Presenting Part 9 in the series by Daniel Miljkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable.

Part Nine: Positioning

One of the key elements that are going to impact on the overall comfort of your underwear is its positioning on your body. And there are quite a few things to consider here.

Boxer and boxer brief wearers need to consider the leg length of their underwear. Mostly it comes down to a personal preference, but you should also consider whether the length is contributing to bunching or riding up of the legs.

For Brief and Bikini Brief wearers important parts of the garment are the edges that run down the side of your bum. Full Cut designs tend to provide greater coverage of your bum, while a skimpier design will providing a sleeker, more revealing look, but may increase the risk of the material creeping inwards and giving you a wedgie.

The waistband positioning will contribute not only to the comfort of the underwear but also to its physical appearance. A Low Rise design will allow you to wear low riding jeans or pants, without your underwear showing. If, however, underwear showing is the look you prefer then a more Full Cut design is for you.

Finally there is the pouch space at the front. There are too many options here to consider them all but I think most importantly you should be looking for underwear that provides a natural feel; something that you won’t even know you’re wearing. The reality is that you can get used to the feel of just about anything, but that shouldn’t mean that any pouch design will do. Comfort varies considerably, so try a couple of different designs and make your own decision.

Presenting part 8 in the series by Daniel Milijkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable

Part Eight: Waistband

One of the most important factors that contribute to the comfort of your underwear experience is the waistband. There are many elements to the waistband that impacts on this, so we’ll have a look a few of them.

In terms of physical dimension, finding a waistband size that is firm enough to hold your underwear up while not being overly tight is important. Underwear waistband measurements vary from brand to brand and even between different ranges of the same brand, so make sure you check out what ever size charts are provided by each brand.

The elasticity of the waistband itself will impact on the comfort level and once again there is a trade-off between the elastic that is flexible enough to snugly fit the body without cause discomfort. The softness of the fibers used to make the waistband will play a big part of the elasticity and the feel, and obviously the softer the fiber, the more comfortable it will be.

Some underwear designs encase both the inside and outside of the waistband in material (usually the same as the main garment itself). This decreases the likelihood of any irritation on the skin from the elastic or any of the joins or seams and tends to increase the comfort level.

Another more popular option is to use brushed back elastic, which basically has a fuzzy layer on the inside that sits comfortably against your skin. This provides a softness equivalent that the encased waistband but without the bulk of multiple layers. It also allows for prominent logo placement on the waistband which not only promotes the brand but also allows your underwear to be an exciting fashion items that we enjoy it to be.

Presenting part 7 in the series by Daniel Milijkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable

Part Seven : Leg Openings

So after the last part in our series chafing I decided this series would stick to a safer, and less graphic topic; that of leg openings.

Leg opening size and shape can be significantly contributing factor to the comfort of your underwear. There are a number of factors to considering so I thought I would examine them on a style by style basis.

Briefs and Bikini/Sports Briefs
These underwear designs traditionally have small band of elastic in the leg opening to hold it in place on your body. When selecting briefs for comfort, care must be taken to ensure that the elastic is not so tight that it will cut off circulation or be uncomfortable, but at the same time it won’t be able to serve its function if its too loose.

Boxer Brief
irrespective of the leg length of these fitted designs it is important that the opening has enough give to ensure that the thigh muscle is able to flex properly and that the boxer brief legs don’t inhibit movement. The other factor to consider is that while the legs on the boxer briefs do not generally contain elastic, they are hemmed and this hemming should provide enough elasticity in its design that the legs don’t ride up.

Boxer Shorts
As long as there is an overall loose fit to the boxer shorts you won’t have any problems with the leg opening on these.

Presenting part 6 in the series by Daniel Milijkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable

Part Six: Seperation

Welcome to the active man’s worst nightmare – chafing

I had always thought it was a horrible word, and wondered where it came from and exactly what it meant.

So I looked it up; Wikipedia had it listed as a nautical term describing the ‘process of wear on a line or sail caused by constant rubbing against a hard, usually metallic, surface’ – ouch!

Dictionary.com has a big closer to the mark listing chafing as ‘to wear or abrade by rubbing’, or ‘to make sore by rubbing’. Now I know your cringing.

Back to the point of this article: separation. Most guys chafe between the the thighs or between their testicles and their inner thighs (sorry for the imagery there). Runners, cyclist, sportsmen alike know full well that there is no way you can concentrate on the game, the race or whatever the task at hand might be when you’re chafing yourself raw down below.

The obvious solution is to eliminate the contact between the thighs and this has been achieved by the introduction of the fitted boxer shorts, which provide a layer of fabric that separates the skin and avoids the rubbing. Chaffing between the testicles and thighs are a bit harder to solve but there are a number of ways that it can be done. The first is to wear underwear that lifts your genitals up and away from between your thighs. Traditional briefs will do this as well as a number of new pouch designs that lift and project and enhance your package.

The other option was the approach we took when designing Obviously underwear and that was to encase your genitals in fabric, providing full separation from any rubbing between the thighs, while still allowing your bits to hang downwards as nature intended. This design eliminates any possibility of chafing and allows you to get on with your day – what ever you choose to do with it.

Presenting part 5 in the series by Daniel Milijkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable

Part Five: Non-irritating Labels

I never did understand care labels. I mean I understand why they exist, but I have no idea why they are so big and obtrusive. In most countries they are a legal requirement, but the reality is they may get looked at once when you first buy something new, then you spend the rest of the time cursing their annoyance. It’s not bad for men’s underwear but women’s underwear always had me confused as to why such a small piece of material needed to have such a big tag.

Most underwear has a big annoying label right at the center of the back of the garment that digs in every time you sit down and lean back. It’s annoying and quite often the only thing you achieve but cutting or tearing it out creating a hole in your new underwear.

in addition to this there have been some reported cases of allergic or irritant reactions to those care labels due to the materials and chemical additives that are used when they are created.

So what’s the solution? Getting rid of them altogether for one; unfortunately not one we’re allowed to do. The other is to do away with the care labels that are sewn onto the garment and use heat pressed care labels instead.

When designing the range of Obviously underwear sew-on care labels were the first to go. Our focus on comfort led to the development of heat pressed care labels (similar to iron on patches) which display all the care instructions you require, but that you’d never know were then had you have your underwear on.

A fair compromise on the path to more comfortable underwear, obviously.

Presenting part 4 in the series by Daniel Milijkovic, designer for the men’s underwear brand Obviously, on the 10 things that make men’s underwear comfortable

Part Four: Sweat Absorption

Most people hate sweating at the best of times, everyone hates sweating in their underwear.

But the reality is that we do sweat, its unavoidable particularly in our underwear but fortunately there area  number of things you can do to improve the comfort when you sweat.

First a look at the problems that sweating can cause. To combat the heat build=up I talked about in Part Two: Breathable, Natural Fibers the body will begin to sweat to cool itself off.

This sweating obviously leads to moisture and if the material that your underwear is made from is not water absorbent you leave yourself open to all kinds of fungal infections including the most common: jock itch.

While all materials and fabrics will absorb some level of moisture the trick is to look for fibers that have high hygroscopic properties, which means the material will absorb surrounding moisture.

Generally the natural fibers are better at this then synthetic ones. For a number of years cotton has done a great job of absorbing unwanted moisture and reducing the discomfort of sweating. More recently the emergency of Modal fabric has further reduced the discomfort caused by sweating as it is 50% more hygroscopic then cotton.

Naturally when designing our Obviously for Men range we took the hygroscopicity of the fabric into consideration, and our selection of Modal ensures that sweating in your underwear is a thing of the past.