just B me (www.justbme.co.uk)

'They do not look how I imagined' ... is the comment most commonly made when ladies see just B me's knickers for the first time.  This is due to the expectation that the absorbency will be thicker/ 'nappy-like'.  This isn't the case as the gusset really looks like 'normal' knickers with the thickness of slim-line panty liners.

The next is the question about whether the knickers can be washed.  The answer to this is yes, many, many times ... as many times as standard knickers.  The gusset is designed so that it does not bunch up after it has been washed and the knickers are made with high quality cotton.

After 11 months of planning and designing, just B me is launched.  Day 1 went well too ... 273 website hits, 3 orders and 5 pairs of knickers sold!

A chance chat about my idea at a village social event set me off on the next step of the just B me journey … a friend of a friend mentioned a knickers manufacturer (Headen & Quarmby) who had featured in a TV documentary.

After a few weeks of building up the courage (did I mention that I hate chatting on the phone to people I don’t know – it is a visual thing as I like to see the faces of people I am talking to), I phoned Headen & Quarmby to see if they could help.  They could and they did … bringing their professional expertise to my amateur knickers design, they made the first sample.

The problem was, my measurements weren’t quite right, so the knickers turned out a little ‘Simon Cowell-style’!

After a rather awkward phone call, where I am sure I used all of the wrong terminology (there may have been a better phrase than ‘camel toe’ to describe the bunching at the front that I needed to avoid, but hey) we got to the bottom of the issue … a too tight elastic waistband was dragging the knickers up practically to my ‘nips’ while the fabric I had bought for the leg bindings wasn’t stretchy enough.  Thank goodness the H&Q team were patient!

As the months of my maternity leave rolled by and I talked to more mums, I realised that there was something in my idea.  I then started to design my knickers.  This was quite a process as at first I had no idea how to create a design or pattern and my sewing skills were from school lessons when I was 14 … a LONG time ago!

Holy cr*p, I have a baby!  This thought reoccurred to me many times in the first few months of motherhood (it still does at times).  At the same time, I was discovering other side effects of motherhood … particularly the one linked to my beautiful daughter’s large head and her insistence on dropping into position for birth 10 weeks before she joined us in the world … some serious leaking in the wee department.  This thankfully calmed over time, but still coughing and sneezing are not good, I can’t run for more than a stride or two before I am in trouble and I do a ridiculous dance every time I try to get through the front door and to the loo (not easy whilst lugging a growing baby and her entourage of stuff into the house).  I suspect that some of you reading this may know what this is like as it turns out that around 1 in 3 women have some form of leaking at times.

I am a sporty mum who doesn’t like to be held back from doing stuff, so I was soon looking for solutions for the problem.  The best I could find was the plastic-y panty liners and full on adult nappies if I really wanted to push myself at sport.  This was not good for one’s ego I can tell you, let alone having to deal with/dispose of the stinky used pads … gross!