Like probiotic yoghurt, knickers now come with active ingredients that will somehow make you thinner, writes ORNA MULCAHY
IT HAS been a shocking year, but we’re all still here, we’re still standing, and life’s not so bad. So goes the chit-chat at the water cooler before moving onto more urgent matters. Like where did you get that fabulous dress? This to my colleague who has been quietly lunching on Philadelphia Light and crispbread all year and is now stepping out in the all-out bargain of the season, a skinny black dress and matching silky cardigan which unbelievably came from Dunnes Stores and cost €30! The combo comes in a regal purple too so you could be sorted for Christmas with €60, pearls and some iron self-control. It’s the kind of dress that only looks good in small sizes.
Sadly, those who’ve been rewarding themselves with lattes, Danishes and Cadbury’s all year have no option but to seek out the season’s other best seller. Big knickers. There are plenty of them about, making outrageous claims for themselves. These days big knickers don’t just have to have a lot of elastic in them. There has to be a medical angle too. Like probiotic yoghurt, pants can have active ingredients that do things for our bottom rather than just cover it up.
Manufacturers would have you believe that scientific breakthroughs are being made in the lingerie department, as the men and women in white coats grapple with the problem of podge-control.
The latest wonder pants being peddled by Debenhams, called PeachBody, have been tested in a Japanese university (no fatties there you’d imagine) and are now ready to tackle the buffalo bums of the West. Debenhams is apparently bracing itself for a stampede of women looking for “the Holy Grail – underwear that combats cellulite”. That’s according to its press release.
Now these knickers really do make serious promises – wear them for eight hours on 21 consecutive days and you’ll lose three inches, and possibly your friends. Listen to this: “A 3D effect in the material gently squeezes the skin as the wearer moves, compressing fat cells together with excess liquids in the subcutaneous layer of skin. The compression and the body’s natural warmth stimulate the breakdown of retained fluids, toxins and fatty deposits which are then excreted through the liver and kidneys.” Yours for €47.
They look like ribbed bicycle shorts and they smell of peach, according a helpful assistant in Debenhams in Dublin yesterday. Could this be anything to do with having to wear them for 21 days? She’s not sure, but she has noticed that there’s a little note with them saying that after 20 washes they lose a bit of their oomph. They come in size small but not in extra-large, which is where you would think they are really needed.
But time is running out. Should I make a dash for them at lunchtime, in the hope of being svelte(ish) for Christmas Day? Is it medically possible that pants can make you thin?
No, says my doctor friend, but they can certainly give you a nasty rash. Or yes, maybe, if you go on a diet of about 500 calories a day at the same time, she adds with a chortle.
This is a woman who lives on espresso shots and porridge and has no patience with people who can’t show a little discipline at meal time. A portion, she says, should be a small handful, roughly the size of a playing card, not a playing field.
Regarding the fat-busting pants, would women not consider doing it the easy way, she adds, by taking the stairs instead of the lift, or getting off the bus a few stops early and walking the rest of the way, rather than hoiking on some man-made fibre?
Instead of sitting in their swivel chairs, ordering Christmas presents online while eating biscuits and imagining that their pants are doing the exercise for them, they should take a step class in their lunch hour and try hot lemon instead of cappuccino.
They should give up the burning knickers and buy a pair of running shoes . . . and so on. There’s no stopping her with the advice.
Of course I know that magic knickers in fact aren’t. I’ve got loads of them. They promise to smooth out contours but how can they really? They are very good for giving thin people a smooth outline but they are no good at all at eliminating fat.
They just disperse it down around the knees and up under the bosom and then leave the most appalling welts on the skin – take them off after a full day and it’s like you’ve had abdominal surgery. Still, it’s good to be in control of something, if only loose muscle, and they feel reassuring as long as there is an element of cotton, not caffeine, in the gusset