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Monday, June 20, 2011

Sizing Up The Girls

Today I am so excited to have a guest posting.  Please welcome Claire from Butterfly Collection, a place where busty Canadian woman can find great fitting bras.

I
f you’ve spent your whole adult life hating bras you may have come to the conclusion that the problem is your body and given up hope of feeling good in your lingerie. The good news is, there’s nothing wrong with your body and you can find the right bra for you! We’re not educated enough about why bras are important and what to look for when buying a bra so that it fits you and makes your boobs look fantastic! This has led to literally millions of women being left to struggle with ill-fitting bras that make your boobs look like a sack of potatoes – never a good look!

If you don’t get your underwear right then whatever you put over the top is going to take on the lumps and bumps underneath. When you’re a curvaceous woman to start with it’s even more important to have a bra that’s going to keep your boobs high and your waist visible. There are magic moments in my job when I get a customer into the right bra for the first time in her life and she realizes that her figure is pretty great after all! Getting women into the right bra isn’t done by magic and you can find your own path to the right bra from your own home.

Plus Size Boobs Need Fit and Style
You may have been for a professional bra fitting before or read an article about how to find your size but have still been left feeling bewildered and uncomfortable. When you’re a curvy woman it’s not enough just to talk about size, you have to talk about style too. But first things first, let’s talk size. Most stores don’t carry bras bigger than a DD and yet over a third of adult Canadian women fall into this category. If you get fitted at one of these stores they may try to shove your fabulous assets into the biggest bra they make which will leave you lumpy and in pain.


Sizing up the Girls
I always recommend that if you go for a professional bra fitting you do an at home fitting first so that you have a ballpark size to know whether you’re getting an accurate fitting or not. Measuring yourself is pretty easy or you can ask a partner, friend or family member to help you out.

Put on your best fitting bra then stand side on to a mirror. Wrap a soft tape measure around your body underneath your boobs. Make sure the tape is level with the ground at the back as well as at the front – this is where your bra band should sit, any higher or lower and your boobs aren’t supported. If your measurement is an odd number round it up to the next even number, if it’s even don’t add anything and just jot down your measurement in inches.

Next wrap the tape measure around the fullest part of your boobs (across your nipples) and make sure the tape is level with the ground front and back. Write down this number in inches exactly as it is.

Your band measurement is the first measurement you wrote down (most women are wearing bras that are way too big in the band which leaves their boobs sagging and painful).

To work out your cup size you simply deduct the smaller measurement from the bigger one and compare the result to this Canadian sizing chart:

1 inch
A cup
4 inch
D cup
7 inch
G cup
10 inch
J cup
2 inch
B cup
5 inch
E cup (DD)
8 inch
H cup
11 inch
K cup
3 inch
C cup
6 inch
F cup (DDD)
9 inch
I cup
12 inch
L cup

So let’s use an example, if you measured 39 inches underneath your boobs you need to round this up to the next number giving you a band size of 40.

I
f your biggest measurement was 49 then you deduct 40 from 49 to give you 9. Compare 9 to the chart and you see that you’re an F cup (some Canadian brands refer to F as a DDD – this is a throwback to when boobs were smaller and the accepted bra scale only went up to a D!) So your bra size is 40F.

**There is one more important thing to know about your size** A lot of plus size women find that they are more comfortable in a slightly bigger band size. This is because a snug band size is OK when you don’t have much flesh around your ribcage but when you do, a snug band can cause discomfort. 
If you want to wear a band size bigger you must wear a cup size smaller – this is because your cup is PROPORTIONAL to your band.

Using our example a woman who fits a 40F may want to wear a 42 band so she needs a cup size smaller i.e. a 42E. The E cup on a 42 inch bra is the same size as the F cup on a 40 inch bra – the cup is proportional to the band.

You can check out our Bra School
for more information on common bra complaints and solutions.

Stylish Boobs
So what about style? This is the missing element from most bra advice and is so important for curvy women. If you are over a D cup then you need a full coverage bra, that’s not to say you can never wear a racier cleavage boosting bra, but for day to day stuff when you’re moving around and need support you need a bra that has full coverage. The most important part of a full coverage bra for plus size women is the centre part that lies flat against your body between your boobs. Make sure this part is deep because it gives you so much more support and definition. Your full coverage bras can be lacy or moulded or in great colours, you don’t need to give up fashion, you just need a great style bra.

A lot of plus size women also benefit from wearing a wirefree bra. While wired bras give you good definition they can be painful around your ribcage if you’re extra curvy through your torso. Wirefree bras should have a high side panel to give you good shape and keep your girls in place.

I believe that every woman of every shape has the right to feel beautiful and supported in her underwear that’s why I started Butterfly Collection. When you’ve got some extra curve you need some extra support both physically and mentally, so we’re always happy to chat about your bras and boobs! I wish you all good bra shopping and hope you love rediscovering how great you look in the right lingerie!

Claire Dumican owns www.butterflycollection.ca with her partner Paul Syrenne. Their mission was to create a unique shopping and social space for busty Canadian women to find great lingerie and talk about their boobs. Butterfly Collection stocks bras that are designed to make big boobs look and feel great from some of the world's best brands. Claire believes that understanding your boobs and being proud of your figure helps you find your best bras. Her blog, http://blog.butterflycollection.ca/ talks about everything from how to make your bras live longer to the joy of cheese! You can email Claire directly at claire@butterflycollection.ca      

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for inviting me to guest blog! I hope your readers find the info useful and enjoy getting their girls into fabulous shape! xx

    ReplyDelete

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