Apr 14, 2014 » All bra adventures

Apr 14, 2014

Major rant ahead....

It seems like lately all my bras have been leaving the angriest red marks, especially around the underbust and on my shoulders.

I think it's because my bands are too big. Obviously the shoulder straps are carrying too much weight, and I think the wires are pressing down on my ribs too because the bands aren't supporting. . I don't know if my size has changed or if all my bands have stretched out at once, or if I'm just noticing it now, but the 32Hs and HHs I've been living in for nine months are suddenly awful. Tons of overspill in the Hs with bands riding up and the HHs just seem too big all around. (So not sure whether to size to 30HH or 30J... have to do some trial and error I guess.)

I guess the red marks have been happening for months but it was so normal to me I ignored it. My fiancee keeps telling me I have a "rash" on my ribs and I say "hey, it's ok, always have." Which is one of the ways in which the way we all were brought up to fit bras is immensely screwed up. I know now how to tell a correct size. But when something doesn't fit I still tell myself to suck it up, because I spent my teens doing exactly that. At 13 I started with a 36C because my poor flat-chested mother had no idea what to do with me. (Except to warn: "Your dad's sister is a J-cup, hopefully you have enough of my genes you won't end up having to deal with that.")

I never actually measured for a bra till I was 18 and recognizing that my back pain probably wasn't JUST my scoliosis acting up (there's another wrench in the works of What's Wrong With My Fit.) At which point I saw that 12-inch difference between underbust and bust, I KNEW +4/5 wasn't working, and I shut my ears and got myself 34DDs because it was the closest thing they carried at the local JCPenney.

The hundreds of people with stories like this blow me away. Putting up with red marks with a halfway almost right fit is just the tip of the iceberg. My grandmother has struggled with her 30 band size and HH-or-so cup for fifty years. My aunt, her daughter, squeezes into 36DDs, saying, "I can't find bands small enough, my rib cage is just so tiny" hiding body shame behind "I couldn't possibly go higher than a D." When my mother knew well enough my aunt's real size to warn me I might turn out that way.

I am entirely preaching to the choir here.But I periodically get so ANGRY about bra fitting all over again, even though everyone in our little bra-positive corner of the internet has said it a hundred times. Because my grandmother and my aunt and I have all had to figure out our size by ourselves, even though we have more or less the same breasts. I don't go educate them about the glory of the right bra because even telling them "look, I know how to help you find the right cup size" feels like body shaming and I don't want to put them in that position. Because it does feel shameful, and in that paradigm there's comfort in saying "well really I only wear a 36DD" even though everyone can see it doesn't fit you.

Ugh. But at the same time I remember thinking constantly: "If only I could find something CLOSE I could live with it!"

I'm so fed up with "close." Lots of the bras I've tried have been close. Things I have settled with include:

-A Panache Harmony that continually slips down till the wires are practically on my stomach, because I am too full on bottom for it, or something. I still wear it. It's a bra. Roughly in my size. If I scoop it back up 100 times a day.
-Bands I KNEW were too big when I got them, because I started out on the middle or smallest hook, but I didn't want to deal with returns because something is better than nothing, right?
-The red marks. Oh, the red marks.
-Sore shoulders at the end of the day. You know the feeling. You lie on your back in bed each night and all your muscles shudder out relief because there's no weight on your back anymore.

My best bra right now is my 32H - Freya » Lyla Balcony (4302) and I've only had it on about an hour today and the gore is an inch from tacking (I knew Freyas often tend to do this in the larger cups no matter what), the band is way up my back, and I've had to tighten the straps all the way for decent support. A 30HH of the same (in black -- fiancee doesn't like pink bras, I see no reason not to oblige) should get here tomorrow. It had better fit in the cups because I am SO FED UP!

That's enough word vomit for one day I guess.

Filed under Bra sizing and fit

Shared on Apr 14, 2014 Flag this