underwear websites are blocked through many corporate internet networks, which means they’re basically considered pornography?! What?! I’m pretty sure they are not blocked because so many women are shopping for underwear online all day or admiring those beautiful, fake bodies.
Although most of us, myself included, never really challenged sexy underwear marketing, this doesn’t make any sense. Lingerie should make a woman feel great for the sake of her own opinion of her body and herself, not encourage her self confidence to be reliant on how a man feels about her and her underwear, right?
Seeing airbrushed, photo-shopped models with floating hair blowing in the fake breeze only makes most of us self-conscious about our “less than perfect” bodies. I’ve got no qualms about doing away with those images, so thank you Naja.
THINX has real beauties showcasing their undies too. But most men probably aren’t admiring period undie sites, or so we THINX … #PunIntended
Powerful Women Empowering Women
Each of these four companies is helping to drive a paradigm shift in how products for women evolve and serve our needs better. For so many years, the market for these types of products lay fairly dormant. Women, myself included, didn’t think to challenge the status quo; we didn’t ask for something better.
The founders of these four companies decided to stop settling. They saw solutions for better, simpler, more sustainable, more comfortable and more effective alternatives, and they brought those visions to life for all of us to appreciate and enjoy.
You ready for something better? Much better? There’s never been a better time to support the smart, confident women paving better paths for all of us, even our lady parts.
Heads Up: This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you purchase someone through certain of these links, I may earn a small commission or store credit. The affiliate link has no impact on your purchase price. Further, all products above for which affiliate links are used I have purchased with my own money and use regularly in my everyday life. In other words, I really like them.
Wonderful and coincidentally-timed post today! Thanks for sharing!