IPEED: how we rate leakage

Absorbency numbers on a packet tell you what a product can hold in a lab. They tell you nothing about the moment it lets go in real life. IPEED is built for that moment.

Initial Payload Egress Event Detected is the first point, during our testing, at which a product fails to contain. We record when it happens, in which scenario, and how far it gets. Then we rate it on one of four levels.

The four levels

None

No detectable escape across the full test cycle. The product did its job from start to finish.

Mild

Minor escape contained entirely by the product or close-fitting clothing. Nothing a wearer would notice mid-task, and no visible mark.

Noticeable

Escape a wearer would feel and need to manage, prompting a change or a trip to the bathroom, but still held short of outer clothing.

Strong

A containment failure that reaches outer clothing. The outcome the entire category exists to prevent.

Why a named criterion

Two reasons. First, consistency: when every review uses the same four levels, against the same six scenarios, the scores actually compare. A Mild on a shaped pad means the same thing as a Mild on a washable brief.

Second, plain language. Most men come to this with no vocabulary for it, because nobody talks about it. A clear term, used the same way every time, makes a difficult subject easier to read about and easier to discuss with a GP, a partner or a pharmacist.

IPEED measures containment failure, not absorbency capacity. A product can have enormous capacity and still score badly on IPEED if it leaks before that capacity is reached, usually because of fit. For male anatomy, fit is very often the real story.

How it fits the wider score

IPEED sits inside our Containment Security Framework. It informs the Absorbency and Active category scores, and a Strong result in any everyday scenario caps how high a product's overall Dependability score can go, no matter how well it performs elsewhere. Reliability is the point.

On the trademark. IPEED is a criterion we coined for LeakedBriefs. A UK trademark application is pending. We use it openly here so readers understand exactly what our scores mean, and we will keep this page updated as the application progresses.

Want to see IPEED applied to a real product? The first reviews are in testing now. Start here while you wait, or read the articles.