Underwear Thesis: Organic Basics Underwear Review

I hope you’re excited for my latest installment of Underwear Thesis, where I review cotton (and cotton adjacent) underwear in the hopes of finding the most comfortable pair! Today’s post is dedicated to my honest opinion of Organic Basics underwear review. It’s a brand that offers so many options and not just underwear. Plus it was highly recommended by one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Jess Ann Kirby. So it was time to place a (rather expensive) order and see what’s what when it comes to panties from Organic Basics. Let’s dig in!

If you’re new to my Underwear Thesis, I encourage you to read these posts before proceeding:

My Totally Unfiltered Review of Organic Basics Underwear

Please keep in mind that these are my personal opinions of the product. If you love Organic Basics underwear, that’s great! I applaud you! But if you’re on the fence about whether to buy them or not, this is what I think you need to know in order to be an informed consumer.

Styles Tried and Price

• Organic Cotton Super High-Rise Briefs 2-pack, navy, size large – $45
• Organic Cotton Rib-Flex Super High-Rise Briefs 2-Pack, grey melange, size large – $55
• Organic Cotton Briefs 2-pack, dusty red, size large – $45

Fabric Quality + Details

Grade: C

I love how soft and, for lack of a better word, robust the underwear from Organic Basics is. You can really tell the fabric is high quality! However, after wearing the underwear for a while, I realized that the fabric is just too heavy. I honestly felt like the underwear added bulk to my butt… and not in a good way. Sometimes when I had them on under jeans, it felt like I was wearing a diaper. Not a great feeling.

I also felt that the stitching and attention to detail would be better, given the price point. I was surprised to see stitching that didn’t line up and glimpses of the elastic at the waistband.

Manufacturing Quality

Grade: B

The underwear itself is well-made. The stitching is sturdy and has the right amount of stretch to it. I just wish the stitching lined up nicely and was neater, like I mentioned before.

Ethical Practices and Sustainability

Grade: A+

Sustainability is truly the core mission of Organic Basics, which is a big part of why I wanted to review them for Underwear Thesis. Their number one rule is to design everything to last, which I do feel like they’ve done. Organic Basics is also an industry leader in developing GOTS certified materials, like organic cotton. They also use recycled nylon, cashmere, and wool, TENCEL Lyocell made from wood pulp and other proprietary fabrics that are optimized to reduce environmental impact.

I loved that Organic Basics also lists TONS of details about their fabrics including number of years in business, how many hours employees work each day and weekly, the employee benefits, audits and certifications and more. This is honestly the most robust, behind-the-scenes peek into a brand’s production that I’ve ever seen.

Organic Basics even has a secondary website that is low impact! This means that special care has been given to the way their site works to minimize the amount of electricity needed for the data transfer of information on it. It’s a different shopping experience, but one that I hope more people are willing to use in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Inclusivity

Grade: C

Keep in mind that this grade is specifically about their underwear inclusivity. The narrow size range that Organic Basics offers for panties is truly what pulls down their grade. Currently, the range extends from XS to XL… which isn’t very inclusive at all!

While there is a nice level of diversity amongst the models that the brand uses, I would really love to see even more… as well as diversity among body type that is extended to the underwear portion of the site. Being totally fair, it’s obvious that this is a value of Organic Basics and one that they are actively implementing on other products. So maybe it just hadn’t made it to their underwear collections yet? Let’s hope!

Washability

Grade: A

Each pair of underwear that I tested from Organic Basics washed well without becoming misshapen or stretched out. I air dry all of my underwear as a rule and did not experience any shrinkage.

Fit & Comfort

Grade: C-

And this is where the Organic Basics under review gets a little… complicated. I was not at all happy about the fit of any of the styles I tried. My biggest complaint is how inconsistent the sizing is across the various cuts. For example, the Super High-Rise Briefs fit as I expected a size large to fit. But then the Briefs in the same size are way too big and sort of float around my body because of it. And thennnn the Rib-Flex Super High-Rise Briefs are almost unwearable because the waist is SO tight. But they all came with the same size chart!

I also found the gusset to be very narrow, especially on the briefs. And lastly, the wide waistband simply did NOT work for me. It cut into my body, creating muffin tops where I swear there weren’t muffins to begin with. In general, I was really disappointed in the fit.

Overall thoughts

Grade: C

I really tried to make the underwear from Organic Basics works for me. And not just because I spent SO much money on them! I applaud their sustainability and ethical practices so much and really wanted to be able to support a brand with such a strong mission. But at the end of the day, fit is the most important thing to me… and these just didn’t cut it.

I was really disappointed in how thick the underwear’s fabric was as well. Given the poor fit and the thickness of the fabric, it felt like I had a diaper on… which is not my favorite feeling. I do think that I could wear some of them to bed potentially since I don’t sleep wearing pants. But that’s a very specific use case for underwear that costs $22.50 a pair!

Ready for even more Underwear Thesis reviews?? Catch up on my previous reviews:

Photography by Jojotastic.