A 2001 story for Stuff, a British men’s magazine.


EDIBLE UNDIES
The magically sad ingredients of a classic sex shop novelty.

Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose
Have you ever licked the coating off a Benadryl capsule?  If so, you’ll have some idea of the erotic taste sensation that awaits.  The “fabric” from which these sweet nothings are spun is exactly the same as the substance pharmaceutical manufactures use to give pills a slick film coating.  Mmmm…time-release flavor!

Potassium Stearate
This is soap.  It’s also found in shaving cream and acne lotions.  It’s a bitterly alkaline powder with a fatty odor no woman can resist.

Propylene Glycol Monostearate

This waxy substance is the binder for products that just melt at the 98.6° touch of human warmth — things like lipstick, sunscreen, and suppositories.  This chemical servant also helps your non-dairy creamer mix and keeps your instant cake batter lump free.  And still scientists insist on calling it a “Fatty Ester.”

Glyceryl MonoAcetate
A thick, colorless liquid used as a dye solvent, in leather tanning, explosive manufacture, and to enhance lovemaking the world over.

Saccharin
The substance the FDA has been trying to ban since 1911.  Though the jury’s still officially out, the sweetener’s been linked to bladder cancer in lab rats like yourself.  Of course, you’d have to consume 800 times your body weight in undies before you started to piss blood.  At which point you’d deserve it.

Artificial flavors
Banana, chocolate, cherry, strawberry, cotton candy, mint, passion fruit, pina colada, mai tai, and, pink champagne — all varieties taste pretty much the same.  Except thepiña colada .  That tastes like sun lotion.

Citric Acid
The delicious sunny flavor in citrusy foods, soft drinks, and candy, it’s also used as an industrial solvent for rust and scale, and in janitorial solutions used to clean bathroom walls, toilets, and urinals.

Starch and Sugar
You can never get enough starch and sugar.

Tatrazine (Yellow #5)
This industrial waste (byproduct) is a derivative of coal tar.  It can cause asthma, hives, blurred vision, and purple spotting of the skin in allergic consumers, and still Austria and Norway won’t allow it in food.

Style
Since they first hit the shelves in 1976, Edible Undies have been followed by digestible bras, pasties, condoms, and tattoos.  Yet none of these quite duplicate the classic styling of the original.  A thong with the texture of a plastic bag, this sleek unisex garment with its tie-flaps jauntily over the exposed derrière looks perfect in the boudoir as well as any hospital X-ray room.

Sophistication
Though manufactured in Murrieta, California, your Edible Undies sport continental French and English labeling.  Leave them on your coffee table next to the Diary of Anaïs Nin, and people will think you can read.

Endurance
Though these sweet nothings readily melt when exposed to the corrosive effects of saliva, the gluey residue that’s remains is more stubborn than the Taliban.  Not only will it obligingly coat your tongue like a year of hangovers, it can also adhere to your chin and privates, making a good shower obligatory, especially if you’ve chosen the chocolaty brown color.

Good Intentions
Edible Undies are not only full of delicious ingredients, but also jam-packed with advisories and helpful hints.  Boxes feature disclosures about the packaging not being edible as well as the declaration that the product is “cruelty free” (to animals anyway.)