Well that was a bust...

I have good boobs.

Okay, wait, let me back up a second. C, if you are reading this you might want to stop. I'm going to write about bras and boobs, mine specifically, so you are totally off the hook for any mom guilt on not reading my blogs, the one I wrote earlier today was about seeing Neil Gaiman and I will be back with fiction later this week so feel free to skip this one.

Okay, back. I have good boobs. I do. I'm vain about them, as you all know. I keep my weight above a certain level so they don't go away. I got them early (like between 7-9) and they've been a source of pride and frustration ever since. Because I got them so early I learned their power before I ever hit high school. I once got an entire set of appliances loaned to our high school theater department with nothing more than a smile and a low cut shirt. I've written before about figuring out I was pregnant by knocking over a display of oranges at the grocery store with my newly expanded bust line and how the maternity store had to special order bras for me because they didn't carry any in my size. I know that a lot of men believe that a woman with big boobs must be stupid, not because they are sexist necessarily, but because big boobs make them stupid so they think it must be universal.

I take care of them. You all know I am diligent about my yearly exams. The smash 'em flat and take a picture isn't the most fun thing to do with my day, but with great boobs comes great responsibility so I lay 'em on the glass once a year. I also wear good bras. I'm 44 years old, almost 45, my weight has gone up and down and I've had a kid. Good bras are necessary. Which is where this blog comes in.

I have to admit that my good boobs are enhanced. Not surgically, though there is nothing wrong with that, as a friend of mine says the real question isn't are they real or fake it's how do they taste? Mine just happen to be real. But they aren't as big as they appear. Not because I've added Wonder Bra technology or chicken cutlets (ask your friends) or surgical add ons, but because I have a really narrow back. Ladies, bear with me since you already know all of this; guys here is the way sizes work.

To get a bra size you measure your rib cage right under the breast for the band size (and round to the nearest even number) and then measure the fullest part of your breast while you are wearing a bra for the cup size. The difference between the band and the full is what determines the cup. Say you are a 36 C (which is always the measurement you hear held up as the gold standard) that means that you have a 36 inch rib cage and the fullest part of your chest is 39 inches. Three inch difference means a C cup. So you can see that if you are larger in the rib cage even if you have an additional 3 inches tacked on it's not going to stand out as much as if you are smaller. The difference between 40 and 43 (a 40C) isn't going to look as impressive as the difference between 36 and 39 (the 36C) it's math.

I wear a 32 inch band.

So you can see that anything tacked on to that is going to seem like a bigger difference than if I were bigger around to start. So I sort of cheat where other chesty women are concerned. I'm not massive by any stretch but because I am so narrow any additional size adds up in the inches pretty quickly. And since I told you all my weight a few weeks ago and my dress size what's hampering me from sharing my bra size? Because it just seems weird. Okay, deep breath, I tack on an additional 5 inches from band to full. And since I'm narrow that 5 looks pretty impressive, even though a 38 inch band wouldn't be unheard of for an average busted woman. Make sense?

Okay so on to the next part.

Bra fittings. I hate shopping in general, as you all know. But bra shopping is another ring of hell for me. Because of my size I cannot just go grab something off the shelf at Target and be happy. Often I can't even get something at Victoria's Secret because my band and cup size combination are a "specialty size" and don't even get me started on the fact that they charge me more because of it. If you aren't going to charge the woman in the A cup less then where do you get off charging me more? Hmmm???

So to buy a bra and make sure it fits right you have a fitting. Guys, I want you to imagine what this is like. You have to go in to the dressing room with another woman who measures you and brings you bras to try on and arranges you in them and...Okay, stop it. That's not what it's like at all. Stop imagining super models and picture little old ladies instead, I usually call her Olga. Okay, wait, how about this..

Imagine if you had to do this when buying underwear. Olaf would go in to the dressing room with you. Measure your waist then measure your penis. The difference between those would determine your pouch size. Then he would bring you underwear to try on. But you can't just put it on yourself, he has to make sure you have all of the straps and hooks adjusted right. And now you should bend over to make sure you get all of your boy bits in the pouch just right. Now he's going to run a hand over you and around the band and check to make sure the pouch is full but not tight, and there is no pinching or pulling and...

Yeah, it's like that. Super uncomfortable. But to get a good fit you do it. Then you discover that because you have a large package, which is good thing and you are as proud of something that you had no control over as you can be, you are going to have to pay more for your underwear than a smaller packed guy would. But it's okay, you will look good and be more comfortable so you do it.

So this is why I was super excited when Brent told me about two companies that were going to put the end to me and Olga in a dressing room together! Yay! Jockey with their new way of fitting a bra and True & Co. with their new way of shopping for one! It's the dawn of a new era! It's so exciting! It's...a blog.

First off was Jockey. They are completely reinventing bra sizes. Instead of the A-Z method of cup sizing you get 1-10. Based on volume. Seriously. So they send you a sizing kit and you measure your band size and your volume size and order your bra based on that. I have pictures to explain the process...

These are the volume cups. They come nested like Russian Boob Dolls

All laid out from 1-10

This is what size #1 looks like in my hand so you can see they start small and go from there

How I imagine most guys bra shopping for their wives, Yep this one seems about right

The band, this is pretty normal. If you are a 32-33 you order 32

After measuring (no I didn't take pictures of that part!) I ordered and here is my lovely bra box. 

Ta da! Just for presentation points alone I sort of love this bra.

And this is what it was packed in. Or I guess what was packed in it.

This just made me laugh. Having never hit the bra stuffing need I was just so amused by this

Seriously! Even the cardboard cut outs are shaped!

Okay, so the bra is pretty, the sizing process was different, what was the outcome? A horribly uncomfortable bra. Now this isn't really all Jockey's fault, but they did skip one important step in their new revolutionary sizing methods. Yes, women's breast are all about volume and I think that's pretty ingenious but they are also about placement. My boobs happen to be really good friends and are close together on my chest. Some boobs are a little more about spacing. When you see a woman who is wearing a dress cut down to her belly button and is only showing a hint of boob? Her boobs are spaced farther apart. Viva la difference! But Jockey assumed that my boobs didn't like each other much and there is a full inch of spacing between the cups. Ouch. Also they have a new thing they are trying in replacing the under-wire, not so comfortable this giant wedge of plastic in my rib cage. So the bra goes back. (also there was a lot of talk on forums about how expensive this bra is, it's $60 which to me is about normal for a bra, if I were a different size and used to be being able to pick up a bra at Target for $20 I can see how this would be huge sticker shock)

On to the next company True & Co. Their whole pitch is about how much shopping for a bra sucks and how great it would be not to have to see Olga anymore. Okay, I will give it a shot! So you go online and take their survey. You start with a bra that you love and fits great and in put that information. Brand, size, what you like about it. Then they walk you through a few other questions. How are you shaped, round, teardrop, those sorts of things. What is your problem area, do you get quad boob or back fat, for instance, then they bring you to your suggestions page.

So the next step is you pick 3 bras and they pick 2 and send you all five to try on. You keep the ones you like and ship back the ones you don't. Pretty cool right? But I wasn't getting a warm fuzzy from the start. See they have you enter your favorite current bra and the size at the beginning, so they know my size, but when I would click a bra the size they recommended for me from my feedback earlier was a band size bigger and a cup size smaller. I decided to go ahead and trust them. Different bras fit in different ways so maybe each one of these ran a little snug in the band and a little full in the cup. So I place my order. A week later I get an email letting me know that two of my choices were out of stock so they would be waiting another three days before shipping to see if they came in. If not they would just put two additional recommendations in the box instead. Okay....

So another week goes by and I get my sizing box!

Bigger box.

Not as many points for packaging but as the card says, fit is what matters!

Letting me know what I need to do next

And my selection. Super pretty collection right?

And what I kept. 

So that didn't work out so well. As expected the cups were all too small. Quad boob. Hate that. And there were a couple that no woman over a B cup would wear unless her boobs were fake. There just wasn't enough support. I don't want to look like droopy old lady thank you very much. So for them I think they need to pay more attention to the size people actually say they are and maybe ask if their breasts are real or not. If I had fake boobs that actually stayed in one place I would wear the pretty lace thing. Or not, I mean if they stayed where there were supposed to I guess you wouldn't need to wear anything at all.

So the great online bra sizing experience was (as the title said) a bust. BUT I like the idea of the Jockey sizing system, it's just not quite there yet. And I like the idea of the True & Co. try and buy from home system it's just not got quite the right algorithm going yet. And basically I like the idea of anything that keeps me from a dressing room. But since they don't work I will be taking the girls shopping and visiting with Olga again. Maybe if she bought me a drink first it wouldn't be so bad....