Okay, well, here’s the deal. My wife hates shopping. My wife will not “consult” an expert herself. My wife wants a more comfortable bra. She knows my interest in breasts and has tasked me with finding out how to go about getting a more comfortable one.
She has mostly been wearing Frederick’s Xtreme Cleavage bras and something from Victoria’s Secret (Body?). She doesn’t want anything with an underwire.
Any suggestions? Where do I start?
:dubious: The way I got really great bras was to go down to the famous bra lady at the department store and let her take a look at me. Yes, she got right into the changing room with me and shoved me around, but the result was a perfect bra fit. How anyone is supposed to get your wife the perfect bra without actually looking at her is beyond me. Can you maybe take a few photos along?
Without, erm, hands-on expert advice, she’s going to have to try a bunch of different bras on. She can do this for free by biting the bullet and going to a shop that has a wide variety of bras and bra brands and using the dressing room, or she can do it expensively by buying one at a time by catalog/online until she hits one she likes.
She may have to redefine what she thinks an acceptable-looking bra is. Frederick’s and Victoria’s Secret market much more on the looks than the comfort of their stuff, even though they pay lip service to comfort. Xtreme cleavage etc. is uncomfortable by nature, since it requires squishing flesh and resisting gravity while minimizing coverage; you get lots of pressure on scant skin that way. You get comfort by evenly distributing pressure – wider straps, a wider band underneath, cups that fit your natural curve instead of reshaping, etc. You also get comfort with materials that breathe, which may not come in as many exciting colors, lacy textures, hip prints, etc. as your synthetics.
She may get nightmares of having become an old lady, but I’d take her to JCPenney’s or some other fuddy-duddy department store for a few hours of trying things on. If you go on a slow day, you might be able to get away with going in the dressing room with her to reassure her* she still looks sexy in “boring” lingerie. I’ve seen couples do this. Often the bra-trier-onner will want the bra-ogler to wait until each bra is fully on, for the reveal.
Having suffered through the fitting-room ordeal, if successful, she can settle back in to ordering more of the same model, and not have to suffer until she changes weight or gets enough older to [del]sag[/del] succumb to gravity more.
I found the Playtex 18-Hour bras to be the most comfortable bras I have ever had. They’ve got some serious bosom engineering going on there, and you can tell.
The only downside is the latex, and that as time goes by and the cotton fuzzy stuff on the bands wears and pills, they become abominably itchy in hot, humid weather. If her customary environs have A/C, then she might like them very much. But if she’s required to tough out a Midwestern summer with no A/C, after she’s been wearing them for a while, she won’t.
A plus is that they’re available everywhere–Wal-Mart, Penneys, etc.
So after I got tired of being hot and itchy every summer, I switched to the all-cotton Leading Lady bras from herroom.They are comfy and I like them a lot. And herroom.com has a generous return policy, so if it doesn’t fit, send it back.
Many of the women in my life swear by a local speciality shop called the Wizard of Bras. As described above, you’ll get someone in the changing room with you to measure you every which way. Not for the squeamish, I guess, but the result is apparently very much worth it.
Not to get too personal, but has she told you what size she thinks she is? This may influence which brands and styles would be most appropriate.
Yeah, I think she just needs to go the store and try a bunch on. A better lingerie shop might actually be less tiresome for her, that way there is someone to help her narrow down the choices and do all the fetching and such.
I’d suggest bringing along her favorite fitted top, that way she can see how the bra makes her look under her clothes. It does make a difference. A boring white bra starts to gain some appeal when you realize it makes you look a little … better positioned, lets say.
If she wants a more comfortable bra she may not be wearing the right size, which means either a) trying a bunch on or b) getting measured at the store in question. Sizes vary from store to store a bit, like everything else.
Why doesn’t she want underwires? If her problem is wrong sizing, it may be more comfortable for her once she figures out her size (and honestly, I find a lot of non-underwire bras just look blah).
She wears 34B currently.
She doesn’t want underwires, because she says they’re starting to pinch and because she’s been told by a couple different women now that “underwires are bad for you.”
I’m in a puzzle. She definitely wants this answer without “hands on” research. She is horrified at the thought of being measured by a professional and she thinks that “trying on” bras is a waste of time because it doesn’t tell you how you’re going to feel after wearing them for hours.
A professional will know how a bra feels after several hours. She’ll be able to recommend styles. The professional will be able to look at a woman and guess, without measuring, the size and style of bra that might work best.
Your wife is REALLY going to have problems with a mammogram.
Dang, and I thought *I * had a shopping phobia. I’m sorry, but I don’t think she’s got a hope in hell without actually going and trying stuff on.
They shouldn’t pinch if she’s wearing the correct fit. Underwires are discouraged if you’re nursing, as they can contribute to mastitis. If she’s not breastfeeding or pregnant, this isn’t an issue. I’m not aware of other health issues with them, but IANABE (bra expert).
She ought to give it a go before she dismisses it as a waste of time. The people who’ve measured me in the past have been professional and courteous, and given me no reason to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable. They gave good advice about fit and were able to guide me through the sizing differences between brands. I know my shoe size, but I never buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first to test the fit, and - unlike my breasts - my feet aren’t prone to changing sizes with small weight fluctuations.
I think she’ll get better results in her search for comfort if she rethinks her shopping strategy.
The company that makes Spanx (those form fitting body shaping things) now make a bra called the bra-llelujah that’s supposedly all the rage. No wires, wide straps, no clasp in the back.
a) How many years has she been wearing a 34B? One can change bra sizes without changing shirt sizes.
b) How old are her 34B bras? They do stretch out after a while, and if you’ve got a lot of fancy cantilever action going on, it might make them less comfortable if stretched out.
c) If underwires didn’t pinch before but do now, it’s very very likely she’s changed size. If underwires pinched before and she just didn’t *mind *it until now, then by all means avoid those particular underwires, but don’t give up on them completely if she hasn’t tried other styles first.
d) What about underwires are supposedly bad for you? If she’s worried about wire conducting cell phone rays and giving her breast cancer or contacting the aliens, well, I can’t help you with the larger problem, but many underwires are made of plastic these days. (If she believes anything a couple of women tell her without reasons or specifics at all, you’re SOL, pal, and you have my sympathy.)
All that said, I don’t wear underwires much myself anymore, though I haven’t ruled them out completely. I just found a brand/style that fits, and it’s wireless.
e) Does she try on shoes before she buys them? Exact same deal. Of course you’ll sometimes get shoes that felt great in the store that don’t work out for walking, but that doesn’t make the trying-on a waste of time.
Really, shoes and bras are a pretty good analogy, fitting-wise, except that most people change bra size more often than shoe size. But not all wearers of Size 9B find all Size 9B shoes bearable.
Of course, whatever size she thinks she is, is probably not the size she really is (I was sure surprised as heck when I got measured by a pro).
acsenray, really, she should be seen by a pro at least once. I recommend Nordstrom’s, Pentagon City (you’re DC metro, right?). Although I had a well-earned loathing of underwire bras, with the fitter’s help, I found several that were very comfy. The critical thing being, finding the right fit. The fitter also found several non-underwire ones that fit nicely.
But really, she needs a pro to measure her.
Oh - and if she just wants something to minimize the bounce-age a bit, and prevent nippular poke-through, there’s a mail-order brand called Decent Exposures - I know I’ve recommended their products before. They don’t look all that lovely, and don’t provide anything resembling uplift, but hoooboy are they comfortable - darn near ruined me for more traditional bras.
Sorry, I have to agree that she’s just gonna have to suck it up. I don’t like shopping for jeans either, but sometimes you just gotta do it.
I don’t know where you are, but I recommend a high-end lingerie shop, if you can find one where you live.
I like shopping but I hate, HATE bra shopping, because it involves so much dressing/undressing, etc. My high-end lingerie shop makes this painless. It even serves wine (which goes a long way toward making it painless). Has plush robes and sleek blouses in the dressing rooms so you can cover up between bouts of finding other models to try, or put on the blouse they provide to see what the bra looks like with clothes on, without putting back on whatever you’re wearing in case it’s complicated.
Almost any department store has a bra consultant that can do the measuring required. The high-end store will be able to do this, too.
There is a formula, though, for figuring out your size, and it’s available online.
ETA: According to my bra expert, 80% of American women are wearing the wrong size bra. She will feel better in a bra of the correct size.
Wow, 15 replies and almost 300 page views, and no one has asked for photos of Mrs acsenrey boobage to start the research.
Another voting for a pro fitting - I was horrified the first time I had it done and discovered that I’d been wearing two cupsizes too small! But now I have bras that actually fit properly (I’d always been told that the fabric in between the cups should sit against the sternum, I’d always believed this to be a myth), and are comfortable. Your wife needs to get help to find at least one bra that fits right, instead of fitting ‘kind of’ because that’s the size she thinks she is. Once that’s done she can easily find more on her own.
Also, different styles and manufacturers will fit differently, so 34B in Playtex’s soft cup will not be the same size as 34B in Victoria Secret’s pushup bra and so on. Really, hands-on is the only way to make sure the lingerie department is not an exercise in frustration and wasted money.
Sure! Where and when?