Dry Apron Panties: A Review and Interview with Creator CarolAnn Bauer (with Transcript)

***I’m giving away a free pair of Dry Apron Panties! See the video and transcript for details. Contest ends at midnight on Friday, May 31, 2019. You must comment over on Youtube to enter (not here on the blog).***

In a world where living in a fat body is barely discussed, taking care of a fat body’s specific needs seems outright shameful to even mention. To say nothing of creating or buying products designed just for fat bodies.

CarolAnn Bauer and her Dry Apron Panties are such a breath of fresh air. Here’s someone who not only considered the needs of folks with overhanging bellies, but designed and proudly talks about a product specifically for them!

I’m proud to bring you both a review video AND an interview with CarolAnn all about the Dry Apron Panties. An important component of health at every size, or HAES, is the ability for people in any size body to find and use apparel, self-care and hygiene tools that both fit and support the bodies we have right now. That means that the apparel and tools that work best for smaller bodies may be different than those that work best for larger (especially what we might call “superfat” or “infinifat”) bodies. It’s not something we talk about often enough, and I want to start breaking down the taboos around discussing and buying things that help us navigate life in very large bodies, like:

• Plus-size and extended plus-size panties, lingerie and other underwear
• Tools like bidets, bidet bottles and reachers
• Chub rub and anti-rash solutions

This was a challenging video for me to make. It’s one thing to talk about loving your body and it’s entirely another to bare most of it in a video for public consumption. By creating and publishing this video, I’m helping normalize not only fat bodies, but cellulite, fat rolls, apron bellies, thunder thighs, and stretch marks. I’m also make-up free.

I forgot to mention it in the video, but there is PLENTY of room in these panties for a larger apron belly than mine, so don’t feel like my relatively small belly overhang is the largest that will fit in these.

• Top: Westport
• Bra: TomboyX
• Skirt: Unknown
• Necklace: Nature’s Twist on Etsy (and Pike Place Market here in Seattle)

The video and this post were created on land belonging to the Duwamish tribe. I support the tribal council monthly and you can too: https://www.realrentduwamish.org. See the last part of this post for a full video transcript.

Interview with CarolAnn

Tell me about you! What’s your name? What pronouns do you use? Where do you live? What do you like to eat for breakfast?

CarolAnn: CarolAnn, I am a ‘she’ and i live in Canton, North Carolina. I’m living happily in the Blue Ridge Mountains for now but may be moving to California or Nevada to be closer to my daughter, son in law and my incredible 6 year old grandson. I have lived in the same neighborhood as them for his whole life and its terribly important to me and him for me to be in his life.

I’m a recovering dieter, who still struggles sometimes with body image. But mostly I love me and support others in their road to body acceptance.

I’m a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, and I interpreted for deaf children in the school system as a career. Now I work on making life easier for my fat sisters

Oh, and I usually have eggs and toast for breakfast! Lol

What is your business, and how does it make a difference in the world?

CarolAnn: My business is CarolAnn’s Dry Apron panties. About 3 years ago I wanted to stop getting rashes and infections under my tummy. I had seen what my mother went through, how embarrassed she was when she had to ask me to apply ointment to a rash she couldn’t reach. It broke my heart.

“I had seen what my mother went through, how embarrassed she was when she had to ask me to apply ointment to a rash she couldn’t reach. It broke my heart.”

As an engineer and seamstress, I tackled the problem head on. After time and trials, I was satisfied with the design. It was effective, comfortable and ready for patenting.

My hope is that anyone with skin on skin problems will be able to live life confident that she doesn’t have to worry about irritation, pain and odor caused by trapped sweat under her stomach.

Why is what you do important? How does it change the way people see or how they feel about their bodies?

CarolAnn: Imagine not being worried about smelling bad because of trapped sweat causing a yeast infection. Now imagine for the first time in your life being able to wear pretty panties. No more white cotton granny panties! No more sweaty parts! No more! Now you can feel just like people!

Imagine the confidence, the self esteem.

I want that for all of my fat sisters!

And I feel honored that I can help them to achieve that.

“My business is only about body positivity and being fat. Mine is the only garment that wicks away sweat from under stomachs. It is a patented, unique product.”

How does body positivity or fat positivity make your business different from others in your field? What has your experience been like?

CarolAnn: My business is only about body positivity and being fat. Mine is the only garment that wicks away sweat from under stomachs. It is a patented, unique product.

Can you share an instance where you made a real difference for a customer, or had some really great feedback from them about your body-positive work?

CarolAnn: I asked a friend if she would be a beta tester for Dry Apron and in response she shared her experience of being asked, right out loud, to leave a woman’s sewing group. She was told people complained about her ‘odor’ and could only come back if she would improve her hygiene! Of course, her hygiene was just fine, she was suffering from an infection under her stomach. As she drove home she was trying to decide how to commit suicide… not if she would, but how she would. She cried as she told me this. I cried for her and all of the women who have been through this and suffered in silence.

How did you discover body acceptance or body positivity personally? What kind of difference has it made for you?

CarolAnn: After my 20 year marriage ended, much in part to my ‘unacceptable body’ 2 friends invited me to go to a size acceptance conference. They even paid for it! It was an amazing experience- the first time as an adult that there was NO oppression! It was like I had been beating my head against a wall my whole life and suddenly stopped. I was 42 years old. It was the first time I had even heard of body positivity. My life changed completely. I sought out groups to help me on my road to recovery. I found communities of wonderful strong women who lifted me up.

“Find someone and then many someones who can show you what loving your body looks like. Turn away from images of fat people being made fun of or oppressed. Seek out images of fat people as the beautiful beings they are. Surround yourself with fat art. Don’t listen to diet talk on tv or radio. Arm yourself with facts from current research.”

What advice do you have for other people who are learning to love and accept their bodies?

CarolAnn: Find someone and then many someones who can show you what loving your body looks like. Turn away from images of fat people being made fun of or oppressed. Seek out images of fat people as the beautiful beings they are. Surround yourself with fat art. Don’t listen to diet talk on tv or radio. Arm yourself with facts from current research.

And if someone tells you about them losing weight, ask them if they are well!

What advice do you have for other business owners who’d like to incorporate body acceptance into their work?

CarolAnn: People in the fat community need products too. We have money to spend on clothes. Make things to fit us.

Advertise using plus size models. Not oversized Jessica Rabbits, but real people with big stomachs and small breasts.

Find CarolAnn and Dry Apron Panties at www.dryapron.com.

Video Transcript

Hi everybody. I’m Lindley. And today, I’m going to be talking about something that’s a little bit sensitive and embarrassing about bodies. It’s chub rub rashes, what happens when your skin gets moist or sweaty and it rubs together. And I have a really cool product review for you.

But I want to talk about this issue first because it’s really embarrassing to talk about. It affects a lot of—I think chub rub affects everybody. I know I see a lot of discussion of it in plus size communities because it is so prevalent. If you’ve ever been out walking in the summer, and you’ve gotten sweaty, and you had your thighs rub together and create a rash, that’s chub rub.

The medical term for this is intertrigo. And I’ll put that in the comments as well, so that you can look that up if you want. But it’s just “skin friction in moist or damp areas.” And we think of it as happening on the thighs, but it can also happen in the groin area, the abdomen, under your breast, between toes—I didn’t know that until I looked this up. And it can also happen under the belly.

If you have a noticeable, visible belly on your particular body, there are what I call D-bellies (like the letter D) and B-bellies (like the letter B).

My cat is jumping from table to table behind me. So if you hear strange noises, it’s her. Totally her fault!

If you have a D-belly, this is what we often see in the media on plus size bodies. It will be—like if this is the back, it will be a nice, soft curve out. And then, it just come right back down.

A B-belly is also called an overhanging belly or an apron belly. It’s more of a B-shape. And you’re going to see mine here in a second. This is a little bit new for me. But you’re going to be seeing my B-belly. These are bellies that they’re not considered as conventionally attractive. They’re not seen as much on the media even on fat or plus size bodies. But I really believe that it’s important to have that visibility both in the media and those of us who are speaking about fat bodies to show that, no matter what kind of belly you have, it’s totally normal and okay.

And so, what I’m going to review today is a product called Dry Apron Panties. These were created by a woman CarolAnn Bauer. And of course, I’m going to link to her.

She saw this need. I mean, chub rub is kind of a cute term. And so it gets talked about a little bit more. And almost everybody experiences that the beginning of summer, their thighs rub together and they get sore and red. Almost everyone [00:02:58] do which is most of us. But we don’t talk about—if my boobs get sweaty, and they don’t get dried in time, they might get a rash. Nobody talks about chub rub on their toes or intertrigo on their toes or just in the groin area or under our bellies. We don’t talk about that. It’s really embarrassing.

And so, this is a woman who is really a pioneer here. Not only is she making a product that addresses this that is centered on large bodies, centered on really large bodies, but she’s going to talk about it. She’s normalizing the discussion of this is what happens on these bodies. And here’s what we have to treat it.

These are called Dry Apron Panties for the apron belly, like the overhanging belly. And I am going to change my camera angle, and I’m going to show you what these look like.

Alright! So, for disclosure, I was provided with a pair of these panties by CarolAnn in exchange for this review. But I have not talked with CarolAnn about how this worked for me. So this is a totally honest review. So let me show you these.

The ones that I have happen to be black. But they come in black, orange, white, red and maybe an aqua. These come in sizes 10 to 17. These are like if you go to Walmart and you buy a pack of panties, these are the same kind of sizing. And that sizing, I think I might wear a 12 or 13. It’s been a while since I’ve bought panties that way. But I wear a Lane Bryant 26, 28. And I’m wearing a size 12 in the panties.

The necklace that I’m wearing is from Nature’s Twist from Etsy. And I’ll link all these. The bra is from [00:04:46]. And it has unicorns on it, it’s awesome! And these are the Dry Apron Panties.

Honestly, I don’t know where the top and the skirt are from. I’ll link to them in the comments.

So, these are the Dry Apron Panties. They’re super high wasited which I didn’t think I was going to like, but I do. They kind of look like your swimsuit bottoms. I’m giving you the full thing. They look like panties. They kind of feel a little bit like swimsuit material too.

So, this is the outer part. This is the part that you’re seeing.

But the cool thing about these—let me come and give you a little close-up. I’m going to show you my B-belly. With the B-belly, you can really see the parts of the B here. So here’s the top, and here’s the bottom. Obviously, I’m not going to take these all the way off. But I do want to show you how the B-belly looks. This is my belly. It is a B. You can see the crease here.

The Dry Apron Panties have a second layer that I’m trying to pull out here. So the inner part comes up if you were to pull it just up over your belly. It comes up about this far. But we’re going to tuck it under the belly, and then pull the outer layer on it.

So, if you pull all the way up, for me, it comes almost up to my breast.This is probably about where it would sit on my particular B-belly.

So, the goal is for it to—it’s protecting. It’s both giving you regular panties. But it’s also protecting that area where the skin overlaps. So when you have the belly, and the belly is pressing against the other skin underneath it, it protects that.

The material on this, like I said, it feels a tiny bit like swimsuit material. But it [00:06:36] moisture. It’s some kind of athletic blend, I don’t know. It [00:06:38] moisture. And it helps protect that area between.

So, the whole point of these is to help keep that area from chafing and rubbing and preventing that intertrigo.

So, those are the Dry Apron Panties. I was provided two pairs of these by CarolAnn so that we could see which size would fit me. These are the 12’s. I am giving away a pair of these size 11’s. So these are exactly like the ones I’m wearing, but they’re super awesome red. And they’re one size smaller.

And so, I’m going to give these away to someone who can use them. So if this looks like something that would be something that you would appreciate in your body if you have an apron belly or an overhanging belly, these are a size 11. They fit 52 ½” to 54 ½” hips. So, I like I said, it’s slightly smaller than mine.

My hips are about 59 inches. And these are the size 12. This is the size 11, 52” to 54” hips. I want you to comment on this video on YouTube and tag three friends. And I will pull and name to receive these for free a week after this video gets posted. I’m not sure exactly when I want to post that yet, so I will comment in the video description and tell you how long you have to do it and what the date is.

But in the next week, comment, tag three friends that you think this would also be useful for.

So, when I got these panties to review, CarolAnn sent me the sweetest note with the panties. And I actually want to read a little bit of it to you because, like I talked about at the beginning, this is such a sensitive subject. It’s embarrasing for us to talk about. We don’t like to talk about the way that larger bodies are different from smaller ones necessarily. We don’t like to talk about the ways that larger bodies need to be cared for because it sets us apart. It feels isolating and [00:08:40]. And it can cause us to be treated differently and discriminated against when we talk about the way that our bodies need to be treated.

CarolAnn has really been standing up and speaking about this in a way that’s really important.

So CarolAnn says:

“My dream is that this product will help many of our fat sisters. It was difficult at first to approach women concerning their battles with rashes and infections of this kind. But once they open up about it, it was quite cathartic for many… well worth the small discomfort I had stepping up.”

“Now, I love bringing it up as something they may experience or know someone who does. Wear them in good health.”

So those are Dry Apron panties, and thanks for watching.

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Lindley Ashline

Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.

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