The side hustle. I’m not talking about stocks, copywriting, Depop selling, transcribing content or selling online courses. I’m talking about your filthy, dirty knickers. Well, in this case I’m talking about mine.

In this economy, anyone who doesn’t look at their knickers at the end of the day and sees £30 waiting is missing a trick. Not literally, that would be ideal if I discovered I could birth money, preferably notes. Alas, I’ve not mastered that yet. 

If you’ve found yourself here, I’d hazard a guess you’ve googled ‘’how to sell my underwear online”, out of curiosity at the very least. If you have, you’ll know a quick search brings up an assortment of online traders claiming to be the solution to your knicker-selling needs. My personal favourite and aptly named, Snifffr with the encouraging tagline “To sell used panties is no different to selling anything else. You have to make it happen!” So, why do people buy used knickers? According to Pantydeal.com “For used panty fetishists, the thrill is in the smell.” Noted.

Although my disdain for the Americanisation of the word ‘knickers’ into ‘panties’ tempts me into closing the tab. I persevere. I want to test out the sign up process for the different sites, so I proceed to sign up as a Seller on Pantydeal and am hit with the first real road blocker. A username?! I haven’t created a username that wasn’t just my name for 15 years. Obviously it has to be sexy. Got to be sexy, but sexy can be funny too, I tell myself. To my horror “cutenstinky” is taken. I settled on a username with 69 at the end. I feel “69” adds a feel of just how filthy I am for the buyers.

I scroll to put my age. 18 is thankfully the youngest you can select, but there’s no verification required yet. To my surprise you can scroll all the way to 90, but why stop there? Who says 91 year olds don’t want to sell their knickers? There’s a market for everything as they say, perhaps I’ll dig through my Granny’s washing basket when I next visit.

Frankly at this point, I’m worried about my lack of moral compass or concern for being a purveyor of stinky knicks. I just made a joke about my Granny’s knickers, I’m a monster. 

My bravado crumbles quickly. It all seemed fine until I started browsing. Now I’m logged in. I go onto the Sellers page and am greeted with profile pictures, rows of bums, thongs, and one full vulva shot. To be totally candid, I’m on edge. My stomach muscles tense slightly and my hands go clammy. Switching over to the Buyers page is exactly what you might imagine. More rows of profiles, with a surprising amount of faces littered between the anonymous grey human outline. It's clearly not a point of embarrassment for these Buyers to be stinky knicker buyers, who to be fair, are mostly blokes. Not to be gender specific, but the Seller/Buyer split has quite a clear distinction, at least within the first few pages. Is it a form of sexual objectification? Yes, and reducing someone to just their body or a specific part of their body is, infamously, morally troubling. 

I close the tab. Pantydeal doesn't feel like the platform for me. I take a deep breath and remind myself that, according to other Sellers' prices, around £10-£30 is sitting underneath me. Get it together. Just objectify yourself, for god’s sake! The reality of this isn’t as easy as first seemed. I thought hiding behind a screen would make it easy for me. It doesn’t, but I remind myself it’s basically the same Vinted but instead of “New with Tags” it's “Fresh with Vag”. Who knows what the person I sold my jeans to is doing with them? Jizzing on them, maybe?

Do I tell my boyfriend? He may have some questions as I walked into the lounge asking where the stamps are with a pair of dirty pants in hand. “How would you feel if I tried selling my used underwear online?" He’s pretty relaxed about it but isn’t overly encouraging. I’m first and foremost, pleased that he isn’t already familiar with the logistics of selling/buying used underwear. It would have been distracting if he reeled off the names of Snifffr or Pantydeal as sites he was already acquainted with.

Without overthinking it (anymore that I already have) I take a picture of my bum in a pair of knickers that have enough crotch to capture the smell but not so much that they'd work as a substitute parachute from a low angle in slightly dimmed lighting. I decided to give Snifffr a try instead. To my disdain this profile set up is more laborious than I was expecting, even down to selecting the style of your pubes and boob size, which the four options available made me chuckle. This website was undoubtedly built by a man, who was probably keen to see huge boobs.

To clarify, this is the identity check. Well, if I didn't before, I now feel totally safe storing my personal data and naked pictures on this website.

It's at this point I decided that Snifffr is definitely not the platform for me either as I see the profile checklist getting closer to ''Subscription". No way am I paying a monthly fee to this website. Back to the drawing board, I need to do more research. After spending some time on Reddit because that's the only place I can find totally unfiltered answers, I see suggestions like Sofia Gray or Kinkie, but most of the buyers on those are looking for sexting, videos and phone calls. For actually selling used underwear, Etsy was the place with the highest success rate. Other comments include the importance of making conversation with the buyers, who will usually put in requests and expect them to be met if they're going to turn over the cash, I was of course expecting this. Who knew! Handmade gifts, vintage items, craft supplies and all the used underwear you could want. I spend a bit of time on Etsy, not totally convinced by my reddit pals. To my surprise, there are sellers who are seemingly flogging their knickers with success, and 5* reviews!

Before this point, I was bored and disappointed that I hadn't instantly made £30 pp (per pant) despite barely making it over the first hurdle on Snifffr. This side hustle takes time, patience, time, and I am the sort of impatient person who drops something if I'm not instantly good at it. Origami? Gone. Running. Nope. Selling pants? To be continued. If your goal is to make money quickly, this isn't it but Etsy and it's dirty 5* knicker reviewers give me hope. I create a new Etsy account and start the setup process, but not before my search history does me, literally, dirty, as I'm greeted with suggested purchases.

Immediately, it is far easier to set up an Etsy shop than a Snifffr account. It's actually so much nicer to use, I'm almost excited to start uploading pictures of my knickers. I only have one at the moment, so I should probably increase my stock. I spend a bit more time researching other sellers on Etsy for inspiration. I note that the successful shops have a drop down customisation box.

This seems reasonable until I continue my search into other shops.

Sigh. This is beginning to weigh on my soul. Peepee and poopoo? Jesus. 

Look team, this is not a quick win. I haven’t even uploaded a picture of my bum yet or had any creepy online requests, I’m losing faith and I’m kind of bored and not horny anymore. Maybe this isn’t the side hustle for me. I’ve taken you as far as I have the energy to go for now, but hopefully I’ve given you something to think about. Even if that’s putting you off the idea of selling your knickers, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

One time an old boss of mine offered me money for my pants after working all day. I should have taken it and I probably wouldn't be here writing this. Maybe I’ll pick this back up in January when I’m broke. If you decide this is the side hustle for you my dirty-undie-selling friends, I hope that people on the internet send you requests that don't make you want to scream and not go outside again, good luck.