What do you need from me?

Do you have any questions, comments, suggestions? Is there something you've been trying to find? Do you have a bra fitting question? Or just any general reader question? Do you know about a new brand for us busty and hourglass ladies? Do you own/represent a company for large-chested ladies and you want me to do a review?

I've set up an email address for this blog, at which you can contact me. It's brittany at thinandcurvy dot com. Email me! I want to help you. :-)

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Bra Care

Now that you are wearing a bra that fits you properly, you need to take care of it. Sure, the nice bras that come in sizes that fit larger-chested ladies are more expensive than any old cheap 34B you could grab at Wal-Mart, but they are much better made, and if you take good care of them, they should last much longer, not to mention offer better support.

Washing:

• Never machine wash your bras! Hand washing might seem like a pain, but it's really not that hard. If you machine wash your bras you will ruin them pretty much instantly. Do you want to throw away $50? I thought not. The only exception is sports or wire free bras that explicitly state that they can be handwashed. And never, ever put any bra in the dryer! Ever!

• To handwash:

1. Fill up a clean bucket or sink with lukewarm water and gentle or delicate laundry soap. I use one by Ecover, but there are lots of options. In a pinch, just use shampoo. I have heard that woolite is bad for bras, however.
2. let the bras soak for about 1/2 hour, swish them around gently.
3. drain the sink or bucket, refill it a few times and swish the bras around to rinse. If you are using a soap that is designed for delicates it shouldn't be hard to rinse out.
4. Don't wring out your bras! You can gently press them with a clean towel or just let them drip over the tub for a few minutes.
5. Hang them to dry.
6. See? Not that hard.

• Don's invert molded bra cups inside one another, it wears them out. You can store them stacked inside of each other.
• Don't wash your bras after every wear unless you are sweating a lot. I wash all of my bras about once a month. (They have been rotated and each been worn about a week total.)
• Have at least 3-5 bras, and don't wear the same one 2 days in a row if you can help it. The fabric needs a break or it will wear out much faster.
• You need new bras at least once a year, or when you are on the tightest set of hooks. When you get there, your bras are 'dead' and not offering enough support. It makes sense to re-evaluate your size that often, too.

image via weheartit

Do you ever feel like there is nothing made to fit you?

As much as I try to stay positive, sometimes the search for clothing that fits me gets incredibly frustrating. My body shape is supposed to be a good thing- even "ideal," but everywhere I turn, things just aren't designed to fit me. It's especially sad when I find a new company that is supposed to make clothes for a slim waist and large breasts, and then I look at the size chart and find, yet again, that the smallest waist size is designed for somebody 2-3 or more inches larger than I am. I look everywhere, but the smallest bra band is 28- and I simply cannot believe that there aren't plenty women who need 26,24, even 22 bands. I want to shake manufacturers and scream, "I might have a small frame, but I'm 5'10"! And I need a smaller size than you make! What about women proportionately smaller than me?" But all I hear in reply is "statistically unlikely... not enough demand... not our target customer... "

Objectively, I like my body fairly well. If I could wave a magic wand and magically shrink my hourglass thighs, I probably would. Every body shape- even hourglass- has its pros and cons. However, the fact that NOTHING is designed to fit me makes me feel strange, like a freak, an outsider. Sometimes I wish I could add inches to my ribcage just so things would fit me.

My body type is like a unicorn- special, but not supposed to exist.

Sometimes I wonder if I really was the best person to start this blog- there are a lot of brands I simply cannot fairly review, because I can tell from a glance at their size chart that there's no way they will fit. But that's how I found out all of the information that I write about. I was determined to find things that fit me, and I found a lot of things along the way that will fit a lot of people with slightly less extreme curves than mine.

And I am determined to keep asking. Manufacturers will continue not to offer my size unless I do. So I will. I will keep writing them and searching for new brands and new clothes and new solutions. Maybe I have a chance with the brands that already try to cater to hourglass shapes. Are you with me? Thin AND curvy girls, demand properly fitting clothes!

By the way...

I'm back! That was actually a way more intense couple of weeks with school than I had even anticipated. This semester's finals week was the worst I have ever had- I had almost all of my teachers assign 2, 3 or one teacher even assigned 4 different "finals" things (big final papers, projects, tests, final exams, presentations, etc) I'm pretty sure each teacher is "supposed" to have one final! And of course everything was due on the same few days...

But anyway, things are better now and I should be back to posting as usual. :-)

Victoria's Secret bras don't even fit the models!

Victoria's Secret, for some reason, is hailed as the leader in bras and lingerie in the US. But they carry a very, very limited range of sizes and they have no idea how bra fitting actually works. And while I often hear people make reference to how "sexy" their lingerie is, 99% of it is hundreds of boring variations of t-shirt bras, in various colors. Yawn.

But poorly fitting bras are not sexy, anyway. And while VS tries to hide it with Photoshop, the bras clearly don't fit the models anywhere near properly. Take a look:

1-- you can clearly see her breast tissue spilling out the sides although they have tried to smooth it with photoshop.
2 --The center of the bra is not touching her ribcage.
3-- What is up with this? Somebody screwed up with the liquefy tool, it looks like she has a dent in her ribcage.

1-- Again, the center is not against her ribcage the way it is supposed to be.

2 -- The armpit fat has been removed, but the underwires are not high enough, and you can see that the cups are too small.

1-- More obvious armpit fat (aka breast tissue!) that has been weirdly smoothed.

2-- The back of this bra is riding up so much! The back should always lie horizontal. She clearly needs a much smaller band.

1-- Again, the center is not sitting as it should.

2-- Once more, the back of the band is riding up quite a lot.

1-- Again, more smoothed-over spilling breast tissue. In addition, you can see that the underwire is not enclosing all of her breast. The cup is clearly much too small.

2-- While they have 'fixed' it, her breasts would have been spilling over the cups "four boob" style in person. You can still kinda see it.

As you can see, although they try to hide it, VS bras almost never fit the models properly. This is problematic. If the images we see all the time of lingerie models don't show a proper fit, how are women supposed to learn what a well fitting bra looks like?

Between this, and the fact that they have an attitude of superiority and make anybody who doesn't fit into their small range of sizes feel bad about their bodies and as though they are strange, I choose never to shop at Victoria's Secret- even for non-bra items.

But luckily there are so many better choices out there. Why would you wear one of the above bras when you could choose any of these:

Fantasie Elodie Underwire Side Support Bra
sizes 30-40 D-H!

Ella Bra Navy/Orange (I love this one! Looks so pretty!)
28-40 DD-J

Showgirl Tease Me Bra Black/Purple by Curvy Kate

28-40 DD-J

Frankie Bra by Freya

30-38 D-GG

DiminitySO Bra

30-38 D-G

Panache Cleo Lizzie Bra

28-38 D-J

...And many more. The point is, why buy cheaply made, boring bras from a company that doesn't even properly fit its models, when you can buy gorgeous European lace bras that fit you spectacularly and actually come in a nice range of sizes? Sounds win-win to me...

(ETA: For some reason, a lot of people seem to be misunderstanding the point of this post, so let me clarify. I don't 'hate' Victoria's Secret and I'm not insulting those who shop there. This post also isn't about why photoshop is bad or anything like that. It's also not about insulting smaller busts. However, many people have this idea that VS are the ultimate bra place and that's simply not true. They do a particularly bad job with fittings. And their models don't wear bras that fit well at all, which means that people don't have any idea what a bra that fits is supposed to look like. So that's what I am criticizing them for. As for the next section, I have heard from a lot of larger girls that they feel sad they can't shop at VS because they think that only VS has sexy pretty bras- a myth VS has carefully encouraged. But you can in fact find pretty bras at other places, that have a much wider size range, and so that's what I was trying to show examples of. There. Does that clear up everything?)