I'm really sorry it's been so long since my last post. I'll come out with the truth- I need a new computer. The last few posts have lost my photos, and have been so frustrating to try and finish, I just needed a break. I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted!! I still haven't replaced my computer.... You, my readers, deserve better!
What has been going on with me, you ask? Or maybe not.... Are you still even out there reading this?
Well, this year- next week, actually- my big brother will be getting married!! I was asked to be a bridesmaid, and am thrilled at how flattering the dress is. I can even wear my normal bra with it (with a small amount of alterations). All that has been really exciting. As a bachelorette gift for my future sister-in-law, I went into the yet-uncharted-by-me territory of corsets. I was pleasantly surprised with the cost & quality of what I bought from Corset Story. I'm rather jealous that she owns it now! I want one for myself- I'll add that to my wishlist!
I did a few months at a water aerobics class with a pregnant friend of mine (who has since given birth to the sweetest little peanut, Ashley!), and for that, I bought a tankini from Panache- the Tao Tankini which has been discontinued in many places. I wish I would have gotten a one piece for the class. With all the jumping & bouncing in the water, the tankini kept sliding up! But I do have to say that I felt very supported! The center gore of the tankini was quite high & my sternum wasn't a fan! But I really like the quasi-camouflage pattern- it hid my little tummy quite nicely.
The website Wellfitting has launched. It's a site for those of us in the USA to buy Comexim bras with US shipping! No more shipping from Poland! Yay! And Julia Szopa and her sister have done such a great job with it!! I still have yet to order from them, but that is more of a monetary issue than not wanting to shop with them (once that can of worms is open....!!) Comexim has really beautiful bras & they are well constructed. I suggest giving them a try & am so happy that Julia & Co have made it a lot easier for us Stateside girls to have easier access!
Finally, I have been waiting in anticipation for the Curvy Kate Strapless bra! It will be coming out in September, and early reports are that it is pretty fabulous! Sometimes, CK can be a little wide in the wires & a little high in the underarm for me, but as I currently don't own a well fitting strapless, I'm hoping that the CK strapless is what I've been missing in my life!
I hope you have been doing well, readers!
<3
Laura
BRAvolution
Tips and advice to help women of all sizes find their best fitting bra! Women only can find BRAvolution on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/179023368811956/
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Misadventures in Bra Fitting- Guest Blog
The next guest blog post comes from Jessi. She's long suffered from fittings that were just plain WRONG about her size. She is finally taking matters into her own hands.
"38 DD! Oh my god you're going to topple over!"
That was my first ever
experience being sized in a department store. The elderly Macy's
employee loosely took a bunch of measurements, came up with that size
and loudly exclaimed it for the whole store to hear. Heads turned and
looked in my direction. It was humiliating. I was about 13, then.
When I was 17, I became
pregnant with my first child, and my breasts jumped up in size.
Motherhood Maternity, not wanting to miss out on a sale, decided I was
probably a 40E. Some friends dubbed me "Jess-E." You see - I've always
been the girl "with the boobs." They've taken on an identity of their
own, and people have always just affiliated me with them. You name it,
I'm certain someone has said it or called me it. "Sugar tits?" Check.
"Breastica?" Been there, called that. "You have the biggest boobs I have
ever seen!" Cool, I hear that several times a day!And of course, the
abundant "What are you? Like a DD?!" The real answer to that question?
Despite the girls having a life all their own, I still have absolutely
no clue what size I am, or what brands work.
I very recently finally
realized that I should not have to push my breast tissue back into my
rib cage to force my breasts into my cups without spilling over the top,
and started seeking other options. Until that point, I had been forcing
myself into 40G's from Cacique by Lane Bryant, which gave me quad boob
and rode up my back all at once. I was recently introduced to a group
known as "Bravolution" on Facebook, and got a lot of sizing and fit
advice. I measured myself and assumed I was probably somewhere near a
38J, and I know that the area where the center gore of a bra should sit
on me is quite narrow, so I ordered a panache Ariza, and in a 38K to be
safe. The cups were too small, the band was swimming on me, and the
wires stabbed horribly into my arm pits. No go on that! I got a killer
deal on a Curvy Kate Lottie in a 36JJ, so I purchased it. The cups
flattened the tops of my breasts, thus making them have a football like
shape. Hilarious, but clearly the wrong size. I ordered a Parfait by
Affinitas Sophia in a 36K, the band is huge on me, and the cups are too
small, and also too shallow in the bottom.
I've decided I need to
go into a 34 band, because everything else just ramps up my back after a
wear or so. Some people have told me that this could be because of
tissue migrating. Who knows, at this point! I refuse to just give up
knowing that I am so close, though. I am planning on ordering some Ewa
Michalak and will update you all on how it goes, so stay tuned for my
fitting misadventures!
Here are some pictures of Jessi's trial & errors:
I'm hoping to continue with updates from Jessi as she goes through her bra fitting transition. The problem with not finding what fits you in a store is that you have to online shop. Don't get me wrong- online shopping is great. You get tons of selection you wouldn't otherwise have available. However, online bra fitting can entail a lot of ordering, sending back, and re-ordering. It all takes time, and can be frustrating. There is one place that I know of that does a fit program- for one $45 refundable price, they send you five bras to try: True & Co They start at 32 bands, and worth checking out. Stay tuned for more of Jessi's journey!
<3
Laura
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Guest Post
Hi all! I'm excited to get going with my guest blog posts! Learning from other people's journeys is something that I think is really important in life. So, onto the first post. She wishes to remain anonymous. I'm sorry to say that I've been having difficulties getting all the pictures to post, so I'm sending this out without all the photos. I will keep trying to get them in! Sorry!
This is me.
This is me, October 2012, so approximately a year ago. Seems like a lifetime
ago, in some ways.
There has
been so much in my life that’s changed it’s difficult to list it all. But the
one thing that dominates it all, every change, is me. Myself. I’ve changed.
And that
has all started with finding the correct bra size.
In the
photo above, I was wearing the very-expensive Ulla Dessous bra I had been
wearing for years. Size: 75L. For the UK-sized people: That corresponds to
34H-ish. (side note here: online converters differ in their opinion between G
and J, but I believe it’s H or HH for sure). This photo was taken at my
graduation, and is looking like what I currently refer to as “sad boobs”.
Meaning that my boobs droop down quite a bit.
This was the norm for me, for most of my student years. Because the Ulla Dessous bras cost roughly €100 (around but mostly just above it), this is not something that I was able to buy often. So, I purchased maybe 1 bra per year. Especially when I really outgrew the somewhat-cheaper brands that stopped at European I-cup, couldn’t ignore the quadboob anymore and really needed to move on to K- and L-cups.
I had heard of the English brand Freya, but the one store that had them also sold Ulla Dessous and the bra fitting lady told me “If you’re used to Ulla, you’ll never want Freya. Ulla has much better quality and the same size!” Which, in my ignorance, convinced me to stick to Ulla Dessous.
This was the norm for me, for most of my student years. Because the Ulla Dessous bras cost roughly €100 (around but mostly just above it), this is not something that I was able to buy often. So, I purchased maybe 1 bra per year. Especially when I really outgrew the somewhat-cheaper brands that stopped at European I-cup, couldn’t ignore the quadboob anymore and really needed to move on to K- and L-cups.
I had heard of the English brand Freya, but the one store that had them also sold Ulla Dessous and the bra fitting lady told me “If you’re used to Ulla, you’ll never want Freya. Ulla has much better quality and the same size!” Which, in my ignorance, convinced me to stick to Ulla Dessous.
I remember
really well the visit I went there. There was nothing in stock of course
because it’s the end of the range, so while I got to try a bra in a sister size
she was going to order some bras for me and I’d come back to fit them. Easy
said, easy done. I could even choose between 6 or so bras that were available
to order in 75L! Imagine my surprise when I finally visited again (delivery
took months, I had almost given up on hearing from the store again) it turned
out that from the 3 bras I had chosen, the lady had ordered only 1 in 75L! The
other two were in 75K. No surprise that they were too small, and in retrospect
also the 75L was too small but hey it didn’t quadboob so it fit.
Yes, the only
criterion on which I judged bra fit was the (non-)existence of quadboob. Now,
looking back, those bras were a horrible fit. Of the 5 bra fitting points (to
be found aplenty on the webs), the only one that the bras could tick was the
quadboob one. And that one not even fully, because I did not scoop&swoop.
Band riding up, gore floating every which way, wires sitting on breast tissue…
all there.
The fitters
in every store I had visited told me that the band is normal like that, and
that the gore like that is normal. That with boobs my size, it’s impossible to
get the gore flat like you hear it should be sometimes. So I accepted this as
normal. Below, I’ve included pictures of how that looks….
How loose a 34 band is on me. I now know that I need a super-tight band to properly support the weight. |
So, that’s
the starting point of my bra journey. At this point, I owned 4 or 5 bras that
fit more or less the same, and still had a few smaller-cupped bras in my drawer
for those days that everything was in laundry and I tried to get away with
quadboob anyway.
It did not
make me feel good about my boobs. At all. On top of that, I was wearing clothes
that fit the same way. By which I mean not fit at all, either very baggy or a
couple sizes too small so I was near bursting out.
Self-confidence
issues? Check!
Then, The
Change started. After graduation, I could not find a job, so I have been
unemployed for a while. Thanks to some lovely people, I obtained half a new
wardrobe. These new clothes changed my outlook: it is possible to look better!
There are plenty of clothes out there that fit my body without bulging out of
them, or being overly baggy.
OK, in all
fairness, some of the clothes (tops & dresses) were still a bit baggy
around the waist, but that’s because I have a larger difference between bust
& waist than most brands cater for.
Together
with the new clothes, I started criticizing my bra fit. I googled around, and
remember that I first found the wonderful FullerFigureFullerBust blog. The
whole atmosphere of loving your body, the awesome looking clothes, and the
bras…. Oh the bras.
I started
following FFFB, and of course because I had relatively much time I was able to
expand into much more blogs and websites very soon. CurvyWordy was an extra
eye-opener for me, because her bust measurement is so close to mine. I
discovered Bratabase, which I still love and adore.
Thanks to
the pointers to proper bra size calculators and helpful advice from people
online, I scraped the money together and ordered some Curvy Kate bras in 32K.
The Angel bra, and the Romance, at least.
Strangely
enough I did not experience any letterphobia (for explanation of this, see the
interwebs), maybe because I went from K/L cup to K cup. European to UK sizing,
but same letter.
When they
arrived, I was overjoyed. So. Pretty!!! And the band! It was tighter, and felt
SO much more secure!
Sadly
enough, after an hour or so of wear, my boobs settled into the bra and I
discovered horrible quadboob. That’s when I discovered the importance of bra
shape.
I learned
that in general Curvy Kate balconettes are cut wide & shallow, and I need
at least deep cups and narrower too. Oh, and also important: a pretty open top,
because my boobs are full all over and need space both in the bottom AND the
top of the bra.
To date,
I’ve tried lots of bras. Bullet list time!
-
Curvy
Kate Angel
-
Curvy
Kate Lottie
-
Curvy
Kate Romance
-
Elomi
Caitlyn
-
Ewa
Michalak PL Black
-
Ewa
Michalak PL Stalowka
-
Fantasie
Kara
-
Fantasie
Cally
-
Panache
Ariza
-
Panache
Harmony
-
Panache
Melody
So no, I
still have not tried Freya. Because, from multiple people, I’ve heard that in
the top cup sizes, the wires are not strong enough to support the boobs. Such a
pity, I love the patterns and am thinking of trying at least one sometime in
the future to test the brand & wires.
And
finally, after those all did not work for me for various reasons (most being
too shallow and/or too wide, or plain simple too small), I tried the Panache
Jasmine.
It was love
at first sight, that beautiful navy floral pattern and the stretch lace sounded
awesome. When I tried the bra on… I was lost. I don’t think I’ve actually cried
with joy, but I’ve surely danced around the room!! I adore this bra.
This bra is
just amazing. The wires fit around my boobs nearly perfect, the cups are
wonderfully deep and the stretch lace is simply amazing. The gore tacks, it’s
the first bra ever that I tried where the gore actually tacks!
After this
first purchase, more Jasmines followed. Right now, all the ill-fitting bras
have been expelled from my bra drawer (the ones still for sale put in the back
of another drawer). My bra drawer now consists of 8 Jasmines (in all colorways)
plus a semi-fitting sports bra in 34K. Yes, the Freya Active does not quite run
as large in the cup as the Jasmine, but because it is supposed to be one of the
sportsbras that run largest it’s the best I can get at the moment. So I make do
for that one ;)
Changing my
bra size has changed my life. Literally. Because of my new bras, my boobs now
look happy. It looks like I’ve had a lift, without doing a thing! Remember the
first photo? They were kind of drooping down. In the proper size, my boobs are
lifted to an amazing shape, and they don’t hide my waist anymore either.
Below I’ve
put two photos, takes just minutes apart. In both photos, I’m wearing the
Panache Jasmine in 34K (I took the band in so it’s now 32KK). Everything is
identical except the shirt.
What’s
clear to see is that my waist is hidden on the left side, and more shown on the
right side. Officially I’m overweight, but I’m happy with my size. But I like
to show that I have an hourglass- or figure-8- shape instead of hide it.
Now that
I’ve found wonderfully fitting bras, I have also read up on the proper way to
care for them. Handwash of course, and don’t just hang them out from the gore
or one side of the band. Because I like to do my laundry in one go, with this
size it means my sink is too small. Yay for bathtubs! Fill it with handwarm water,
drop the bras in together with gentle detergent (baby shampoo or lingerie
detergent is what I use), and agitate some. Using my hands, I rub mostly around
the wires and rest of the band to free up sweat and dirt. Then the bra goes
under the running water and I rub the same places to get the soap out of the
whole bra.
After
that the bra goes up in the “bra tree” to dry. If my partner or I needs the
shower, he’ll have to wait until the bras have stopped dripping and help me
move the bras to the drying rack to dry further I hope you enjoyed reading about her experience!
<3
Laura
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