About Primal Play

We have three kids. None of them would keep their underwear on.

Not one.

It started with the oldest. Every morning, the same fight. The waistband was too tight. The tag itched. Something inside was bunching. By the time the second and third came along, we knew the routine — the tugging at the waistband in the grocery store, the pair kicked into the corner of the bedroom, the flat refusal to put on the ones we'd just bought.

For a long time we thought it was a phase. Then we thought maybe we'd bought the wrong brand. We bought a different brand. Then another one.

Eventually we stopped blaming the kids and started looking at the underwear.

What we found

We laid out every pair in the house and looked at how they were built.

The waistbands were the problem. Most kids' underwear uses a wide band of elastic, and a wide band has to be tight to stay up. That's what leaves marks on skin and gets pulled at all day. The alternatives went the other direction — nothing to hold the band at all, which feels fine for about ten minutes and then slides down.

The seams were the second problem. Thick, raised, and sitting exactly where a child's leg moves most.

And the fabric on almost everything was standard cotton jersey, which feels fine new and goes rough and shapeless after twenty washes.

What we changed

We started with the waistband, because that was the daily complaint.

The waistband is two layers of the same soft modal as the rest of the garment, cut across the grain so it keeps its shape, and eased in so it sits close without pulling. There is no separate elastic tape or strip inside it. It's the piece we spent the longest on.

Then the fabric. We chose modal, a cellulosic fiber with a smoother surface than cotton, blended with a small amount of spandex for recovery. Ours is 90% modal, 10% spandex, knitted to a substantial weight.

Then the finishing. No woven size or care label against the skin. Size and care information is printed on the inside, and our small logo tab is caught in a seam at the wearer’s left. On the boxer briefs, a 1.5 cm turnback hem at the leg, coverstitched so the edge lies flat; on the undies, an 8 mm self-fabric binding, coverstitched the same way.

Who we are

Primal Play is Lauren and Joey Jensen, in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Lauren runs the business. Joey builds the parts that plug in. Our three kids are the reason any of it exists, and they are still the toughest reviewers we have. If a pair comes back off within five minutes, it doesn't ship.

We make one thing and we're trying to make it properly. Every pair is tested by a CPSC-accepted laboratory before it reaches a customer, because these are children's products and that isn't optional.

Tested, not assumed

Children's products in the United States have to meet federal safety rules, and the only way to know a product meets them is to test it. Ours is tested by a CPSC-accepted laboratory for lead content, phthalates, and flammability. We keep the report and the certificate on file.