After sifting through the sale notices, sweepstakes offers, and the inevitable invitations to “claim my inheritance”, I found this in my e-mail inbox this morning, courtesy of Refinery29:

6 Undies Every Woman Should Own & Why

Was I intrigued? Curious? Skeptical? Yes. Yes. And yes.

I admit, I did a bit of eyebrow-raising when this slideshow started with G-strings. Were they trying to coerce me into believing I need something that looks like highly decorative dental floss? Then my cool, objective, writer’s side took over and convinced me to keep an open mind. The other 5 categories of must-have panties are thong (and the difference between thongs and G-strings is explained), bikini, brief, boyshort, and high-waisted.

My favorite (for now, anyway): high-waisted. This should not come as a shock, if you’ve seen some of my previous posts, like this tutorial for making your own high-waisted pair. I do like the extra coverage, which for me translates as control, but the primary reason I’m enjoying this style is because it’s just a larger canvas on which to experiment with various fabrics, color-blocking, etc.

Here’s a high-waisted example I really like from the slideshow:

The bottom line (yes, you should pardon that expression, but don’t be surprised to see it again): After getting over the occasional sticker shock, I actually found this slideshow quite useful, mostly because the written parts go into some detail about the differences between styles, what to look for, and even under what circumstances each should be worn. And the eye candy alone is worth the trip— it’s giving me lots of inspiration for my future lingerie-sewing adventures!

The jury’s still out on the G-strings, though.