Adventure Underwear

I get some weird requests here at Confiscated Toothpaste but only once have I received underwear in the mail. Luckily it was accompanied by a request to try them out and review them on the site- far less kinky than I had at first imagined.

The undies in question are Adventure Underwear, the brainchild of Nigel Clifford who designed a prototype pair of travel underwear to protect his goods on a 9 month journey around South America. The undies have a pair of pockets that hang either side of your John Thomas (a female version is apparently on the way). You can store cash, keys, cards or whatever else you might need on your trip in them. Nigel managed to not get robbed during his trip, which was more than could be said for some of the friends he met on tour, and he’s now commercialising his invention.

Now I remember wearing a money belt around my waist on my first backpacking trips as a fresh faced 21 year old. I’d put everything in it, passport, flight tickets, money, cards, and then when I needed something I’d go rummaging underneath my shirt for it. I ended up ditching the money belt because it felt ridiculous and clearly advertised to all and sundry that I was new to town and had cash and credit cards on my person. The big fat guidebook in my hands (and the big fat backpack) probably didn’t help either. I’ve become far more laissez-faire in my travel habits as I’ve got older and just use regular pockets, but there’s always places I go where I just feel a bit paranoid about those cards in my back pocket and move them to a jacket pocket or something.

So I tried out the Adventure Underwear. My first impressions were that they are damn comfortable Reg Grundys in their own right. They’re made out of Australian Merino Wool, which is good stuff- it breathes. It’s warm in winter and cool in summer and sure enough the crown jewels were pretty happy in these guys- a lot more luxurious than the other underwear I own.

Having the two pockets hanging there around the groinus maximus takes a bit of getting used to. The pockets are lined with what looks like plastic snap-lock bags, but it turns out these guys are hermetically sealed and waterproof to 60 metres. Bloody hell I thought, why would you need that? But I took them surfing and have to say they performed well with my keys making it back the car with nary a drop of saltwater. I could also imagine them to be useful on the beach when you don’t want to leave your cash on the sand whilst swimming. I imagine they’d be good also for snorkelling or diving.

The jury’s still out on how they’d go on the street, because reaching into your duds to pay at a restaurant or in the supermarket ain’t really the done thing in most countries. But if you’re walking around with an emergency card or a wad of cash you’re unlikely to need in a hurry, they work well, and it’s highly unlikely a thief is going to ask you to empty your underwear. That would be a pretty kinky robbery.

Nigel has a kickstarter campaign set up to help commercialise his secure briefs so head on over there if you’d like to chip in and help him out.

Disclosure: I received my underpants free of charge (now that’s a sentence I don’t get to use very often).