I'm kind of a freak about travel clothes and have a really nice, compact wardrobe of dresses, skirts, shirts and accessories that allow me to travel for months with just a carry on sized bag. I've had my eye on these travel underwear for quite a while, but couldn't justify the cost. I've never had an issue traveling with regular (synthetic, non-cotton) underwear, which packs up small, washes up nicely in the sink and dries overnight easily. So I'm not really sure why I kept bookmarking these Ex Officio Give n Go briefs, but I think the "7 countries/howevermany weeks/2 pair of underwear" marketing really spoke to me. Anyway, bit the bullet and bought a few pair from Amazon (and elsewhere) to try out.

First impression out of the (enormous amount of plastic, ventilated, snap-down, custom) packaging is that the fabric felt like that cheap paper underwear you sometimes get at the hospital. It really does feel like a paper product, and it's filled with waffle-weave holes I guess to wick moisture and dry quickly. It's unpleasant, but whatever, that wasn't a deal breaker.

The fit was the next bit of weirdness. I'm a size 6, I got the Medium and the elastic around the waist and legs fit me just fine. Snug but not tight. However the amount of fabric on these things was ridiculous. There was maybe 6 inches of fabric between the legs! All bunched up. Really uncomfortable. And there was way too much fabric in other odd places on it, as if the model size to be wearing this was someone with thin legs and waist, but a huge amount of butt and *whatever* in front. Weird. I totally understand now how men seem to swear by the women's briefs in this brand. It's almost as if it's made for a man's body. I don't know how a woman would need that much material in the front of her underwear.

I wore them for one of my weekend long runs, to see how the moisture wicking worked out. And I have to say it did fine, though I've never been too concerned about this feature in other underwear. I will say though that when you sweat or whatever, the paper feeling fabric that is absorbing all the moisture gets very heavy and because of all the extra fabric they do get very saggy. They have a weird diaper feeling vibe to them.

Finally, after my test run in them, I test-washed them in my bathroom sink, on impulse sink washing a pair of nylon/elastane briefs I got for a few bucks at tjmax for comparison. Washed both pair, wrung both out, squeezed both in a towel and then hung one pair on each bedroom doorknob overnight. In the morning both pair were dry. So yes they do dry overnight, but so do my other, far less expensive, better fitting (and, frankly, more attractive) underwear. If it's not cotton, it usually dries really quickly and I already knew this because I travel with my regular underwear and sink/bucket wash and hang dry them all the time. So I feel kind of dumb for buying these really expensive diapery ones. They do have a good marketing campaign though.