Why I Can’t Stop Shopping at Victoria’s Secret

Alright, there are a ton of VS posts going around the internet on all sorts of blogs right now, mostly because of the false rumor that they’re coming out with a line for middle school girls. The “line” in question, “Bright Young Things”, was actually just a marketing campaign for a spring break line from PINK, which focuses on a college aged demographic. The “line” is causing people everywhere to question what age is okay to start shopping at VS, since they’re obviously a very “sexified” company.

But this post is not about that, at all, even a little bit. This post is just about how even though Victoria’s Secret doesn’t carry my bra size and has awful fitting techniques, I still shop there. And there’s pretty much only one reason why.

My name is Robin, and I am addicted to Victoria’s Secret cheekies.

Seriously. Sometimes they’re called other things (“sexy little things”, tanga, cheeky… alot of the tags on these were different, but they’re all cut the same).

Probably less than half of my collection…

These panties, you guys… I buy a new pair almost every time I have disposable income. And I haven’t had to get rid of a single pair yet. I seriously have cheekies that I’ve been wearing regularly for multiple years. That’s one of the main reasons I keep buying them! There is underwear from Victoria’s Secret that isn’t great quality. I know some of the pairs made out of lace that I’ve had from there have gotten holes in them pretty quickly, but these have held up against the test of time! They come in all the colors under the sun, and there are new ones constantly coming out. They are generally made from a Lycra/spandex mix, which is stretchy enough for me to get a comfortable fit from them, but still feels really silky too, and they  have a lace waistband and leg holes.

“But Robin,” you may say, “tons of other stores sell cheekies too. You could buy them from elsewhere.” And that is true. But I really have found that for the quality, Victoria’s Secret is the best price. I’ve bought cheekies from Target fairly often, but they get holes within a few months, which is why I don’t have any to show you! I could buy them from a department store, but they can get pricey for the same quality. And if my main beefs with Victoria’s Secret are their narrow size range, poor fitting techniques, and homogenous models, then what am I really helping by shopping at a department store that probably also has all of those issues?

In terms of wearing cheekies, I think they’re the most comfortable underwear I have, but I know not everyone will. They definitely go up your butt. They’re really more like a glorified thong than anything else, so if you like thongs, you’ll probably like these, if you don’t like thongs, you may not. I have kind of a big butt, so pretty much all underwear gets eaten by it. Even my more full coverage pairs, like the Curvy Kate Emily briefs go up my butt at some point, so that is no where near a deal breaker for me. They don’t give enough coverage for me to feel comfortable posting a shot from directly behind, but here’s a view from the side. I think that it gives a pretty good picture of the kind of coverage we’re talking about.

They hide well even under my tighter clothing. I regularly where this style of panty under yoga pants and tight skirts, with minimal panty lines, although if I wanted to be 100% confident that I wasn’t showing, I would definitely opt for a thong.

Wearing this underwear is great, because it’s a perfect cross between functional and sexy for me. They give enough coverage and comfort so that I’m not adjusting them all day, but at the same time I know I’m wearing something really pretty underneath my clothes.

The cost of these panties vary, they’re usually in between $12 for the solid colors and $18 for the more embellished ones, but you can often find them at the Semi Annual Sale for $6 or less. I generally wear a size small in these, or a medium if I want more coverage.

Rhinestones and lace! I think these were $18, or maybe even as much as $22 retail, but I got them at the Semi Annual Sale for $12.

Clothing Review: Express Stretch Cotton Skater Dress

So I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been making some birthday purchases (it’s this coming Saturday!), and here is my review of the first of them! I’ve never done a clothing review before on the blog, mostly because A) I usually just wear solid color cotton v-neck t-shirts with a tight high waisted skirt, and B) All of my clothes are old, and no longer readily available! But here I am with a brand new purchase, that is decent on bustiness, and is in season. And better yet, it’s 30% off right now! Onto the review!

Okay, so my purchase was the Stretch Cotton Skater Dress from Express! I love Express’s clothing, but it’s usually out of my price range by a decent amount. This dress usually retails for $39.00, but I got it for $27.99, a pretty good deal if I say so myself! I know that not all hourglass figured bloggers have had success with skater dresses, but this is actually the only dress in the mall that I tried on that day that fit me well at all. Since it’s made of cotton/Lycra, it had plenty of stretch to accomodate my boobs but still be tight on my waist. Because I didn’t really  have to size up for my bust, I was able to get a size Small. You’ll see in the photos that my bra is visible on the sides, but this happened with the medium as well, and also I just don’t care that much about people being able to see my bra in casual situations. The way tank tops are cut, you can see the side of my bra through the armholes almost all the time, but I live in a city that literally has the motto “Famously Hot”, and I’m only a college student! People who want to complain can get over it 😛

Oh, and as a reminder, my measurements are 40-28-40, and I like to wear my clothes tight fitting!

Visible bra when I don’t have my arms down directly by my sides

Pretty scooped back with a small zipper embellishment. I hadn’t noticed that it was partially unzipped until this picture, it might be my boobs pressing against the front unzip it? Also the roll beneath my band here is just a product of hastily thrown on shapewear!

One of the main reasons I bought this dress is that, aside from fitting me fairly well, it’s very versatile. As you can see, I don’t need to wear a belt with it, but if I want to, it looks great. Here I added a gold belt and (though you can’t see them) gold sandals to go for a summery look.

This would be a great look for going to dinner with friends in the summer, or any other casual occasion that I wanted to look cute for! I can also make it work for spring or fall by adding my trusty black cropped sweater.

Since the sweater conceals my usually visible bra, it makes the dress a bit more appropriate for less casual occasions, like dinner at a nicer restaurant, or going to eat with my grandparents. If I were to add tights, it would be a great dress to wear through fall and winter (well… winter here in South Carolina, where the coldest it ever gets is ~40F).

As you can see, it’s a decently modest neckline when paired with my PL Mak (padding removed). However, if I slip the pads back in, and layer the Mak over my Freya Deco (as seen in my post Cleavage Concerns), it becomes a cleavagey dress for date night or going out clubbing.

BOOBS EVERYWHERE

Overall, I thought this was a great purchase that was flattering AND versatile. My only gripe with this dress is that the fabric is slightly thin. Underneath the dress in these pictures I’m wearing my handy dandy shapewear (some no name brand from CVS Pharmacy that cost like $10), not because the dress is tight and shows my rolls, but because you can see my bellybutton through the thin fabric and it freaks me out. Also, it is slightly see through. I didn’t realize this when I bought it, because I was wearing my Mak, and the red under the coral color of the dress is invisible. Later, when I tried to wear it with my  black Freya Deco… things did not work out as well. I still would wear it with all my bras (even the black one- refer to the top of the post “I don’t care if you can see my bra a little”), but it does mean that when I’m trying to be a bit more conservative or modest that my underwear options are limited. For reference, here’s what I was wearing underneath:

Hopefully y’all enjoyed my first outfit post! I said at the end of my last post that I was going to start branching out, and thought that since I have my new Urkye dress on the way (it shipped today!) I should probably get some outfit post practice! Also thanks for bearing with me through all the crappy cell phone pictures… I used to have a camera, but it was in a purse that got stolen, and ever since then other things (usually lingerie!) have come before “new camera” on my list of things to buy. But I’ll get one someday… Promise!

Boob Growth and Some Other Stuff

Hey guys! I have a fluid mechanics test coming up on Monday, so you know that means it’s time for me to write a new post 😛 My favorite form of procrastination!

So what prompted me to write this was realizing that my PL Mak, which when I first received it almost 3 months ago, was a little too big without the push up pads in place, now fits perfectly without them. Picture evidence:

Now

Before

Before

Now

Now. (Ignore the pit stain 😛 A college student with only 1 well fitted bra doesn’t have time to hand wash something very often! Haha)

Before

 

 

 

This is one of the reasons Ewa Michalak really meets my needs. Maybe the pictures don’t show it as well as I can see it, but this bra is much more full now than it was at the beginning of January. I don’t know if it was tissue migration, the fact that I’m only 19 and could well be experiencing breast growth still, or something else, but I love that with Ewa I can order a size up from what my “safe” choice would be and I don’t have to worry about it much. I also love that now that this bra doesn’t gape without pads, I can use them just for extra cleavage when I feel like it (and if I’m being honest, I always feel like it!). So yeah. If you know your boobs are growing (mine seem to have been growing steadily since around last April), ordering a cup size up in an Ewa Michalak bra that comes with removable pads is a good plan. I know that before I got this bra, I was having to buy a new bra in a higher cup size ever 3 months or so. I just do not have the money for that! I got three months out of this bra with the pads, so hopefully I’ll get at least three months out of it without the pads before it is just all around too small. That will still be twice the average life span of my bras prior to this.

The “other stuff” I mentioned in the title is just this little thought I had inspired by the semi-controversial Bras I Hate & Love post about using +2 instead of +0. I personally disagree, but to me it also doesn’t matter that much what the starting point is because I’m going to end up  just telling everyone to do what’s comfortable for them, and +0 is just more logical to me than +2 (I personally find it much easier to tell if a band is too small than if it’s too big) but that isn’t what my thought was about.

After reading the post, naturally I tried on a few bras to see if I was falling victim to the very tight band look that she had going on in 28 bands. When I saw that picture, it looked very uncomfortable! I thought, “Surely my back doesn’t look like that! Wouldn’t I have noticed?”. Then, she mentions strained hooks as a symptom of a too small band. And my super comfortable, perfectly fitted (in my opinion) PL Mak has strained hooks! So today I took a picture of what my back looked like in it, to see if it was indeed too small.

The hooks do appear strained, though not nearly as strained as the ones on the 28 bands in her post, but I don’t get the corset-like compression she describes. I think my back here does look similar to her well fitted 30s (it’s hard to see what the hooks in her well fitted bras look like because her example is a darker bra and it’s a rather dark photo).

But the hooks on this bra do look pulled out when I take it off. But the more I looked at all my bras… all of my hooks look strained.

28K PL Mak hooks

28J Tease Me hooks (usually worn on the 3rd set)

34DD Victoria’s Secret push up bra hooks

So, yeah. Obviously the PL Mak is the most pulled, as it is the smallest of the bands shown. But it’s also the only one that doesn’t ride up and move around. The 28J Tease Me stretches to 32″, far above my underbust measurement of 28.5″, but still shows signs of strain and pulling out. Even on the 34DD, the hooks I usually wore the bra on are pulled further out and show some strain (compared to the first pair of hooks which I don’t think I ever used), though obviously they show the least strain, since that band stretches to ~36″.

Basically I’m not sure that for everyone, strained hooks is a sign of a too small band. Two of these bras are definitely too LARGE in the band for me and the hooks are still pulled. Also when you look at how the back of the PL Mak fits me, I don’t think it looks too small. It has the normal amount of bubbling underneath the band, but none from the top, but the hooks strain. But I can pull it around 3″ away from my body, and it’s perfectly comfortable to me.

I guess ultimately it doesn’t matter. If your hooks strain but the bra is comfortable to you, wear it. I keep worrying that I’m wearing my band too tight, after reading about reversed letterphobia and the Bras I Hate & Love post, and I keep doubting myself. But then I remember that I have multiple bras in a 30 band that lay unused in my drawer because I can’t even leave the house without pulling the band back down to the correct level. I wish I could wear a 30 though! So many more options!

The other “other stuff” that I’ll go ahead and mention again, in case you don’t follow me on Facebook, is that I’ve made a couple purchases relevant to the blog! I bought the Small Red dress from Urkye in a 36oo/ooo and the Carmen bra and Carmen stringi from Comexim in a 65L and a size large. I’m in between sizes at Urkye, and in hindsight feel like I should’ve gone for the 38oo/ooo for the extra boob room (my bust measurement is too large for any of the size 36 clothes), but whatever. I’ll just wear shapewear and hope for the best on the boobs, since it’s made from stretchy fabric. The Comexim bra is going to be an iffy fit, because I bought it in what’s essentially a 30HH. I hear the bands run tight sometimes, and would rather have a slightly too large band than an unwearable one, so I went up a band size. Nowadays I think I’m a 28JJ (I think?!?!?!), and therefore would’ve needed a 30J, but the Carmen doesn’t come in a larger cup size, and it’s sooooo sexy… I couldn’t pass it up! And honestly, all my bras aside from the Mak are too big in the band and too small in the cup, and that doesn’t stop me from wearing them, and that won’t stop me from wearing Carmen assuming all else looks good.

Red Dress from urkye.pl!

Carmen set from comexim.pl

Hopefully you guys don’t mind my hodge-podge post! Haha I just had a little to say about a lot of things. Also, how would you guys feel if I branched the blog out to other things (makeup, shoes, non-busty-specific clothing, general woman-with-curves things, delicious recipes?). I don’t really have enough money to do bra reviews very often, and now that I’m kind of buying exclusively from Poland, there isn’t much selection for me either. Let me know what y’all think!

A little bit of a rant

So, I’m on spring break right now, and my ex-boyfriend (who I’m still good friends with) went to the beach with a couple of his friends. Today, he called me, and we were talking about his trip, and he tells me about one of the girls that was there.

“Robin, you won’t believe what she thought her bra size was… She was wearing a 36DD”

“What?! Well did you tell her?!”

And he had! He had told her that her bra size was almost definitely 100% wrong. I was so proud of him! Unfortunately, she didn’t believe him. He even told her about my bra journey, but it was apparently met with cries of, “I’m not thin enough to be in a smaller band…”, “I don’t think I could fit in anything bigger than a DD…”, “I don’t WANT to be more than a DD”, and the one that really really REALLY bothered me… “Boys like the too-small look.” 

ಠ_ಠ

Seriously.

I have gotten a lot of excuses for why girls aren’t wearing a bra that fits, but this “guys-like-it-better” is the worst. Mostly because guys don’t even know better! They don’t necessarily like the too-small look. They like cleavage! And if anything, you’re going to get better cleavage in a well fitted plunge bra than in a poorly fitted bra because the band will actually be there to support your boobs and squeeze them in!

And even then, “Guys like the too-small look” is not a reason to wear a too small bra EVERY DAY. I would be totally lying if I said I didn’t still have a 34DD Victoria’s Secret padded bra lying around that I would occasionally wear for a few minutes as lingerie (or under a second bra, for the “insane porn star boobs” look that I discuss in my post Cleavage Concerns) but I would never wear that thing every day! It’s so uncomfortable and unsupportive!

The other thing about this, is the “I can’t fit into a smaller band”. This is a bra fitting issue on par with the DDs-are-huge myth, if you ask me. Because 32 is the smallest sold in stores, people think 32 = very thin, 34 = thin/average, 36 = larger side of average, 38 = overweight… And this just isn’t true!

I haven’t met the girl this post is based on, but after the conversation with the ex, I did facebook stalk her. And though she appears slightly overweight in her photos, she is definitely NOT larger than a 32 band (unless she has a flared ribcage, which does sometimes happen). Looking at this girl, I would guess 32FF. But because of the limited availability of sizes in the US, she can’t imagine that size even existing 😦

I know you can’t save all the boobies in the world… but meeting skeptical women makes me so sad. And I am so tempted to facebook message her myself to push the issue, but I know that would just be obnoxious. Perhaps she didn’t believe that her bra size was wrong because it was a man who said it? Who knows. But I’m going to end this rant now, because I doubt y’all really care. I just was very annoyed and needed to type my feelings out!

Thanks for reading my rant guys! Have any fellow bravangelizers out there had to deal with skeptics? What do you say to convince women that maybe it is worth it to double check their bra size?