Heard this twice in this thread now, and gah! I was a B cup in olden times, and going into the bra section then was a piece of cake. The sun shone down upon me, a chorus sang, and it were as though angels said to me, “MOL, here is your bra.” It was that simple. Or maybe it just seemed that way in comparison to now when bra shopping is a miserable shit show in which all I do is bang my head against the wall and cry.
dragoncat, if 36B is too big for you, you’re not a 36B. 
Go to a Nordstrom or to a local independent lingerie store and get fitted by someone who knows what they’re doing (in other words, don’t go to Victoria’s Secret). Also, read this thread from another message board, or at least the first two posts.
Edit: Here’s a pertinent suggestion from that first post –
So you might want to start with trying a 34C.
Thank you! I can’t imagine being a C of any description, but I’ll try it.
Dragoncat, you may be surprised. I actually had a great experience at VS, and went up a cup size and down a band size and think actual cup size is smaller than what I was wearing.
MOL, maybe it’s just because all the cute colors and styles are always available for smaller cups?
But this amp goes up to eleven.
Yeah, but that eleven used to be eight!
It may depend on the measurer. I wanted to be re-measured, just to make sure I was at least looking at the right sizes to try and buy (which I’ve done for a year). The first woman I don’t know how screwed it and gave me a size smaller than I was. I tried, just in case, the bras at the size she offered. Eh… spillage ensued. I got resized by a different woman, and she said “You’re in between sizes, so yea, this size (the one I usually get, and had before the first measurer) will likely fit you”.
Even then, of course, the bras don’t always fit me, and the “down one cup size, up a band size” doesn’t always work with their stuff.
It also depends on the brand. I’ve been told by a fitter that if you know your correct size and try on a bra in that size in a particular brand and it doesn’t fit, don’t mess around with sizing up/down…just move on to another brand. Some brands are good for women whose breasts sit far apart on their ribcage, some are designed for breasts that are closer together, high, low, full all over, full at the bottom, etc. So it’s not just the sizing that’s an issue, it’s your shape, too.
Any men reading this read: this is why it’s a bad idea to surprise your female partner with a bra as a gift. Women must try bras on first to know how they fit.
OTOH: If you pay enough attention to her bras, and you read and get the size and brand and fit right, then it may work as a very nice gift. And it would show that you put some effort.
And yea, brand and style are important. Of about ten styles (if not more) in VS, only less than a handful are good for me. So I stock up on those before they go through their semi-common “redesigns”.
On women’s sizing: I have absolutely no clue what size I am in anything, but of course I’m also proportioned in a way that makes shirts that fit correctly a bit difficult to purchase. I absolutely try everything on before purchase, and don’t pay attention to the number. When shopping for dresses, for example, I’ll roam from 2 to 10, eyeballing the dresses for size and style, and try eight or ten on, then whittle the two or three that fit down for best fit and best style. As one of the earlier posters said, it’s not that women love to spend two hours buying a dress; it’s that it takes forever to find one that fits properly.
On bras: I had no idea that other women had such trouble with the sizing. When I was having issues with sizing, it was because I didn’t actually know my size. Went in for a professional sizing wearing a 36C bra, and walked out a declared 32G. A bit of finagling later, some purchases that weren’t perfect, and now I know I’m a 30E in most brands. I did find one brand, though, Soma, where I think the band size runs a little small, and their 32DDD fits absolutely perfectly. (I also love their products, and sales, so have made them my go-to bra shop.) Since all this drama got sorted out, though, I’ve only had one bad purchase - a swimsuit top (from elsewhere, not Soma) labeled 30E that most definitely wasn’t. I had a friend who’s an A/B try it on, and it was only very slightly big. So I suppose bikini tops (which I don’t have much experience purchasing) for some reason aren’t standardized to bra sizes?
I’ve more than once considered a tailor, particularly for blouses, which are impossible to find in a flattering style, but haven’t done it yet for fear of the bill.
Tailors are not necessarily that expensive, depending on where you and what you need them for. I go to them on occasion, as my sister sends me stuff that fits elsewhere BUT the length, so I go to tailors and get them hemmed. It’s still a fraction of what I would pay for a pair of those used jeans (sis has expensive taste), so I do it.
True about who measures you. For me, I also go up a cup size for a little over a week a month. But, there’s only about two styles at VS that work for everyday for me. Padding should be verboten at a certain size.