Spanx Higher Power Review

The Verdict: Love, love, loved it til it fell apart after a week and I ended up throwing it away.

About Spanx: Higher Power is made of 87% nylon/13% Lycra spandex.  It has a cotton crotch.  The material is like thick pantyhose with a band around the top which is supposed to help it from slipping down.  There is no band around the thigh area which keeps the leg area from looking like sausages. 

My Experience:  I first saw Spanx on QVC.  One of the sales gals was talking about how no one, even if they are skinny, should be going without a shaper.  Shapers hold in bulges and bumps and hide panty lines and just generally smooth things out so that clothes drape more attractively on the body.  After a few before and after shots I was sold.  I'm always trying to suck in some of my fat to look a little better or to get my jeans zipped but there were few options.  Girdles or control top hose are awful and like chastity belts.  So tight that if you had to pee urgently while wearing one you may as well just let 'er rip right there as you're not likely to get those awful things down in time. 

So when I saw Spanx Higher Power I knew I had to give them a try.  I did and loved them!  They held in some of those bumps and lumps and made my butt look way better in pants as none of my panty lines showed.  I sized up to make sure they would fit and not squeeze me to death which turned out to be a good move on my part.  The larger size fit perfectly and was not difficult to squeeze my body into. They didn't pinch or make fat stick out anywhere else and I felt so much better about my body when wearing Spanx.

Higher Power held everything in from my knees to just under my bust.  The top didn't roll down and the legs didn't roll up which totally amazed me.  It was the perfect shaper!  At one point I lost 20 pounds and was shopping to go down one size in pants but was actually able to go down two sizes as I was wearing my Spanx.  They shaped my waistline in such a way that everything in the general area was held in and I was able to get the even smaller size.  Yay.

The only thing I did not like at that point was the weird, almost crotchless, aspect.  I'm not sure what the point is but there's this weird double crotch thing that opens completely up.  For what?  Don't know for certain but I guess if you use your imagination you could think of a few reasons.  That open flappy fabric felt weird to me so I sewed up the crotch on mine. 

I washed my Spanx by hand and hung them over the towel bar in my bathroom to dry.  They normally dried overnight but sometimes took a little longer in humid or cold weather.  After a few washings though my Spanx started to fall apart.  There is a double layer of material in the outer thigh area that started to rip and come loose with each wearing, washing, and pulling up and down.  I was very disappointed in that and tried to sew them back together.  It got to the point where I was sewing up the holes in my Spanx every night in preparation for work the next day and they started to look like Frankenstein Spanx after too long.  I ended up just throwing them away within 6 weeks. 

Final Thoughts:  At first I really loved my Spanx Higher Power but after washing it twice it started to fall apart and I could not rescue it with any amount of sewing.  I got it to last 6 weeks by sewing it back together after each washing but it was almost like an obsession.  They were totally worth the $35 for the way they made me feel and look but they were flimsy and did not hold up.  I have since purchased a similar product called Lipo in a Box that has held up under much use for over 2 years now and are still going strong.