We Need More Products to Fight Chub Rub

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With the arrival of June’s warm weather, I’ve been diving into the summer beauty guides in my favorite magazines ready to drop some dough on summer-specific skincare and cosmetics, like a new SPF or a lightweight foundation that won’t drip off in the heat.

However, there’s one product I’m baffled that editors have yet to include in their beauty lists, and that’s probably because so few brands actually make it. It’s not pretty, but it happens to be my “summer essential”: an anti-chafing cream for my thighs.

There are very few options for someone like me. I could go to a sporting goods store and pick up Gold Bond, or maybe Glide. But how lame is that? Not only are these products far from top-shelfie worthy, but they’re also targeted at men.

Monistat makes a Chafing Relief Powder Gel — which turns into a powder once applied and is a genuine lifesaver for sundress-wearers in the summer — but that’s just one product. And you have to buy it in the same aisle you pick up tampons and yeast infection cream. I can see why so many women resort to sprinkling baby powder between their thighs, or rubbing deodorant underneath their boobs in the summer.

Fortunately, a solution is coming: Enter Megababe, from The 12ish Style blogger Katie Sturino. “This is something people don’t want to talk about,” Sturino tells me over the phone. “No one wants to talk about thigh chafe or boob sweat.”

Sturino began developing a line of products at the end of last summer after she struggled through yet another year, she says, of sweating through sundresses.

What resulted was Megababe, launching on June 15th with products available for pre-order now. The line includes Thigh Rescue, a deodorant-like tube of anti-thigh chafe gel, and Bust Dust, which is an ultra-fine powder spray that soaks up boob sweat.

The products are made in the US — California and New Mexico, to be exact — and include “natural enough” ingredients, says Sturino (they’re talc free, paraben free, and non-toxic). They’re reasonably priced, too, with Thigh Rescue clocking in at just $14 per tube and Bust Dust at $16.

Sturino plans to launch the deodorant (called Rosy Pits) by the end of August, and eventually hopes to offer more beyond that, too. “If you have a problem that you don’t like talking about, we’re probably going to come get your back,” she says.