ARE you happy with the size of your boobs?
Do you even know if you’re wearing the right sized bra?
You can measure your bra size at home, and experts say it’s the most accurate methodAlamy
Boob or BustThe Boob or Bust calculator[/caption]
While tonnes of women long for bigger breasts, an online hack is proving they might just be better endowed than they thought.
The calculator, which you can use at home, measures your true bra size – and the reviews show women are shocked by their results.
Created by Boob or Bust, the company claims most high-street stores are measuring breasts wrong.
And let’s be honest – when’s the last time you went for a fitting anyway?
Going for a bra fitting is a huge inconvenience, meaning it doesn’t happen very often.
But this means a stark number of women are wearing the wrong bra size – as many as 95 per cent, according to research by Evenly and Brarista.
The average woman is wearing a bra that is two band sizes too big, and three cup sizes too small. For example, a woman with 32G breasts is wearing a 36D.
It may sound rather unbelievable, that your true bra size may be three cups larger.
But women “don’t understand cup sizes and bra bands”, according to CEO of Evenly, Kate Taylor, whose company creates prosthetic bra fillers for women with asymmetrical breasts.
She explains that the cup and band size are relative to each other.
Generally speaking, if you go down a band size, you need to go up a cup size.
Kate told The Sun: “For example, I was speaking to one of my friends on the weekend and she said to me, ‘I went for a bra fitting and the lady said that I’m a D cup and there’s no way I’m a D cup’.
“She’s very petite and I said I wouldn’t surprised if you are a D cup, because you would have a very small band size.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that the cup size is only relative to the band size.
“If you say ‘I have a D cup’, that means nothing unless you say the band size in relation.
“A 42D cup is a lot bigger than a 24D cup and because she’s very petite she would have a small band size and therefore, the D cup that would go with that band size is actually quite small.
“Whereas she’s obviously been conditioned to think that a D cup is a very large size.”
Kate explained that because bras only used to be made up to a D cup, women have ended up believing anything D cup or higher is “a really big size”.
“Actually, it’s really not, and many women are far beyond a D cup and many women don’t expect that.”
She added that a lot of women are wearing too large a band size due to outdated measuring methods.
“Many high-street bra fitters used to add four inches to your band measurements – so if you measured 30 inches around your chest they’d put you in a 34 inch band because bands didn’t used to have as much elastic,” she warned.
The best way to measure your bra size
Kate recommended using the website Boob or Bust to measure your true bra size.
The website claims that its research on 1,000 women showed that before being sized by Boob or Bust, the average cup size was a 36DD.
But after being measured, the new average size of the ladies surveyed was a 32GG.
The company says: “Just because you’ve been measured at the likes of places such as Mothercare/Debenhams/M&S or even John Lewis, doesn’t mean you are wearing the correct size.”
Kate says: “There’s a Facebook group associated with the website where you can ask for advice.
“And so many women in that group say ‘there’s no way this can be my size.
“It tells me I’m a 28JJ and I’ve been wearing a C cup my whole life’.
“And then they’ll try a bra in the 28JJ size and then say ‘oh my god it fits’.
“They can’t mentally get past this thing of like a JJ must be huge and it’s like no it’s not, if you’re in a small band. And probably you do need a smaller band.”
How the bra calculator works
The traditional method of bra measuring, used by high-street stores, involves measuring your back and bust when you’re standing up.
Alternatively, there’s the ‘Boob or Bust’ method, which uses four measurements and a clever computer algorithm.
The four measurements are:
Tight: With your bra off, measure under the bust as tight as you can go.Snug: With your bra off, measure under the bust again, but this time leave a gap big enough to fit two fingers beneath the tape.Standing: With your bra off, standing up, measure around the fullest point of your bust. Take care not to squish or squash your boobs at this point.Leaning: Similarly to standing, repeat the process again, but this time while leaning over with your breasts dangling downwards at a 90° angle.
All you need to do is input the numbers into the calculator to get a result.
The best bra for your boob shape revealed…
Boob or BustThe website gives a number of tips on finding the right bra[/caption]
Boob or BustThey explain how different bras suit different boob shapes[/caption]