Kat (00:02)
Hello Tiffany How's it going?

Tiffany (00:03)
Hello, Kat

Not too bad, actually. How are you?

Kat (00:06)
Yeah.

Good. Good. think, ⁓ are you getting snow right now? Okay. I know. I you guys got pump. It has been 80 degrees for the past week and a half in Texas. So I know it's summer here. Basically nice summer. Not, not like Texas summer, like New Mexico summer. It's really nice here.

Tiffany (00:13)
Not currently, please god.

Whoa.

That's...

Yeah, that's insane. It's been like in the negatives here.

Kat (00:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, I am trying to decide if I should just start my spring. It's almost Texas spring anyway, but it's like, are we getting another freeze? Should I cut all my plants back? But I don't know. It's been kind of wild. yeah, it is. Yes. Well, I'm, yeah, I think, no, it's not. It should be, I mean, at the most the seventies.

Tiffany (00:47)
Yeah, interesting. It is February, by the way, when we're recording this. So 80 is not normal? OK, yeah.

Okay.

Kat (00:59)
But

yeah, we had a freeze three or four weeks ago and now it's 80 degrees. So just a little gaslighting from the weather here in Texas. But ⁓ that's not what we're talking about.

Tiffany (01:03)
Hmm.

Yeah, really.

Kat (01:14)
non sequitur here. ⁓ so we have talked about period panties in the past, ⁓ but we've never just talked about plain old underwear. So there are a lot of things about undies that make them different from like regular clothes, right? You don't want to buy used ones ever. You can't just give them to the thrift store when you're done with them either. Right. So

Tiffany (01:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (01:43)
What are the options and what's worth trying to green yourself up under there? Underwear? We're talking about underwear.

Welcome to Greening Up My Act.

Tiffany (02:14)
Alrighty.

Kat (02:15)
Yeah,

so we'll see how this I wasn't like, I don't know, there were some aspects of this. think ⁓ this is one of those ones where you can't separate human health from the sustainability aspects of it. So anyway, I'll just start with my sources here. ⁓ Healthline, The Good Trade, ⁓ made the label, had an article on why organic intimates matter.

Tiffany (02:30)
Right?

interesting they probably sell them but anyway yeah

Kat (02:44)
Yes, of course they do. Good

on you. Yeah, ⁓ about PACT. That's who I looked at was PACT. So PACT's website, yeah, and PACT's sustainability site. And then from PACT's sustainability site, I got some Simplizero, Fairtrade Certified, and Vela, which I'll go into a little bit because it's very, very big on their sustainability claims with these companies. ⁓ So a little quick notice, who are we?

Tiffany (02:52)
⁓ okay.

Kat (03:14)
at greening up my act.

Tiffany (03:17)
Am I answering that? I'm Tiffany.

Kat (03:18)
Sure, yeah, you can go for it. Yes,

I'm cat. Yeah.

Tiffany (03:24)
Yeah, we are two normal people trying to figure out how to live a little bit less impactful lives. ⁓ But also we have sort of a peek behind the curtain into marketing because we do marketing for our day jobs. So we can hopefully see through some of the green hooey. Yes.

Kat (03:45)
Green hooey, as we call it. Yeah.

So trying to figure out what's worth doing and what's junk basically. ⁓ and this season we're looking at fashion and it just so happens underwear is part of fashion. Some would say the most elementary part of fashion, but I don't know.

Tiffany (03:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

True.

Yeah, it's interesting. Did you look at bras or just underwear?

Kat (04:12)
No, OK,

so I wanted to caveat that. So ⁓ I am only talking about women's underwear, specifically organic cotton, yeah, and not even like sexy lingerie for a couple of reasons, which I'll get into. But yeah, not the men's underwear, which I think could have some of the similar issues. ⁓ Intimates are intimate for a reason.

Tiffany (04:20)
Okay. Sorry, guys.

Yeah, I think so. And then I'm sure there's organic cotton boxers.

Kat (04:41)
Yes,

I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure Pact who I is who I looked at. Um, sells organic cotton undies for men too. So, um, and I just, I have been thinking about buying a bunch of new underwear because I don't get a period anymore. So that's exciting. I don't need to have like period undies and

week before the period undies and week after the period undies, you know, it's like, I can just get some nice undies. And so I've been thinking about it. So this was an interesting research for me, because I haven't looked into it really deeply. Yeah. So the meat and potatoes, what we're talking about tonight is sustainable underwear, right? It's probably the last bit of your wardrobe where you're considering sustainability, I would say. It's a weird one, right? Like I said in the intro,

Tiffany (05:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, good timing.

Yeah, totally.

Kat (05:35)
You shouldn't be buying underwear from your local thrift store, even if you can. ⁓ I think most thrift stores offer brand new items that would still be in the packaging, but you're not buying, you're not buying secondhand show. Nice. You know, you're just not, ⁓ I had a side story about this. So a woman I knew when I lived in New Jersey, she had a story about like her grandpa went to the doctor and he had crabs and they're like, grandpa, how did you get crabs?

Tiffany (05:46)
true.

Yeah.

Kat (06:05)
And after a little investigation, a little asking, apparently he had been buying his boxers from the thrift store.

Tiffany (06:13)
my God.

Kat (06:14)
So I don't know, like looking back now, I don't know if I believe this, but it might've been in the nineties that you could buy used underwear at a thrift store, you know? But so that it's always kind of like, don't buy your undies from, you know, goodwill. ⁓ Right. ⁓ but I'm never going to tell anyone not to buy clothing, any item of clothing from a thrift store because

Tiffany (06:22)
Yeah.

That is so funny. That is so funny and also horrifying if that's true.

Kat (06:41)
that has come up time and time again in the season as the best option for having a sustainable wardrobe is to buy from thrift stores. But panties, and I'm sorry, I'm going to say panties in this episode.

Tiffany (06:51)
Yeah,

I was just gonna ask, are we gonna use the word panties?

Kat (06:53)
Yes.

These are, and boxers, they're most likely to be the item you're going to want new, brand spanking new, right? We'll just, so my question is, how can you buy new underwear that also isn't destroying the world and its production processes? Okay. Again, I'm not considering bras. Men's is less fraught with questions, you know, of men's underwear, like sexiness.

Tiffany (07:01)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (07:21)
visible panty lines, moisture wicking, not all the same questions that they ask for women's underwear, right? Those aren't considerations that men necessarily have. But yeah, think moisture, depending. I mean, if you're wearing like regular boxers, it's not really touching you so much.

Tiffany (07:27)
Yeah, maybe moisture working, but yeah.

Yeah, Joe, not to divulge. Yeah. But I know he got like the.

Kat (07:39)
Sorry boys, we're talking about your tronies, yeah.

Tiffany (07:47)
what do you call them? It's like sort of the techie material boxers. I think because we were going somewhere really hot, like Vietnam or something. So I'm sure things get sweaty.

Kat (07:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And there's

considerations for like, if you're working out for women too, you know, so the, I decided to evaluate Pact because I'm in the market for new undies. And I was wondering if they live up to the sustainability hype they put out there. Cause they definitely advertise that they're sustainable. ⁓ so I do have to do an aside. There are health concerns with underwear and what does that mean for sustainability? So

Tiffany (08:02)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah.

Kat (08:30)
Underwear needs to be hygienic because it's touching your moist, sorry, moist, knotty bits. I'm using a lot of trigger words here tonight. I'm sorry, guys. So according to that Healthline article I read, doctors recommend wearing 100 % cotton underwear for this reason. They sometimes say like bamboo and other things too, but like natural fibers. Moisture-wicking polyester can be good for working out, but you're going to want to change out of those when you're done with the workout. So you're going to have various undies for various purposes. Well, hopefully, yeah.

Tiffany (08:37)
Yeah, really.

And really you're going to want to change out of anything when you're done with the workout.

Kat (08:59)
I mean, yeah, if you're doing it right. Exactly.

Tiffany (08:59)
So, cotton is just soaking it all up. So it's not comfortable.

Kat (09:05)
Yes. And to drive that, you should also be changing your underwear at least every day, more often if you're sweating or something comes up, or if you just feel like it. I heard something. A friend of mine got in an argument with me about this. I read something somewhere about, we always assume that

people in previous eras who didn't shower as much as we do. it was a Mary Roach book, I'm pretty sure. ⁓ She was talking about how you don't, because like intimate clothing, actually, if you change that more often, you don't need to shower as much because it collects the sweat and it collects the dirt mites and everything. And so probably people in courts and you know,

Tiffany (09:35)
⁓

Yeah.

Kat (09:56)
medieval era or the renaissance era just changed their undies a lot and didn't need a shower as much. you know and I'm you know peasants probably couldn't do that because they didn't have access to laundry and as much clothing but that's why you could wear the same dress for a year and it not stink is because you would change your underwear so frequently. So ⁓ something to think about you know but yeah and you also should wash your underwear

Tiffany (09:59)
Interesting. Hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, save water.

Kat (10:25)
especially your panties, sorry, after everywhere, unlike your bras, say, I don't wash mine after everywhere unless I sweat in them, or your sweaters. I don't need to wash the sweatshirt every time I wear it, especially if I'm wearing something under it. ⁓ Healthline also recommends, they had a whole series of things about, don't wash your undies with clothes, like if you have family members or roommates who are sick.

Tiffany (10:33)
No, 100 % not.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (10:53)
wash your underwear separately from their clothes. Or if you have an infection, wash that underwear separately from other items of clothing.

Tiffany (11:03)
Just like the flu, like any kind of infection.

Kat (11:05)
Well,

or a BV or a yeast infection, particularly. Yeah. And they also said you should replace your underwear every year, especially if you experience infections like bacterial vaginosis, which is BV, or yeast infections frequently. Yeah. So yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. For me, it's like getting new underwear is such a splurge.

Tiffany (11:08)
well yeah, okay. That makes sense.

Hmm, fascinating.

Interesting. Huh. I don't do that, but I wait till they fall apart, but.

Yes, even though it's really they will they used to be cheaper. They're really not that expensive. But I mean, they used to be. Yeah.

Kat (11:38)
Yeah, depending on, we'll go into that.

But yeah, I remember when I was like, my mom would take us to Victoria's Secret and we'd get five pairs of cotton panties for $5. Five for 25. Yeah. And it'd always be like, do I want these? Or like you'd go through like the sale rack and it'd be $2 for like a thong that was like, yeah, mesh weirdness.

Tiffany (11:45)
Oh my God, Victoria's Secret is such, yeah, five for 20. Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yes, only thongs or the least comfortable,

the ones that were like the little shorts. I don't remember what they're called, but they're horrid. They just rode up. I'm like, either my body is shaped wrong or these are made wrong.

Kat (12:06)
Boy shorts, yeah. Yeah. Yep.

No, no, it's not you. It's

definitely the clothing store. yeah, underwear is more expensive now. But you're likely to have a lot more underwear than you'll have, t-shirts probably. Well, maybe not in fashion fashion universe. And you're going to buy new ones more frequently if you're following the health claims. So on top of this, you're going to be throwing used underwear away rather than recycling or donating it, most likely.

Tiffany (12:17)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Kat (12:43)
Um, well, Ridwell will take used undies to be recycled in their mixed textiles. They have two things they do. They have clothes that can be donated to resell. Like, and then they have a threads category, which is like things that are ripped or, you know, that wouldn't, you couldn't sell in a thrift store. like use underwear would go in that category. I'm still not going to give them my period undies. Those are going in the trash. I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Tiffany (12:43)
You can't recycle them.

Mm-hmm.

That's fair, yeah.

I was going say, I think I have put underwear in like our, you know, like the bin that's at their dump that is like fat. Yeah, exactly. So.

Kat (13:20)
Yeah, textiles. As

long as it's not super heavily stained or mildewed or got like paint on it or oil. Those. So, Mate the label, their article explained why you want organic materials around your hoo-ha. So, I didn't read it too thoroughly because it seemed to me like, first of all, it's on their website trying to sell their underwear. Excuse me.

Tiffany (13:28)
Yeah, I hope not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (13:50)
They're like, tensile fabric is so, you know, whatever. But there have been issues with undies that have PFAS, you know, which are the forever chemicals. And there's concern about microplastics, right? Because moist areas like your vagina ⁓ are in close quarters down there and they're more likely to absorb things more quickly. ⁓ to reduce endocrine or hormonal

Tiffany (13:54)
Mm-hmm.

Right. ⁓

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (14:19)
disruptions from PFAS, it's probably a good idea to buy items that are at least manufactured with an eye to preventing those chemicals, right? So less plastic underwear, less chemically treated. So it's probably not all total hooey to get 100 % cotton underwear.

Tiffany (14:28)
Right.

Okay. Is there 100 % cotton?

Kat (14:48)
I think it's all cut next over like the waistband maybe. ⁓

Tiffany (14:53)
Okay, because I was just

thinking they're so stretchy.

Kat (14:56)
I mean, if you're getting granny panties with no stretch in them.

Tiffany (15:00)
they don't have stretch? I haven't...

Kat (15:01)
I think

of them like tight white. He's kind of don't, you the old, think most of them are 95%. I think even the Pact ones are 95 % cotton. So, but they're saying like it's a hundred percent organic, whatever the cotton is in it. So that's the next question is what is Pact So Pact is an online American store that sells sustainably made clothes, especially lounge wear and.

Tiffany (15:04)
Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, curious.

Kat (15:28)
Yes, underwear. They also sell bedding, home goods kind of stuff that's been new since I think I bought pants from them four or five years ago and had not been to their, it's like everybody's selling. They're like, well, we do organic cotton underwear. We might as well make sheets too, you know, so.

Tiffany (15:43)
Yeah,

I know. And I've tried to buy two different pairs of sheets from online companies, not them, you know, like online sheet companies that are like so well rated, not even Brooklyn in which I'm like, maybe I should have gone with them, but I don't trust them either. Cause like I went, I looked at all the best of, it's such bullshit. It's so annoying. It's all just paid. Don't ever trust a best, best.

Kat (15:52)
Yeah, Brooklyn and or.

I don't know. No!

It really is. Yeah. It's pay junk.

Tiffany (16:11)
best 10 cheat set don't ever trust that so I bought two different ones and they both were garbage and I was like

Kat (16:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. I always,

my dad got me hooked on Consumer Reports and it's now it's a paid subscription, but Consumer Reports is, Consumer Reports is an N wire cutter. Tends to be believable. Yeah.

Tiffany (16:22)
⁓ that's smart. Yeah, that's the thing.

Yeah, I've had things with wire cutter even though where I got it and I was like, this is garbage. Why did they?

Kat (16:34)
Yeah.

I feel like they,

cause they send the best stuff to the New York Times, wouldn't they? You know? ⁓ yeah.

Tiffany (16:42)
Yeah, you would think. They

used to be really good. I can't remember what it was that I bought on their recommendation. I was so disappointed in it. It might have even been the sheets. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember.

Kat (16:52)
Yeah. ⁓ bummer. Like who to trust

anymore. Consumer reports has been consistently good. I don't know what a subscription is, but sometimes you can just like kind of get around the paywall and I won't, I want to support journalism, but like just ask Google like what does consumer reports say the best XYZ is and the AI might bring up the answer. Yeah.

Tiffany (16:59)
How much does it cost? Because I might just get a subscription. It might be worth it.

gross, you're probably right.

I hate that. I'd rather just pay him. I'm curious. We should probably even have that for... It'll be a business expense. Consumer Reports.

Kat (17:21)
I know.

For our show, yeah. There you go. For our

hobby. That makes us $100 a year maybe.

Tiffany (17:34)
Hey, you know what? It's still growing. Oh, it's only $40 a year.

Kat (17:36)
Yeah, it's true.

that's better than the Atlantic.

Tiffany (17:42)
Yeah.

Kat (17:44)
Might be worth it.

Tiffany (17:45)
Yeah, okay, interesting. Anywho, that's good to, yeah, good to keep in mind.

Kat (17:50)
Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay. All of, all of Pac's stuff is organic cotton, they say, plus whatever, you know, elastane I think they use for their 5 % for the elasticity stuff. Um, for women's underwear, they offer a variety of styles, including thongs, bikinis, boy shorts, mid-rise hipsters, and briefs. And they also have Pacs or sets you can buy together with some cute patterns, colors, and even lace trimmed options available.

Tiffany (18:02)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (18:20)
feeling a little, little snazzy. So my next question is what sustainability claims does PACT make? And this is going to be a long bit. So buckle down. At the, no, let's, let's, I, I wrote a break in cause ⁓ let's get through this. And then as I cough up a lung, sorry guys, I'm still coughing.

Tiffany (18:33)
Okay, should we take a break or no? Okay, do it after. All right.

Okay.

Kat (18:44)
Excuse me. Okay. So at the bottom of their organic cotton underwear for women page Pact states, and I quote, and I wish I could show this to you because there are so many unnecessarily capitalized words in this. It's like reading a Trump tweet, like, you know, German and Dutch might capitalize nouns, but in English, we only capitalize proper nouns. anyway, Pact women's underwear are made with organic cotton in a fair trade factory.

Tiffany (18:57)
no.

gross.

Okay.

Kat (19:14)
PACT uses sustainable materials, ethical manufacturing, and is climate friendly and carbon neutral. By choosing organic cotton, we can create non-toxic clothing that uses 81 % less water and 62 % less energy. It's time to raise the standards for sustainable fashion. Okay, so ignoring that they capitalize all the nouns and actually all the adjectives too, let's, yes, I know, let's unpack.

Tiffany (19:33)
That all sounds good. Yeah.

no.

Kat (19:43)
what this means from their sustainability page. So number one, water usage. They claim to save 1.3 billion gallons of water through their organic farming. I can't figure out where they got these numbers from. They claim that organic farming is what saves them water. Okay.

Tiffany (19:57)
Hmm.

See, that's fascinating, because we've heard the opposite.

Kat (20:02)
Yeah. So I'll debunk their claims after I go through them. After the break. So they are GOTS certified, which we've discussed in the past, the global organic textile standards. So just to remind you, this standard requires the label contain 70 % organic fibers at a minimum, which means those fibers are grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or GMOs.

Tiffany (20:06)
Okay, that sounds good.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (20:29)
The company has to complete due diligence to align with global regulations while upholding human rights and environmental standards.

Tiffany (20:36)
God forbid there's GMOs in my bedsheets. Jesus Christ. Sorry, I had to. Go ahead.

Kat (20:38)
I know, my God, I care very deeply about this. Yep, baby

with the bathwater. But the label must be certified through a third party of onsite inspection and certification processors, manufacturers, and traders. The company has to follow human rights and social criteria. The company has to follow environmental criteria throughout the entire textile value chain, including organic fiber production from certified farms.

Chemical input management to regulate the use of toxic chemicals like heavy metals or substances known to be harmful to human health or the environment like PFAS. And this means even their colors and their auxiliaries are highly regulated, so dyes, et cetera. ⁓ They have environmental management and conservation, including wastewater and discharge water treatment and handling. They have the moderate energy consumption, waste management, emissions, and overall efforts to minimize environmental impact.

Their accessories and additional fiber materials are also regulated and all stages in the processing, manufacturing and trading have to be covered by the GOTS standard and they have to be able to trace the process. So it seems like if you just kind of slap that up, you're saying, look, we're doing this thing, right? We don't have to show our work. Yes. Well, the link to the GOTS standard, they say they're GOTS certified and then they link to the standard.

Tiffany (21:46)
Yeah.

And this was all on Pac's website? All that stuff, okay.

Okay, okay. Understood,

okay.

Kat (21:59)
So yeah, that's the thing. They list their sustainability claim and then they link out to

Tiffany (22:03)
Okay.

Kat (22:06)
I guess I didn't click on the link for the organic farming one, the water saved one. But I think they're kind of assuming that that's also covered in the GOTS standard on some level, that they have to keep track of it and they don't necessarily have to publish those findings. okay, their next claim is zero net carbon emissions, which is one of our favorites. So they say they measure the impact of every Pact product and offset it through reforestation.

Tiffany (22:12)
Okay

Mmm.

Hmm. OK.

Kat (22:35)
renewable energy, community projects that sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

And then they have this link to Simplizero which as far as I can tell is a personal sustainability program that you can subscribe to, anyone can subscribe to, for a monthly fee to offset your own personal carbon emissions, plant trees, and choose from higher social impact projects. I don't know if we have, but their website's pretty janky.

Tiffany (22:42)
Hmm.

Oh, I've heard of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did we talk about them in your... I feel like we...

Kat (23:07)
I'm just saying it looks like it hasn't been updated lately. And like, there were a lot of fields that have like auto-fill text. Like it'll be like in the pricing subscription model, it'll have like brackets that say like insert number of trees here. Yeah. So like some of their code isn't working, I guess. And right. And it's not clear how Simplizero is involved in ensuring that Pact is net zero when it comes to carbon emissions. So that's another one where they just kind of, they're like,

Tiffany (23:14)
Hmm.

Interesting. It's like a mad lib.

Kat (23:37)
We pay this company to make us be net zero. So, okay. ⁓ The next thing is that they are fair trade certified. So this is kind of actually, I think a big deal. ⁓ PACT says their factories are fair trade certified to ensure sustainable manufacturing, safe working conditions and additional development funds are given directly to those working on site. So I don't know if we've talked about fair trade certification.

Tiffany (23:40)
Interesting, okay.

We

haven't, but it's funny because my next episode, I dive into it a little bit, but.

Kat (24:09)
Okay, so

I just list what the Fairtrade certified system does. And I know it from working in coffee shops. Like we would have Fairtrade certified coffee, you know. ⁓ So Fairtrade certified means the company insures compliance with Fairtrade standards. ⁓ Excuse me. no, this is the system. The Fairtrade certified system insures compliance with Fairtrade standards and issuing certifications. They work with market.

Tiffany (24:16)
Yes.

Kat (24:39)
partners who purchase label and sell certified products and they have to pay a fair trade premium. So PACT has to pay a fair trade premium to be certified. ⁓ They support ethical practices and sustainable livelihoods for farmers and workers. They return money generated by that fair trade premium to the producers via the Community Development Fund. They ensure compliance with fair trade standards for agriculture, seafood, apparel and home goods producers.

They manage a democratically elected fair trade committee made up of representatives who handle the community development funded projects. So this committee decides where all those community development funds go. And then they support community by ensuring farms and workers invest the most in projects that address the needs of their families and communities. I'm so sorry. I like sound like.

Tiffany (25:28)
No, it's okay.

Kat (25:33)
So Fairtrade certified is a pretty historic and well recognized certification, think. Yeah.

Tiffany (25:37)
Yeah.

I was gonna say, I did find and I have heard sort of rumors throughout the years. I found a source and I'll talk about it more in my episode where some people say that it's more talk or like.

Kat (25:59)
Yeah,

you're buying into a program.

Tiffany (26:02)
Yeah, it's more like for the show than it is actually impactful, but.

Kat (26:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I, I get that.

Tiffany (26:12)
I think

it depends. It's all, it's very nuanced because it's like, depends who you're talking about because it does impact some people. Well, maybe not everybody, but yeah.

Kat (26:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And,

and I found that like, it's also a way of vilifying, especially in the coffee industry, like small producers or, know, it's, one of those things where it's like, well, we don't really need to be certified for this because we already do it, you know? So yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (26:30)
Mmm.

Yeah, it's very expensive also. You have to pay for it to be certified.

Kat (26:49)
So the other, the last two things that they have that they say on their sustainability are responsible packaging. So they claim to use paper packaging instead of plastic. And then they had a link to a brand called Vela Vela bags, which I thought was interesting. So they're a carbon neutral forest stewardship council certified recyclable paper bags. Their website looks pretty legit.

Tiffany (26:58)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I think FSC certified is actually like meaningful.

Kat (27:17)
It is,

it is. Yeah. So that, that meant something to me. And then they offer a closet cleanup program. So it's through ThredUp. Who is my arch nemesis? Yeah. But you know, they're using ThredUp. So you can send your wearable garments to ThredUp and get Pact cash. So basically it's like selling your stuff through ThredUp, except instead of getting paid through ThredUp,

Tiffany (27:31)
that is so interesting. They didn't use the trashy or whatever the other one was.

Hmm.

Kat (27:47)
you get credit at pact and they add a little more onto the credit at pact than you would get from thread up as like a bonus. So I don't know if you sh yes. Yeah. Yeah. But, that could be anything, you know, if you're, if you've got a lot of stuff in your closet and you need to send it to Goodwill anyway, you just print up a shipping label. can slap it on any box or whatever and, ⁓ send them your clothes.

Tiffany (27:55)
You said this is wearable stuff? OK. So it's OK. That kind of makes sense, yeah.

Kat (28:15)
But then it just depends if your stuff doesn't sell, then ThreadUp can do whatever they want with it.

Tiffany (28:19)
That's

the thing with Threat Up. I've tried to sell to them before and it was like one out of my 20 things got actually sold and the rest of it just got god knows what. Probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (28:28)
They say they donate it, but we talked about it

when I went through Thread Up. They definitely stole one of my dresses and told me it had a stain on it. somebody sold it for themselves.

Tiffany (28:35)
Right.

Yeah.

Kat (28:43)
Okay, so that's their sustainability claims. Let's take a break and we'll come back to find out if this is something a normal person could do or afford.

Tiffany (28:52)
Okay,

perfect.

Kat (29:09)
Alright, welcome back.

You're still muted. What's going on here? Yeah. Your camera gave up on us. Oh yeah. There we are. Your camera needed a nap. It took a break too. All right. So our next question that we ask is, is this something a normal person could do or afford? So let's talk pricing.

Tiffany (29:16)
I said, thank you, why am I so blurry? Why am I so blurry? Okay, there I am.

Mmm, I'm curious.

Kat (29:34)
Buying a single pair of panties from Pact will run you $16. So when I looked, everything was $13 each on sale. And that's for any of the styles. You're paying the same for a thong as you would for boy shorts or a hipster. I know, because a thong is like nothing. so if you buy

Tiffany (29:43)
Okay.

Which is kind of funny. It's like kids

shoes. Kids shoes cost the same almost as adult shoes. I'm like, but there's so much less.

Kat (29:58)
I know why,

why do I need and she's going to wear them three times before she grows out of them. know.

Tiffany (30:02)
Yeah... Anyway...

Kat (30:04)
So if you buy a five pack, it's $65, which is an 18 % bundled savings discount.

Tiffany (30:10)
Okay, five pack for 65. And you said they're organic cotton.

Kat (30:15)
Yeah. So I did some comparison shopping. So if you pick up a six pack of Haynes cotton briefs at Walmart, it'll run you $10.99. And they were currently on sale for $8.98. Oh, goodness. OK, I'm sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, we are recording this on Mardi Gras. And my boyfriend just handed me a hazy beer. Wait, who is it from? Jester King. Jester King. Where'd you get it? HEB He went to HEB.

Tiffany (30:21)
K.

Mm-hmm. ⁓ dang.

my god.

my god, send me one. Happy Mardi Gras! That's awesome.

Kat (30:45)
Okay, so happy Mardi Gras.

it's the one he was talking. Anyway, he's, he's a hazy connoisseur, my friends. So I am now drinking a hazy beer. Okay. So 8.98 on sale. That's a dollar 83 per pair when they're not on sale. And that's, that's a six pack, right? So Victoria's secret has their plain old non-laced trimmed cotton panties for either anywhere from 10 50 to 12 50, depending on whether you want their logo on your waistband, which like, ew, why are kids still doing that?

Tiffany (30:54)
⁓ Yummy.

I don't think so. Although they're still in business.

Kat (31:21)
I do want to say like, there's pink.

Yeah, there's, okay. Like the guy who founded Victoria's Secret, I'm pretty sure he's like pretty heavily in the Epstein files. So it's like, there's been a lot of hoopla on ⁓ social media lately about how like so much of our girlhood was like, I think the limited two was owned by somebody who was friends with Epstein. know, like these men.

Tiffany (31:33)
Aww, that's so not shocking.

Kat (31:52)
owned these companies for little girls when they were like friends with a guy who was abusing little girls. It's so awful. Anyway, excuse me. So PACT isn't the cheapest of the cheap, right? They are less expensive than Victoria's Secret, which that's kind of like the go-to middle of the road underwear brand for millennial women like myself. Like you're like, where should I buy underwear? Like that I don't want to go to Target or Walmart. I'll go to Victoria's Secret because you know, it's there, right?

Tiffany (31:57)
my god.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Wait, they're less expensive?

Kat (32:24)
They're about the same as Victoria's Secret.

Tiffany (32:30)
Okay, because I thought they were

like 16 bucks, right? And then... ⁓ right, right, right. Okay.

Kat (32:33)
Well, they're 13 right now, they're on sale. But

like if you want like fancy, yeah, they're a little bit more than Victoria's Secret. So if you care about your cotton being organic certified, which like Victoria's Secret isn't, come back camera, come back. There you are. And if you care about the factory being fair trade, like, and you're comfortable paying a little bit more than Victoria's Secret prices, Pact seems pretty reasonable.

Tiffany (32:53)
Yeah.

I was going to say that price is definitely more than I pay, but it's not exorbitant.

Kat (33:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not, mean, I like Finti and all these really like nice designer brands. You know, if you're going for like, this is just plain cotton underwear, you know.

Tiffany (33:16)
Right.

Kat (33:18)
I don't know, replacing it once a year, all this stuff. I don't know. It's, not totally unreasonable. mean, it is a lot, but

Tiffany (33:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

You said it's five pairs for $65. Because you need more than five, right? Yeah.

Kat (33:34)
I know. You need 10 probably, right? Yeah.

So most of their reviews say their undies are durable and comfortable for everyday wear. Their sizing goes from extra small to 2XL, which is ⁓ relatively inclusive, I guess. It's not super inclusive. ⁓ But I did scan Reddit a bit, and some people are saying their sizing can be inconsistent and run small. And then their quality may have declined due to COVID era supply chain issues or just from trying to scale up to become a bigger company in recent years.

Tiffany (33:51)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Hmm.

Kat (34:09)
So

they get a 3.4 hour trust pilot and they appear to have pretty good customer service. Yeah. But like there wasn't a lot of just straight reviews of their underwear. It was mostly like their pants and like, yeah, I kind of feel like.

Tiffany (34:12)
That's not too bad, actually.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Kat (34:28)
I'm kind of done buying like from any of these brands for good stuff. It's like, I'll just go to, I want to try it on and I want to test the quality before I buy it. know, and I'm definitely going to this store first, you know, if I need something new. anyway, well, except underwear, but I mean like, you know, lounge wear stuff like that.

Tiffany (34:49)
Except underwear. Yeah, yeah.

Kat (34:55)
So OK, ⁓ our next section is, does the earth-friendly message need to come back to earth? I think, yeah, at least some. So first off, as we have noted, organic cotton is not necessarily the eco-friendly savior that we've been told. You need to grow a lot more organic cotton to get the same amount of usable fiber as you do with conventional, which means it takes more land and it takes more water overall, even if.

Tiffany (35:11)
Yeah.

Kat (35:20)
Each individual head of cotton takes less water. You need more of it. So you are going to use more water over the long haul. Good on you rates Pact as good for on a scale of one to five. But I think some of their details are out of date because good on you still says they use some recycled packaging. Whereas the Pact site says they only use the paper packaging. So pack or good on you was saying that they use plastic, which apparently they don't.

Tiffany (35:24)
Right.

Okay.

okay.

Kat (35:48)
Good on you also notes you can't tell how the company is reducing its energy use or greenhouse gas emissions or minimizing textile waste in its supply chain. They don't really, yeah, they don't show their work, right? And I didn't go into a deep dive of proving them wrong or right. I just clicked on the links that they had.

Tiffany (35:59)
Okay.

Yeah, so for all that

stuff, they don't have like a sustainability report or anything. Yeah. Okay.

Kat (36:05)
I didn't see one. So

I mean, the fact that they are GOTS certified and fair trade certified means it gives me some hope, which good on you also said. ⁓

Tiffany (36:14)
Yeah.

Kat (36:19)
I'm not, yeah, I don't know. It all, you know, it's again, one of those things where it feels like everything's kind of the wild west right now with sustainability and like everybody's kind of abandoned it. So they could just be kind of resting on these laurels that they just assume nobody cares about anymore. ⁓ I don't know, but so now we get into our favorite part TLDR, our granola reading.

Tiffany (36:36)
Yeah.

Yeah,

well I was going to say I wonder too if brands have sort of either a conscious or unconscious plan of building a reputation on being sustainable and then either they realize that it's too hard and they don't want to do it or they realize they don't need to. If they sort of already have that reputation maybe they don't need to.

Kat (36:53)
Yes. Yeah.

Or yeah, people, well, and think that's

a thing that we're finding is that like you and I are digging into this and we care and it's hard to find, again, we can't find where they show their math. And it's like they slap these claims up and maybe some of them are true, but they're way more nuanced and most consumers do not have the time to go through and be like, okay, well, what does that really mean for my

Tiffany (37:16)
Yeah.

Right.

Kat (37:33)
underwear that I need. You know, like I remember in, I went to a wedding shower for a friend of mine who was getting married like right after college and everybody was giving her advice on what to do. They're like, you know, sometimes you can turn your underwear out if you didn't have inside out, if you didn't have time to wash it, you know, like we don't have time to like dig deep into how really sustainable our underwear is. If we don't even really have time to wash it every day, you know, like I do just kind of want to just grab a six pack of Hanes from Walmart for a buck each and

Tiffany (37:56)
No, totally.

Kat (38:03)
You know, wear it because I need underwear, you know, especially if you have like children, you know. And if you are, if you do care about sustainability and PFAS and microplastics, then having a company that just has these little certifications up on their website, you'll be like, thank God. Okay. I don't have to think about it, you know.

Tiffany (38:07)
Yeah

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And they know it and they take advantage, not all of them, but some of them take advantage of it, of the fact that like, so there's some buzzwords, people are busy, people don't have time. So that will convince them.

Kat (38:23)
So it's, yeah.

and can justify charging

$16 for a pair of paint.

Tiffany (38:40)
Yeah. Yeah, totally. I remember when I was working, I think this is like an ADHD symptom, but, or like a sign. but I was working in a coffee shop when I first moved to DC and I got to work and I was like, man, I was running so late this morning. I didn't have time to put on socks. And my friend was like, you didn't have time to put on socks?

He's like, ⁓ I didn't have time to make pancakes in the morning, but I had time to put on socks. Like, what do you mean? I'm like, I don't know. I just, didn't wear socks today.

Kat (39:13)
Yeah

Well, OK,

and that's sort of like, it's not like you have like one pair of shoes and so all the socks in your drawer. Like for me, are some shoes I can only wear the no-show socks with or like you need pantyhose with them or something. It's like, so yeah, there's just no socks happening today.

Tiffany (39:32)
Yeah. No,

I don't know what happened, but it just didn't happen. I literally think it was a time thing. was like, I don't leave right the second, I'm going to be so late because I was always running late.

Kat (39:36)
Yeah.

Anya,

that is an ADHD symptom, I think. no, that's funny, I've had things where I've been like, you know, if you ever looked in the mirror later today and realized that maybe you only put mascara on one eye. And the woman I was talking to was like, no, I've never had that problem. And I was like, don't know. I got so distracted between this and this that I just

Tiffany (39:45)
No, I know. It's so funny. ⁓

you

Kat (40:11)
didn't do this. don't know, you

know, like I'm the type of person who will put the toothbrush in her mouth and then go do something like one handed like, or just hold the toothbrush in your mouth. Yeah.

Tiffany (40:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yes. ⁓ 100%. Yeah, like watching

me, I can almost like watch myself from above trying to carry things in from the car. And it's like two trips. Just do two trips.

Kat (40:29)
You idiot. Yeah, just choo choo choo. Yeah,

me too. And I had like the way that my car is basically to, I park off the street. There's a gate that comes into my backyard. So I have to like, get, like the dogs will come running out of the house. And so I have to open the door and put the dogs in the car and then park the car in and wait for the gate to close.

Tiffany (40:45)
Yeah, and that's hard. One trip. Definitely not two trips.

god.

Kat (40:59)
And then it's like a step, multiple steps up to like, I'll be carrying like 90 pounds of groceries. And I'm like, my legs are going to give out, you know? Like this is definitely me pretending that I am not like in the next 10 years, this is going to be a broken hip problem, you know, like, cause I'm just like, nah, I could carry it all. No girl, two trips, two trips.

Tiffany (41:06)
Yes?

Great.

Yeah.

I'm like dropping stuff, breaking stuff, because I just have too much shit in my hands. Yeah, every day. I'm like, what's wrong with me?

Kat (41:29)
yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, it's, like,

I won't use the laundry basket because it's in the other room. So I carry the laundry to the, and just like a sock. And then you're like that. And then another sock and you're like, yeah, no, I can do it. I can do it myself. Like it's, we're toddlers. We're toddlers. It doesn't save you time. I can do it myself. Yeah. Yep.

Tiffany (41:38)
Yes, it's all falling everywhere.

Totally.

I know it's so true. I can do it.

Oh my God, I was like, do you need help? No, I do not. Thank you though. I'm good.

Kat (42:02)
Yeah.

So anyway, Pact. The granola. So when I originally wrote this, OK, just to introduce the segment, we rank everything we review with a granola rating of 1 to 5 on a crunchiness scale, where 1 is soggy and 5 is break your tooth off. The crunchier, the better. ⁓ When I originally rated this, I gave them a 4. I said crunchy. But now that I'm looking back on it, I think I'm going to give it a 3. I think they're chewy. ⁓

Tiffany (42:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Granola rating.

Okay.

Three solid.

Kat (42:33)
Yeah, they're certified in important ways that make them a good alternative to similarly priced brands like Victoria's Secret. Like it might be worth paying a little more money. ⁓ and they're also going to be a better choice than Hanes if you can afford it because PFAS really are a concern and, and human rights. Like the reason your cotton undies from Hanes are so cheap is because they're not paying laborers, you know, and same with Walmart. They don't pay people. So.

Tiffany (42:43)
Yeah.

Kat (43:04)
That matters, maybe less sustainability on an environmental factor, but to sustainability on the human factor, it does matter. so the got certification, the fair trade, and then they use, they do use recyclable paper packaging as opposed to plastic. They're sort of, you know, which is certified by the forest FCS. Yeah. The forest group. And then, you know, they do have that kind of recycling program through ThreatUp.

Tiffany (43:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

people, force people.

Kat (43:33)
So that's something, you know, they, that they'll give you credit, you know, but they don't explain their water usage, energy usage or greenhouse gas emissions very transparently. They just kind of slapped other people's websites up. it, especially the net zero stuff kind of gives me the ick because that's such a

Tiffany (43:34)
Mm-hmm.

Right. That is weird.

Yeah, well that whole

like 81,000 or whatever numbers they've thrown out and then they have no sourcing for it drives me crazy.

Kat (43:58)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So I do think they're fine. I'm not going to say that they're saving the world by selling undies. And especially because it's just another website where they are making so much more stuff. If they were just selling underwear, I'd be like, cool, cool, cool. But it's like, do you need another pair of leggings or another pair of sweatpants or another pair of, you know, like.

Tiffany (44:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah, that's the thing that drives me so crazy about all these websites and I get it. It's a business. But they'll sit there and be like sustainable, sustainable, sustainable, sustainable, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. It's like, yeah, it's like these things do not work together. They cannot. And we need to get this into our heads.

Kat (44:31)
Mm-hmm.

Buy five, get one free. Yeah.

No, no, it's not possible.

Yes, as consumers, it's our job to stop them by not consuming it, you know?

Tiffany (44:51)
Yeah,

it's our choice, but it's so easy to get caught up in it and like convinced.

Kat (44:55)
Yeah.

I wanna look young and thin in my sustainable thong undies, I guess.

Tiffany (45:00)
Yeah.

I wanna look like that girl. Yeah. Totally.

Kat (45:06)
Right.

Yeah. So that's Pact underwear. I think the thing is, again, you need underwear, you need clean underwear. You probably don't need 40 pairs of sexy panties. know, like, it's nice to have nice lingerie. It really is. Once in a while, you know, special occasion undies are great.

Tiffany (45:11)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (45:35)
⁓ the ones that make you feel hot. Those are fun, you know, especially when they're like your little secret. ⁓ maybe buy those from a really high end brand. bod or, you know, and have a couple of those and not 500 Fenty ones. And you don't need the subscription to Fenty, you know, and then have your.

Tiffany (45:41)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Kat (46:04)
10 pairs of sustainable cotton undies that maybe you don't change every year, maybe every two years, unless you get infections or your doctor tells you to, you know, like, but I am considering, I bought a whole bunch from NYX when I bought my period panties and I was like, well, I need new regular underwear and they're, they're not cotton. And I'm kind of like, as I'm getting older, maybe it's like, yeah, maybe I'll just, those are also three or four years old now. So maybe it's time, time to let them go.

Tiffany (46:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. It's past

due, so...

Kat (46:34)
Yeah,

but I find myself reaching for like the two pairs of Hanes underwear I had left from my last pack I bought 10 years ago. That's what I wear to work out and stuff. Cause I'm like, so if that's, you know, and I work from home, it's not like visible panty lines are an issue, you know? So maybe I'll just splurge, get some Pact panties and wear those every day and just be comfortable, you know? And you know,

Tiffany (46:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, I'm

kind of convinced next time I need some, I'm going look into them.

Kat (47:03)
Yeah, we'll see. But I still, I would give them a chewy just cause I'm a little skeptical about the numbers. So still their owner hasn't been proven to be friends with Epstein. So maybe that's good sign.

Tiffany (47:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That is good. Gross.

Kat (47:22)
Okay,

yeah. So next week, we're talking about what, the ethical silk company?

Tiffany (47:29)
Yes, it's interesting. It's fascinating. Cause we haven't talked about silk yet and silk is kind of like its whole own thing. So.

Kat (47:32)
Yeah.

It is.

I hadn't even thought of that because, you know, cotton has its issues. Silk isn't vegan, is it?

Tiffany (47:47)
No, I don't think there's any way you could call it vegan. Uh... Well, we'll get into it. Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't thought about the vegan part, but yeah, there is an option.

Kat (47:53)
Maybe we'll find out next week. Yeah, awesome.

Yeah, that's, mean, that

is something that they said, PACT doesn't talk about being vegan.

I feel kind of weird. I get why people would be like vegan processes for producing organic cotton materials. Like they're not using, I guess, insecticides or herbicides in a certain way. But to me it's like,

It's not leather, so I don't need it to be vegan certified. Maybe cruelty free is something that you want to look for. I don't care as much for my cotton undies about that kind of certification as I do for other things. ⁓ It's like, gluten free water. Vegan cotton undies gets a little, I understand why people would care about that, but it's something that I, from a sustainability perspective, don't think.

Tiffany (48:35)
Hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard.

Kat (48:58)
really matters in terms of clothes production as much? Yeah. It's not fur. It's not leather, you know?

Tiffany (49:01)
in like the grand scheme of things. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (49:08)
So anyway.

Tiffany (49:09)
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. ⁓

so complicated. All of this nuanced. ⁓ cool. Alrighty.

Kat (49:15)
Nuance.

All right.

So if you're listening to us on Spotify or any of your other apps, could you please give us five stars or a thumbs up? It helps us a lot. Yeah. We'd appreciate it.

Tiffany (49:30)
Yes, takes two seconds. Yeah, just scroll

all the way down to the bottom of our page and five stars and then write a little thing if you feel like it. That's super helpful. Yes.

Kat (49:38)
Yes.

Yeah, we appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening. ⁓ we'll see you next week.

Tiffany (49:45)
Yes, thank you. Alrighty,

bye!