Tomima’s Blog – Lingerie & Underwear Expert

The industry answer to women complaining about underwires poking into their underarm is usually to say their cup size is too small.  The theory here is that the underwire is not wide enough to totally wrap around your breast and the cup is not deep enough. Thus the wire is resting on breast tissue too far forward on your torso – the result being the underwire tip is getting in the way and hitting your underarm.  A larger cup size comes with a wider underwire and deeper cup that will rest further back under your arm and not rest on your breast tissue.  Thus you will no longer be poked.  In many situations, I would agree with this recommendation.  However, I own bras where this symptom has occurred, and I have been able to solve the problem without having to size up. Want to know how?

First, you need to put your geometry cap on.  Think of your torso as a cylinder.  As a cylinder, your torso has no flat horizontal surfaces – only curved surfaces.  If you held a ruler horizontally to your torso, the center of the ruler would touch you, but the ends would not.  They would be extending away from your torso.

A bra’s underwire is cut from a flat sheet of metal.  It’s basically a smiley face shape, but flat.  So, the ends of an underwire can have the same effect as the ends of a ruler.  However, if you bend your underwire a little in the center of its smile, the underwire takes on a shape better suited to your cylindrical torso. (See image above.)

Personally, I give all my underwires this subtle bend. It’s not very much, but I’ve found that the fit is better and my underwires are more comfortable.  And, when I try on a bra in my size and notice the underwire ends under my arm are protruding or resting on breast tissue instead of where they need to be, I’ll give them a little bend in the middle.  This always seems to solve the problem. Again, it’s not much of a bend, but it can make a big difference.

Let me also share with you that there is sort of a moral to this story: don’t be afraid to manipulate your underwires.  Underwires can get bent out of shape in a number of ways – during washing, mishandling in your lingerie drawer etc.  So, don’t be afraid to work with them until they fit you.  You have to put a lot of stress on an underwire before it will break.  And, it’s been my experience that if I don’t like the bend, underwires are easy to manipulate back to the beginning position.

Learn more about underwires and bra fitting.

Find underwire bras at HerRoom in these departments:
Bras

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I know you may think this sounds like a silly question, but are you?  Are you pulling your underpants up too high?  I bring this up because I realized that with some of my panty styles, I was. 

Here’s a little background.  The thong as a mainstream panty option hit about 15 years ago.  And, if you remember, the initial trend setters complained it was not comfortable.  Further research discovered that these women were putting on the thongs and pulling them up so that the waistband rested high on their hips – this was the problem.  Women didn’t realize at the time that the thong was designed to sit lower on the hips. After all, low rise pants were not yet making their debut on the market.  Only strippers and showgirls knew that thongs were to rest lower on the hips.  Since then, manufacturers either made thongs with longer rises so that women could pull them up to their waist, or put tags on them to let women know they were low-rise.

Okay, so back to my question.  I was going through my panty assortment the other day and singling out the panties that I felt were not comfortable to wear.  I have all styles in my drawer – boyshorts, thongs, bikinis, briefs–you name it, I have it.  When I had finished sorting out the ones I didn’t like, I noticed something; they were all low-rise.  So it got me thinking.  I grabbed a pair and put it on like I do all my panties and realized I just instinctively pulled them up too high.  When getting dressed, I have a bit of a ritual and move from item to item without much thought. All my panties were treated the same, regardless of style.

So, this time, I put on a low-rise bikini, but instead of my normal mindless pull-up, I thought about where it should be placed and I lowered the waistband to rest more on my hips.  What an epiphany!  This panty was now comfortable.  I wore it all day and it felt great.  I can’t believe I was doing this.

Here’s the lesson; stop and think about the style of panty you’ve just picked before mindlessly putting it on.  If you have some panties you have been avoiding because of comfort, go back and look at them through new glasses.  I think you’ll be as surprised as I that many pairs really are comfortable when put on correctly.

Find thongs and other styles at HerRoom in these departments:
Panties

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Mary from Boston wrote in to HerRoom this week with a question:  Why are strap adjusters on the back of the bra strap instead of in the front?  We actually hear this question on a regular basis, so what better to do than blog about it.  Here I go…

It makes perfect sense that the strap adjuster should be in front on bras.  Think about it.  It would make putting on a bra easier because the straps could quickly be let out to get them on your shoulders.  Once your bra is on, you could easily adjust the straps yourself until you had adequate breast support.  So, why aren’t they in front?  Well there are 4 reasons.

1. Strap design.  More and more bras now incorporate the front of the bra straps into the overall design of the bra.  If there is lace, you will see it also crawling up the bra strap  If there is a design element on the cup, many times it will continue up the strap.  Designers also like to shape the bra straps differently.  For example, start them wide where they attach to the bra cup and then taper them up to your shoulder area.   These design options would never work with a strap adjuster.  In these cases, the strap adjustment needs to be in the back.

2. Wide Strap Designs.  In the last 5 years, the concept of "comfort straps" has really taken off.  This is where the top of the strap that rests on your shoulder will be wide and possibly have padding.  Such a design necessitates any strap adjusting being handled in the back.

3. Aesthetics. It is the common opinion of the industry that when looking a a bra, it is more attractive if all the hooks and adjusters are in the back.  It’s a rather old concept, but one that seems to stick around.

4. Show-through.  In this age of t-shirt bras, when no one wants seams from a bra to show through their form-fitting clothing, the strap adjuster gets the same scrutiny.  If it’s in front, you would have a bump that would be visible under clothing.

Another interesting piece of information on this came from our friends at Wacoal.  Years ago, the strap adjustment was always on the front of a bra. But, unlike today’s adjusters, it was a slide and pull-through strap adjuster that was rather bulky.  Women complained about it showing under tops so the industry moved them to the back.  When the new adjusters became popular, the industry never moved them from back to front.

So, for all these reasons, we are left taking off our bras and then guessing as to the right adjustment, or depending on someone else to do it for us.  Now, there are some bras out there with front adjusters.  You’ll just need to look closely at our images, or use our nifty feature to have all the back shots pop up in your search.  And, you can purchase a convertible bra and switch the straps to your liking.

With all these explanations, it’s now understandable why the adjustments are in back.  But, it sure would be great if someone could figure out how a girl could get to them once she’s put on her bra.

Find bras at HerRoom in these departments:
Bras

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