Review: Undergear Ribbed Brief

Undergear has long been a great place to get quality underwear. In addition to selling many different brands of underwear, they also sell their own house brand. The Undergear line is notable for making high-quality, basic underwear.

Today I'm going to review their basic cotton ribbed brief. This brief is all about comfort. It is the perfect go-to brief for days when you just want to be comfortable. If underwear could give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside this underwear would do it. It is made of soft, cotton ribbing material that conforms perfectly to your body. The underwear stretches just enough to accommodate you but the ribbing holds it tight enough so that you are held in place. After wearing them all day they do get stretched out a little bit and there is a little bit of gaping towards the leg holes. But all you have to do is wash them and throw them in the dryer and they're back to normal and ready to wear. These are one of the few pairs of underwear that I throw in the dryer, usually I just line dry my underwear so it maintains its shape. But this underwear needs to be machine dried to maintain its shape - the white elastic banding prevents the briefs from shrinking too much in the dryer.

The style of these briefs is very reminiscent of American Apparel briefs; they are very basic but still stylish. They have white contrast banding around the legs and fly and a white logo waistband. This makes for a very crisp and classic look while still being hip and stylish. The only major difference between Undergear and American Apparel is that American Apparel makes a much larger array of colors. But I feel that the quality of Undergear's briefs is much better than that of American Apparel therefore making up for the lack of color choices.

As I just mentioned, the quality of these briefs is excellent. They hold their shape and color after repeated washes and machine dries - quite a feat for basic cotton briefs. And at the price of $12.99 each (or $10.99 if you buy two or more) they are well worth it. In fact, select colors are now on sale for $3.99. That's an absolute steal! If you're looking at Undergear's site, don't get confused. These are not the low-rise spandex briefs. Those fit quite differently and are not anywhere near as comfortable in my opinion.

So overall, these are incredibly comfortable briefs. They are basics with no frills, but they do their job well. The colorfulness of the briefs, however, gives them a bit of style and fun. You will definitely get your money's worth out of these briefs, especially if you get one of the pairs for $3.99.

MY RATING:
Overall, I give the Undergear Ribbed Brief a total score of 9.3 based on the following criteria:
FIT -- 8.5 (out of 10) - loses shape during the day
COMFORT -- 10 (out of 10)
STYLE -- 9 (out of 10) - basic
QUALITY -- 10 (out of 10)
VALUE -- 9 (out of 10) - a 10 if you get the ones on sale

********** 9.3

Question of the Day:
What are your thoughts on basic underwear vs. fashion underwear? Do you have a go-to pair when you just want to be comfortable?

Otter Fashion and American Apparel reviewed

Otter Fashion is an innovative line of clothing founded by Joshua Harrell. The line includes t-shirts, athletic wear, and underwear. Of course since this is an underwear blog I am just going to focus on the underwear.

Otter Fashion underwear is basically American Apparel baby rib briefs with the otter logo screen printed on the front. This in mind, this review is technically a review of American Apparel and Otter Fashion. Otter Fashion offers their briefs in 12 colors. You can purchase the colors individually or in 3-packs (go brights, go deep, or packages that are all the same color) as well as in a passion pack, which is a 9-pack. Also, in the press package they have announced that they are developing a new line of underwear to debut in 2007. Although they started out with T-shirts, I am told that their briefs are now their number one seller.

American Apparel actually offers over 30 colors (31 to be exact) on their website. But the briefs you buy from American Apparel do not have an otter across the pouch. Another thing (besides more colors) that American Apparel offers that Otter Fashion does not is boxerbriefs. So one thing that I would like to see from Otter Fashion is more colors and more than one style of underwear.

Now for the review part. I've gotta say that these are probably the most comfortable briefs I have ever worn. They conform perfectly to my body and they are not too tight or too loose. At first when you see them they look a little odd because when they are not being worn they are very narrow and long, but somehow this design allows them to stretch perfectly to any body. I'm very impressed. The only thing that would be a nice innovation in the fit would be to have a low-rise option as well (although if you ordered a size smaller than your normal size it would probably work as a low-rise brief). Also, the waistband is soft and smooth and you don't even notice it is there. There is a tag on the waistband, but it is so perfectly implemented that you do not feel it at all.

The style of these briefs is very fun. There are so many colors that there is pretty much a color to match any possible outfit you could put together. Every brief has white binding and a white waistband. This adds a fun and retro inspired contrast. I really think that the otter on the front of the otter fashion briefs is cute and is a nice touch. The only thing that I would like to see from otter fashion is more than one otter draw on the front (just like all the unique t-shirt designs they offer).

These briefs are excellent quality and are fairly reasonably priced. You can get a plain pair (with nothing printed on the pouch) at American Apparel for $12, or you can get a 3-pack for $30 (that's $10 a piece). And at Otter Fashion you can get a pair with screen printing on the pouch for $16 or a 3-pack for $32 (that's about $10.66 a piece) or a 9-pack for $90 (that's $10 a piece). So the more you order, the better the bargain.

These colorful briefs are definitely a must-have for every man's underwear drawer. They are a very comfortable staple that can be worn with anything. Whether you buy them printed or plain, they will soon become one of your new favorites.

MY RATING:
Overall, I give the Otter Fashion briefs a total score of 9 based on the following criteria:
FIT -- 10 (out of 10)
COMFORT -- 10 (out of 10)
STYLE -- 9.5 (out of 10)
QUALITY -- 9 (out of 10)
VALUE -- 8 (out of 10)

********** 9

Overall, I give the American Apparel briefs a total score of 9 based on the following criteria:
FIT -- 10 (out of 10)
COMFORT -- 10 (out of 10)
STYLE -- 9 (out of 10)
QUALITY -- 9 (out of 10)
VALUE -- 8.5 (out of 10)

********** 9

Surprise: Fashionable Underwear for Sale at Target!

I like Target just as much as the next man, it's a great place to get a good deal. But when it comes to buying my underwear there, I have just written it off as not a good place. I've thought of it as cheap, lacking in quality, boring and not stylish. I've thought of them as just selling the generics (Hanes, FTL, etc.), nothing special. Well, in the past few weeks I've been browsing their underwear collection online, and I've got to say, they've changed it up quite a bit. I am very impressed. Yes it's still cheap (I don't know about the quality) but it's no longer boring and it has lots of style. Some of their best offerings are from Mossimo. They have some great briefs which remind me a lot of American Apparel's briefs (only they are even cheaper at Target). They also offer some great Mossimo boxerbriefs in a variety of prints and patterns: Scorpions, Camo, and my favorite one with a Monkey (shown). I cannot attest to the quality of any of these stylish drawers yet, but I can attest to the price. I doubt you will get anything with such style at a lower price; you seriously cannot beat $5.99 (the price for most of the stylish underwear at Target). So next time you are looking for some stylish underwear on a budget, hit up Target.com (I don't think that they offer most of the stylish stuff in stores).

Cute American Apparel commercial

Here's a cute ad for the American Apparel baby briefs. It really is true, once you see them you'll never want to wear boxers again. They're so comfy, fashionable and very reasonably priced ($12 each). And they come in a ton of colors too (over 30 to be exact)! I just thought this ad was really cute, hope you enjoy it.

American Apparel

Sorry I haven't blogged in such a long time. I've just been really busy. I really don't even have time to be writing this post, but I am. So here it is. American Apparel is a source that quite a few of my readers have been telling me to write about for a long time. So here I am writing about it. Also many (and not just the ones that posted comments) readers have told me that they are a better alternative to aussiebum (they say that they are cheaper and nicer). I personally have not tried these briefs out for myself but since so many people seem to be raving about them I thought that I'd mention them, because with that many fans they got to be good. American Apparel seems to only make one style of underwear, the "baby rib brief". Here's what they say about them: "Our version of the traditional brief in untraditional colors. Baby rib cotton body; Baby rib cotton leg openings; Fine jersey front panel binding; Elastic waistband" They sound pretty nice and all for just 12 bucks. I suggest you try them out (I know I'm going to). And not only that but if you really dig them they come in 22 colors so you can always have a brief that will match whatever you happen to be wearing. I must say I'm pretty impressed, not just by the price but by how nice they look and what a wide variety of colors they are offered in. These are not your classic colors, they are some cool colors so check them out!