100% cotton underwear (organic too)

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This is a follow-up post to my posts on socks and bras. I'll repeat and adapt the introduction here for anyone who hasn't read the other posts.

I have been researching online sources for several kinds of clothing with high cotton percentages, and thought I would share what I've found in case it's useful to anyone with similar sensitivities. My skin can't handle wool or other animal hair fibres (including really soft ones like cashmere and angora), and generally can't handle significant percentages of synthetic material (small percentages are sometimes okay, but it varies according to criteria I don't understand). The fibres that I can wear without trouble are cotton, linen, silk, probably hemp, and sometimes rayon (though I generally avoid rayon). Most of my clothing is cotton, though I'm starting to branch out into the other fibres that I don't have difficulty with.

Some of the hardest things for me to find in 100% or high-percentage cotton have been socks, underwear, and bras, and those are the items in my wardrobe that have been mostly worn-out recently, so they are what I have been researching. In this post, I am listing sources of underwear I have found with 100% cotton fabric; a listing of '100% cotton' doesn't always include the trim composition, so I've also categorized them according to whether the trim is cotton, cotton-wrapped elastic, or exposed elastic. I have also recently decided to buy organic cotton whenever possible, and since this is a list of resources I compiled for myself, the underwear in this list are made from organic cotton. Since I'm currently in the US, most of the resources I've listed are US-based; I've also included a few from outside the US with less detail than the main list.

Again, since this is my personal list, it's oriented towards underwear styles that I prefer - mostly briefs. If you prefer other styles, in many cases you can find them elsewhere on the same website.

The format for the list is:

Maker or seller: name/type of underwear - price (comments)

100% cotton including trim
Cottonique: Women's drawstring briefs - 2-pack $30.75
Cottonique: Women's drawstring boxer briefs - 2-pack $34.75

100% cotton with cloth-wrapped elastic
Eczema clothing: Ladies Pants; flat seams [UK]
Decent Exposures: various styles - $14
Cottonique: Women's waist briefs - 2-pack $24.75
Cottonique: Women's boxer brief - 2-pack $28.75
The Organic Cotton Company Clean Undies: various styles [Maker doesn't sell online, but they can be bought from Hankettes (Canada) and other companies which I don't have a list of at the moment]

100% cotton with exposed non-cotton trim
Blue Canoe: full cut brief - $21
Cottonfield: Jersey panty - 2-pack $25 (exposed elastic at top, enclosed at legs; "new cotton slub yarn jersey which has a delicate, cloud-like texture")
Cottonfield: panty brief - $12.50 (exposed elastic at top, enclosed at legs; "made of rib-knit fabric offers more stretch than our normal jersey cloth")
Peau Ethique: [doesn't appear to sell online, but other companies such as Faerie's Dance sell their products]
--'elegance' line (bras and panties)
--'eternelle' line (bras and panties)
--Leaf-Lavender-Butterfly range (panties and undershirts)
American Apparel: Organic Baby Rib Flat Bottom Panty - $10

And that's the end of my list. Feel free to add more; if they're organic cotton, I'll probably add them to my list, and if they're not, they may still be useful to others.

Can you tell me, please, is organic cotton fire-retardant? I know that must mean some sort of chemical but I once put my sleeve on fire and it fizzled out immediately. An excellent behaviour in fabric, one I'd like to keep buying.

I didn't realize that women's panties came any other way than 100% cotton. I'm a guy and I don't think you can buy guy underwear that isn't 100% cotton. I know what you mean about synthetics. I used to have a similar sensitivity with shirts that had too high of a synthetic blend. I remember that it felt like sandpaper. Very uncomfortable. The solution was to wear 100% cotton or go without. For whatever reason, I have since become desensitized and can wear anything. So it is possible to grow out of that.

As far as I know, organic cotton burns the same as non-organic cotton does; that is to say, it burns fairly easily, but does not melt (unlike wool, which is difficult to burn, and synthetics, which tend to melt). What kind of fabric was your sleeve?


I looked around online a little just now and it looks like men's underwear is fairly often 100% cotton, but not always - the first things I found had significant synthetic content.

You should see the strange things the fashion industry considers suitable for women's underwear!

The majority of them are uncomfortable and totally defeat the purpose of wearing underwear.

Well I do remember what that stuff used to feel like when I tried to wear shirts made out of it. If that was the only stuff they made underwear out of I would be going without. Jeans ARE 100% cotton. For that matter, I don't know why women wear underwear at all. If I was a girl, I would be ditching panties and bras. I don't think girls under 40 should be wearing bras for everyday. From what I've seen, they are a drag and even harmful.

For much the same reason men do.

Once upon a time women wore breeches. And the reason it was so risque for a woman to do the can can in them was because breeches are open at the crotch....for ventilation apparently.

For much the same reason men do.

Once upon a time women wore breeches. And the reason it was so risque for a woman to do the can can in them was because breeches are open at the crotch....for ventilation apparently.

Actually, guys can argue that they need support to keep everything neatly packed between their legs. Without it, things tend to dangle with loose pants or be visible with tight pants. Women don't have those problems.

If most men wore briefs that would be a valid argument, but most men seem to wear boxers, which don't really seem to provide much of anything in the way of support, except for perhaps protection against chaffing against rough material.

Which brings us back to women and the problem of seams.