The right bra is like the perfect man: good-looking, supportive, and sure never to let you down. Its also just as hard to find. In the lingerie business, its common knowledge that the majority of women wear their bras in the wrong size. Ask around and you’ll hear percentages ranging from 70 to 85 percent. Whatever the exact numbers, the takeaway is that most women don’t feel as comfortable or look as good as they could. True, you may be among the minority that has it right, but it’s worth double-checking. The wrong bra can make you look fat or totally flat. It can make a young woman look dumpy and beyond her years. The right bra can give a fifty-five-year-old woman the bust of a thirty-year-old and will do more for her appearance than all the ant wrinkle creams in die world. So why, given all the money and energy we pour into our looks, do some women still consider it an indulgence to invest in a good bra? I mean, what sounds more frivolous than bra shopping? Purchasing a bra might give the same rush of excitement you get from buying other typically female tiling, like a new pair of heels or even a daring shade of lipstick, but it truly is an investment, and in most eases a necessity. More than any other article of lingerie, the right bra can dramatically alter your appearance, improve your comfort level, and change your outlook—the way you carry yourself, the way you are perceived, even the way you think. It sounds impossible, but it’s true: The right bra has the power to transform you.
But finding the right bra isn’t easy. You know the scenario: You walk into a department store or lingerie shop, wander around the racks looking for the same size you wore when you were eighteen. You pick up a few bras in that size, try them on, noticing the pinching feeling in the band, the pressing of the underwrite, or the gaping in the cups.None seems to fit quite right, so you make another round through the store. By the time you’re done, you’ve been there so long you can feel the salesperson thinking, “What is this woman doing?” You don’t want to leave empty-handed, so you buy the bra that seems like the best of the bunch. Guess what? Bad idea. Look, I know that the actual experience of bra shopping is infamously difficult, a groan-inducing chore often dreaded as much as getting waxed.
If you shop mainly at department stores, you have to wade through cluttered racks where merchandise is jammed together, categorized by brand rather than by purpose, with little attention to style, sizing, or color. The atmosphere is uninviting, and if there are any identifiable salespeople, they keep themselves busy avoiding the bewildered look in your eye. You wonder if they are intentionally ignoring you as you try to separate a bra that won’t let go of the tangled straps and clear plastic hangers that surround it. Discount stores are even tougher to negotiate. Sure, the prices may be right, but limits on how many items you can bring into the dressing room are a drag—and sometimes you can’t even try on lingerie. Attracted by a good deal, yon end up with three bras that never feel right. Its exhausting. But don’t lose hope: I’ve got lots of tricks that will make it easier to navigate around the land mines of lingerie sections.
Tags: bra size, bras, breast pictures, breast size, lingerie, nursing bras, push up bra