Bra Guide: How they should and shouldn't fit

Welcome to the first post in this series I'm calling "Bra Guide"!  Where I'm going to go over every aspect of bras to fitting, sizing, breast shapes, bra types, nursing and maternity bras, bra recommendations, and the best places to find bras.

Make sure you check out the second part of this series where I go over bra sizing.

One thing you need to know about me.  I'm very passionate about bras AND making sure they fit right.  Kind of a weird obsession, I know!  This passion of mine started when I was hired to work in the Lingerie Department for Nordstrom.  Immediately I fell in love with my job and worked my way to become a certified Bra Fit Specialist and for three years I educated women on how to find the right fitting bra, how they should fit, helping them to gain their confidence back, liberating them from ill fitting bras and changing their lives, literally!  This sounds SO cheesy, but it's so true!

Let's just get it out of the way, but I'm a bra snob, just like how my sister Melanie is a cosmetic snob.  I guess it runs in the family.  When I spot a woman wearing an ill fitting bra, it makes me cringe!  I feel for you honey!  Before I started working with bras, I suffered from wearing the wrong bra size and ever since then it's been my mission to educate anyone who will listen to me about how you can take care of your boobs by wearing the right size bra!  God gave them to you, so let's treat them nicely!

To start, if you say yes to any these questions, keep reading!

-Do you have boobs?
-Do you hate wearing your bra because it's uncomfortable?
-Are you falling out of your bra at the top, bottom or side?
-Does your underwire cut into your boobs?
-Does your band ride up in the back when you move?
-Are you constantly adjusting your bra?
-Do your cups pucker or gap?   
-Do your straps dig into your shoulders?
-Have you had your bra longer than a year?
-Do you feel like you're unsupported?
-Do your straps constantly fall off your shoulders?
-Do you suffer from back pain?
-Do fitted shirts fit you horribly?
-Do you avoid physical activities because of your boobs?
-Do you want to look slimmer?
-Do you want your clothes to fit better?
-Do you want to feel more confident about yourself?

If you said yes to any of the above questions, WELCOME!

I'm going to start off by showing you some great examples of an ill fitting bra on a busty and a smaller cup size gal so you can relate with at least one of them.  There's five places you need to check whenever you try on a bra to make sure it fits.  Let's take a field trip into the dressing room and we'll go over these places.

1. Middle Front Part.  This is located smack dab in the middle, where the underwire separates your breasts.  You can tell from this picture, the underwire isn't separating this gal's boobs.  There's a lot of cleavage going on.  For all of you busty gals, it's really, really, really, really, really important that the middle part of the bra is completely flat against your skin in this middle front part.  You DON'T want any cleavage, if you do, that means your bra cup size is too small and therefore the underwire is going to gap in the front.  If you look at the underwires in the front, you can see how they're literally laying on top of her breasts in the front.   

2. Top Cup. I'm going to use the same picture above to explain this part.  When the middle front part isn't lying completely flat against your skin like it is in the picture, you will get the dreaded double boob coming out of the top of the cup.  The double boob is when the cup is too small and there's no more space for the breast, so the bra indents into the top part of the breast and you have breast tissue that is loose and jiggly.  There's two ways you can do to check to make sure you don't have the double boob.  Look at yourself from the side with your bra on, shirt off, and see if you can see any loose breast tissue at the top of the cup.  The second is try on a t-shirt and see if you can see the distinct line across the top of your breast under your t-shirt.  Remember, the double boob will every time when the middle part isn't fitting correctly.

3. Bottom Cup.  This is where the bottom underwire is located.  When you get the cleavage like the picture above is showing, 99.9% of the time you will get boobage that comes out of the bottom of the bra.  To make sure the bottom cup is scooping your breasts in place, you'll want to get your bra on, bend over, take your hand, scoop your breast and lift into the cup.  Do this to both breasts.  Stand back up, you'll need to adjust the bra in the front.  After adjusting yourself, if you find you have a lot of cleavage on the top, and the underwire in the front is lying on top of your breasts, then you know that cup size is too small. 

Now, let's show you how an ill fitting bra looks like on a not so busty gal.   

At first, it doesn't look bad. But when you look close, it starts to look bad. 

The top arrow is pointing to the upper part of the breast.  See how you can see some boobage at the top?  When this happens the top of the cup cuts into the breast, so when she wears a t-shirt, everyone will be able to see this very defined line of where her breast and the top of the cup is.  This is a fashion faux pas and means her cup size is too small.  

The bottom arrow is pointing to the under wire that is right up and close to the bottom of her breast tissue.  You want the underwire to be at least a quarter to a half inch below your breast. Yes, that sounds absolutely crazy, but to get the best support, you want it that way.  Also, see how the bra is kind of curling up.  This is could be due to many reasons, the bra is old or the underwire is not scooping her breast.     

4. Sides.  The third place you need to check is the sides.  You can see in the top picture, the underwire is lying on top the very end of her breast.  You want the underwire to lay at least a quarter to a half inch to the side of the breast tissue. 

5. Band.  The last place you want to check is the band in the back.  See how the band is riding high, bunching on the sides, and how it's hooking on the last set of eye notches: this means that the band is stretched out and is too loose.  The picture doesn't really show this, but her straps are placed extremely wide and are falling off her shoulders.    

These are all indicators that her bra doesn't fit and it's time to get a new one.   

Now the EXCITING part!  I'm going to show you how a bra should fit. I'm going to compare the bad fitting bras and the bras that fit.  By doing this you'll be able to see the big difference between bras that don't fit and bras that do.

She is wearing the Wacoal Women's Basic Beauty Full Figure Underwire

This gal was wearing a 36DD in the first picture.  The band was the right size, but the cup size was not. I had her try on a 36DDD and a 36G (36DDDD) and the 36G fit the best, which is shown on the bottom.  I went up two cup sizes to get the right fit.  

I put this gal in the Wacoal Women's Basic Beauty Full Figure Underwire bra and this is a great bra.  When I worked at Nordstrom, this was my to-go bra for busty gals.  If you're looking for a smooth look underneath your clothes and want to a full coverage bra, this bra will do the trick.  It has wide padded straps, a thick band in the back, and a quality stretch fabric for great comfort.  It also has these fabric side panels in the cups to create better shaping (soft cup bras without any seams in the cups aren't known to shape the breasts very well, but this one does a pretty good job).  

Let me tell you why the bottom bra picture is the best fitting one.  

1. The middle front part is lying COMPLETELY flat against her skin.  

2. The underwire isn't lying on top of any breast tissue and is separating her breasts in the front.

3. There is not cleavage meavage spilling over the top in the front.

4. The bottom cup is scooping her breasts so she's not hanging out of the bottom. 

The top picture is the 36DD and you can see she's falling out of the bottom.  This makes me sad everytime I see that picture.  In the bottom picture, see how I have a pointer finger width of space between the breast and underwire?  This is how a correct bra should fit and lay on your body.  When your underwire is digging into your skin and breasts, it's extremely uncomfortable.  To avoid that, you want the underwire to lay lower than your breast and NOT on your breast.

Oh crap, I forgot to get a side picture of this gal in her 36DD bra. Trust me, there was a lot of boobage coming out of the side and the underwire was laying on top of her breasts (ouch)!

Again, see how the underwire is not right up against her breasts?  My finger is pointing to where her breast tissue is, and see how there is about a half inch of space between the underwire and her breast?  This is how your bra should fit.    

One complaint I got a lot from busty women is once they got a correct fitting bra on, they felt like the sides fit really high in the armpit area and would rub them raw.  If this is the case, if you ever experience this I would suggest you try on a smaller cup size.  If you're hanging out of that one, then find a different bra.  Bras are not made all the same, stick to your correct size, but try on different brands and types of bras until you find one that doesn't ride up so high in the armpit area.

Now, let's go back to our not so busty gal to see what a difference her correct sized bra is making. 

 She is wearing the Natori Women's Feathers Contour Plunge Bra

Sometimes fitting smaller bust gals can get tricky.  At first glance, it's kind of hard to see a big difference.  I promise you, there is!  In the top picture, you can see the top of the under wire is really, really, really close to her breast tissue.  In the bottom picture, you can see there is more space between the top of the underwire and her breast.  Also, you can tell she's being covered more in the front in the bottom picture.  The base of the bra is lying completely flat against her skin in the front.  This gal was wearing a 32C in the top picture.  I went up one cup size to a 32D and that size fit her perfectly.

The Natori Women's Feathers Contour Plunge Bra this gal is wearing is a great bra for ladies who don't have a very full bust.  If your breasts are shallow on the top, or what I like to call  "cone" boobs, this bra will fit beautifully on you!  When you have shallow breasts, a lot of times your bra will pucker and be too big on the top part of the bra.  I love Natori bras, they're more pricey, but they're worth the money.  They use really high quality stretch foam materials that make their bras feel like butta! Plus, this bra is a really pretty for an everyday bra.  Anyway you can add sexiness to your life, I'm all for.  

The top picture shows a bra band that is pretty pathetic.  It was riding up in the back and was extremely loose. Did you know, that 95% of your support comes from the band, and 10% should come from your straps?  Think of it this way:  the bra band is like the foundation of a house and the straps its frame.  Both are really important, if the foundation isn't sturdy, your straps won't be able to support the house or

"girls" alone.  You need both, the band and straps, to work together to support your parts.  

Anyway, back to the picture above.  You want your bra band to fit real snug and low in the back.  What I mean by "snug" is that it should take some work to slide your hand between the band and your back.  When the band rides up high in the back, that means it's too loose.  The ideal position of the band is the lower middle part of your back.  The band should create a straight line from the front to the back of the bra.  When you try on bras it should be snug on the loosest set of hooks.  The idea behind this being that as you wear your bra, you can tighten it as it stretches out.   At first, this is going to feel really weird and uncomfortable. If you're not used to wearing a correct fitting bra, it takes a couple days for the bra to stretch out a bit, but I promise you, it will feel a lot more comfortable when your bra isn't moving all over the place.  

Not everyone will want to do this, but when I buy a bra, I sometimes go down a band size smaller then I measured so I can get a more snug band.  I do this because I can get more support and the bra will stay snug longer and therefore last me longer.  A test to see if the band is snug enough is to raise your arms, jump around, do some outlandish dance move and pay attention to whether or not your bra is moving with you, if you have to adjust it after moving, you need to get a smaller band size.  Your bra should stay in place and not be loosey goosey.  

The above pictures shows the underwire poking into the side of this gal's boob.  That doesn't look comfortable, and is another sign that the cup size is too small.  By going up a cup size from a 32C to a 32D, you can see the in the bottom picture, she is completely covered on the side, meaning, it fits.

SO, now that we've gone over the four areas you want to check when trying on bras to make sure they fit. Let's go over them one more time so you don't forget. 

1. Middle Front Part.  This is the part in the front where the underwire separates your boobs.  Make sure it's lying COMPLETELY flat against your skin, that the underwire isn't on top of your breasts, and that the underwire is laying at least a quarter to half an inch away from your breast tissue.  I say underwire a lot, sorry.  

2. Top Cup.  Make sure that there's no loose breast tissue coming out of the top of the cup.  If the middle front part of the bra isn't fitting, the top cup won't fit either.  Two ways to check to make sure the top cup is fitting is look at yourself with the bra on, shirt off and see if you can't see any breast tissue that's being forced out of the top.  The second is put on a t-shirt over the bra and check to see if you can see a distinct line of where the top of the bra is, that means the top cup is not fitting. 

3. Bottom cup.  If you're a busty gal, make sure you bend over, scoop your boob with your hand, and lift your breasts into the cups.  Make sure to do this to both boobs.  Stand back up again, adjust yourself as needed.  If you're still coming out of the top of the bra after adjusting yourself and your underwire isn't scooping your breasts, then you need to go up a cup size.

4. Sides.  Make sure the underwire is covering the your entire side of your boob.  Just like the rule above, you want to make sure the underwire is laying at least a quarter to a half inch away from the breast tissue.  

5. Band.  Make sure the band is very snug on the loosest hook, the band is lying in a straight line from the front to the back, and is lying in the middle lower part of your back.

I want to say thank you to my bra models, they're extraordinary women for going topless on the blogosphere. They deserve a million bucks for doing this and for being my friends.  I love you.

Stay tuned for more Bra Guide posts in the future!  Make sure to check out my second post where I explain in DETAIL bra sizing and how it works!  If you have any questions about bra fitting, leave a comment below!  I hope I educated you!