4 DIY Sweat Pads Every Excessive Sweater Should Avoid

From the outside, the fact that underarm sweating would stop people from going out in public or raising their hand at work might seem like an exaggeration. But when you’re constantly anxious and stressed about sweat marks, you'd go to desperate measures to appear dry — like stuff your underarms with paper towels or even line your pits with maxi pads.

I’ve heard every trick in the book to conceal sweat marks — and tried many of these makeshift sweat pad hacks as well. But often, these spur-of-the-moment solutions cause more headache than relief.

Here are just a few DIY sweat pad tactics out there and why you should avoid them:

1. Stuffing your shirt with paper towels

Shoving paper towels in your shirt is not a sustainable solution to underarm sweat. You sweat through the paper towels in a matter of minutes and have to excuse yourself throughout the day to deal with the situation, which is distracting and time-consuming.

Paper towels are limited in their absorbency, especially when it comes to excessive underarm sweat. They rarely capture all the sweat that results from a stressful day at work or night out with friends. And when excess sweat mixes with your antiperspirant, it forms yellow marks that wear down your nice dress shirts fast.

2. Sticking maxi pads to the interior of your shirt

The maxi pad turned sweat pad is never a good idea. For starters, the pad itself won't catch all of your underarm sweat unless the pad sits tightly against your armpit. As you move around during the day, that's rarely the case. Regardless, sweat can easily reach your dress shirt or blouse.

For heavy sweaters, maxi pads can quickly fill up with sweat, become heavy and lose their adhesiveness. As a result, they must be changed or adjusted throughout the day.

When sticking and removing an adhesive pad from your shirt, it rips away fibers and leaves behind a sticky residue that often can’t be washed out. Repeated use can quickly put your nice dress shirts out of commission.

3. Adhering maxi pads directly to your underarm

At first glance, the maxi pad trick might seem like an ingenious idea. Wedding photographer Randy Durham did after learning this trick from a client. But when peeling off the pad (and the hundreds of hairs that came with it), he said the experience resembled Steve Carell getting his chest waxed in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” As you can imagine, sticking (and removing) an adhesive pad to your skin causes reddening, irritation and burning pain. Over time, it can lead to skin discoloration and other issues as well.

Still, many men and women who suffer from axillary hyperhidrosis will do whatever it takes to curb underarm sweating from showing.

4. Pinning socks or trash bags to the inside of your shirt

Yes, we’re serious with this hack. While trash bags are intended to stop leakage, they create a heat cauldron for your armpits, which only intensifies sweating. The swishing sound can also become noisy as you move around throughout the day.

If you’re desperate enough, pinning socks to the inside of your shirt might seem reasonable enough. Cotton socks will soak the sweat right up, but like sweat pads that don’t breathe, your sweat has no way to escape, meaning you'll have to carry it around all day long.

Whether you're just entertaining the idea or currently using maxi pads, paper towels or DIY sweat shields to absorb underarm sweat, these supposed sweat solutions might be doing more harm than good. But you don’t have to resort to these embarrassing methods to conceal your sweat marks.

The Painless Substitute for Sweat Pads

Your DIY sweat pads were probably the product of desperation. Maybe stress sweating got the best of you before a big presentation, and the idea just stuck.

But you don’t have to ruin your clothing or endure pain all in the name of dry pits. Thompson Tee undershirts have a patented sweat proof barrier built into the underarms, so the work of securing your sweat pads is done for you. And because this technology absorbs sweat and releases it as vapor, your sweat escapes without the world seeing it.

Thompson Tee Sweat Proof Underarm Barrier

We’ve heard far too many stories of customers resorting to crazy tactics to hide underarm sweat marks before discovering our product. We created our undershirts for the excessive sweaters out there like us, and we encourage you to give it a try risk-free! As a bonus, take 20% off Thompson Tee's today with code TEES20.