I was slow to move to the low cut look…but now that I’ve adapted I love it. Now I can’t stand to wear my older, high-waisted pants. I recently purchased two pair of Levi’s 518 low-rise jeans, size 5 and size 7. I didn’t have the time to try them on properly, so I just bought two sizes to make sure I got one that would fit. I paid $26 each.

These jeans are found in the juniors section at my local department stores. Being a 30-something gal who can usually fit junior sizes, I took a chance on these. There are many size, color and fabric combinations available. Sizes ranged from 0 to 13, in short, medium and long varieties. Several fabric choices are also available, from rigid slub denim, tinted slub, mid-weight to broken dark wash. The various fabric styles come in either 100% cotton; medium stonewash stretch or jagger stretch of cotton/polyester; or blackened navy streaky stretch, bleached blue, medium parras or coastal sand of cotton/spandex.

The various sizes and lengths give you good odds of finding a comfortable fit. And boy howdy are these pants low! If you do not want your underwear to show, low-rise panties are a must. If you go with regular rise panties everyone will know your color of the day without too much effort. This should not come as a surprise, but you will have midriff exposure unless you wear an incredibly long-waisted top. Having said that, the pants are not ridiculously low. I’ve seen girls wearing pants so low that you know they must be shaving or waxing their muff and you can see their butt crack staring up at you in a bizarre form of reverse cleavage. The 518s are low and sexy…no denying it, but they are still Levi’s and aren’t so low they look slutty.

Alas, while these jeans are very sexy, I could not keep them.

Take 1
The size fives fit fine at the waist. The waistband was snug enough that I didn’t feel like my rear was on display. Unfortunately, the fabric was so tight on my legs that the denim gathered into unsightly rolls on the backs of my thighs. Seeing that these were not going to work, I quickly opted to try the sevens. I didn’t just take off these jeans – I peeled the size fives off. My legs are relatively long, and I had to peel them down farther than I care to admit. The fit through the crotch was comfy. While snug, again due to trying to cram into a junior size 5, I did not experience the dreaded "camel toe" effect. Although, based on how prevalent CT is these days, I think some people actually like the feel of a demin seam wedged into and along their cootchie. (I hope those people are not going commando!)

Take 2
I pulled the size sevens up and noticed the legs were roomier right away. The legs were snug, but comfortable with no unsightly wrinkles this time. This time the problem lay with the waist. The size sevens allowed for a distinct gap in the back, especially when bending over. So even though I was wearing low-rise underwear, I could reach back and feel the bottom edge of the thong waistband without reaching into the jeans. This tells me that it would be visible to anyone behind me when I bent over. They looked fine when I was standing upright, but the gap was always there when bending over. Some people might like the option of showing off their panties, or their butt crack if going commando, but that really wasn’t the look I was going for, so I opted to return the jeans. I’m a bit conservative, so even though I was not comfortable with the fit, they may have been fitting exactly as intended by the good folks at Levi’s.

Because I returned them, I cannot report on how well they retain the color and fit after washing.


Recommended: Yes