Here’s the story of the birth of a business: Two women at Brown University take a class on entrepreneurship, join forces for a class project on writing a business proposal, try to think of a real problem that needs a solution, and come up with panty-accidents during menstruation. They post surveys in the women’s restrooms on campus and go on to find that this is an issue for 60% of the female population. There is a lot of positive feedback on the possibility of underpants that are made specifically as a tampon/pad backup for that time of the month (e.g. “Holy shit. Please make these!”). Coming up with such an innovative idea can be challenging as many people will often think, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that?” This can then lead to many attempting to replicate your design in order to try and pass it off as their own idea. For this reason, it’s super important that you patent your design to prevent people from doing this. These two women were fortunate enough to realise this and put in a patent application. This meant that after graduation in 2009, they decide to go ahead and make them, sending out over two hundred prototype pairs to volunteer testers over the past few years in order to create the right fabric. This consisted of two absorbent layers closest to the body which capture and wick liquid, as well as one leak-resistant layer furthest from your body that traps spills and prevents leaks. They chose the colour black, of course, so that there would be no need to worry about stains. Now SexyPeriod.com has recently launched and is selling three designs (patent-pending) in three different shapes each (these aren’t your rainy day granny panties), all in the $30 to $40-something range.

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