Growing up, my mother put a lot of emphasis on being dainty and delicate. According to her, as ladies, it was our duty to always be perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, and present ourselves as demurely as possible. So it was kind of a given that my clothing could never be ruined or marred in any way, shape, or form. Nor could I ever give any sort of biological impression that I was actually human such as letting peers know that I was capable of producing sweat. This led to her being an avid user of dress shields on all my clothing the second I hit puberty.
Every blouse, every pretty dress that we owned had these little patches sewn into the armpits. Not only would my sweat never stain or damage the fabrics, the dress shields also protected them from excess deodorant product. Though I would never bother using these nowadays, they were a memorable part of my youth. We all had something in the way of unmentionables that our mothers insisted we use religiously. What were some of yours?