Recently, one of the bloggers I follow, @StockingsAddict, posted a great series on her site:  Three Kinds of Lingerie You Should Buy Online and Three Kinds of Lingerie You Shouldn’t Buy Online.  An interesting read and great advice for those of your who are new to buying lingerie online.  If you are hosiery lover, I’m sure you will enjoy the rest of the site as well.

Happy reading!

Question #1: Which of these bras is bigger in cup size?

Bra Set #1

Question #2: Okay, which of these bras has the bigger cup size?

Bra Set #2

Question #3: How about these bad boys?

Bra Set #3

Think you know the answers? You may be surprised! Head on over to The Pretty Year’s post Size Chart Woes: The Naked Truth About Bra Sizes to check your answers and to learn more about the band/cup relationship, the myth of “sister sizing,” and cup size illusions.

Then, in a follow-up post, she said,

…there seems to be a major discrepancy between What We Were All Taught about bra sizing and Bra Reality.

Basically, we were told that cup size is determined by the number of inches difference between our underbust and bust measurements– 1 inch = A cup, 2 inches = B cup, and so on. Based on this, many of us assumed this meant that all A cups were the same size/volume (i.e., “1 cubic inch” or some such), all B cups were the same size/volume, etc., and that the only difference between, say, a 32D and a 36D was in the band. But nay, as our own photographic evidence suggests, this is not true. Your 36D has significantly more volume in the cup than your 32D, in addition to being wider in the band itself.

A dramatic reenactment:

To learn why a 1 inch difference in perimiter equals more than a 1 inch difference in cup volume (with more helpful visualizations) go to Size Chart Woes: Fun With Math!

All the details about this contest are right here on our blog — make sure you enter before the 14th of august!

Contest details are right here! — Make sure you don’t miss out!

By the way: not sure what to do with $500 at the Red Door? Check beachwear.cc or Blog-Tique — they’ve shown a few possibilities.

Thanks so much for all your support in our first months. We look forward to bringing you even more of the latest and greatest in lingerie in the upcoming months.

The photo thanks to bigpicturesphoto.com:

Well, thanks to the people of both Fabsugar and Stilettojungle we now have the perfect addresses for you to shop for the same suit, and you don’t even need to be a millionaire!

The Jen suit available at Figleaves (US/UK) is only about $125 for the triangle bikini and the side detail bottom:

The Vix Torey suit is available at the Vix webstore for about $120.

Not too shabby if you ask me. Happy shopping!

What to expect? pure class! I don’t have the details just yet, but I’m looking forward to letting you know more about these pieces when I do. Cut me some slack when it takes a few weeks, there’s so much happening at the moment!

In the mean time, head over the Faire Frou Frou to take a look, and enjoy the photo’s!

“She blushes and replies as best she can under the circumstances (retail supervisors at department stores are notorious for watching staff at any given moment — do well, get a Frango; do poorly, get written up), “Well, it’s made for younger… er, smaller, um, like for Junior customers.” Junior my ass is what I am thinking. I know of no 16 year old who could fit in this stuff — big boobs or no. But I can’t terrify this poor clerk and say this to her. So I nod and go on my way. In my way out I pass through the children’s department. There on a 4-way is a collection of swimsuits (spring, remember?). I impulsively grab two bikinis, a size 7 and a size 12, and head back to intimates…

There I find the hidden corner of small smalls, and hold the size 7 child’s swimsuit up to the size Large women’s lingerie top, comparing (under) bustline to (under) bustline. Both garments have Lycra or other stretch so it’s a fair comparison. Held snugly, with enough tension to line the garments up and compare them I made my discovery: The size 7 is almost an inch and a half smaller. A full grown woman is supposed to be, at most, just 1 and 1/2 inches larger than a little girl who wears a size 7?

I swallow hard. I’m stunned. Hands shaking, I do the same with the size 12 … Holy crap, it’s one inch larger! The size 12 little girl’s swimsuit is one f****ng inch larger than a woman’s size Large.”

Read the full blog entry here!

I just had to feature this, even though (and I want to stress this) I’m going to try and find out first hand on the next occasion… Feel free to do the same!

First of all, although I sound enormous I assure you that I am not. We’ve all heard the statistic about how 80% of women are in the wrong bra size. And of course, most women ignore that or think, “That’s not me! I’m in the smart, lucky 20%.” But of course, like most women, I was horribly wrong. I remember being absolutely amazed my freshman year of college when I could fit into a C cup. And that’s what I wore – a 36C, until one day I randomly decided that I didn’t think my bras fit me anymore. I embarked upon a long and horribly expensive journey until one lingerie shop finally fitted me correctly (because they had my size in stock. I realized that all the others just put me into whatever size they had to make a sale. I still hate them all for it). You can imagine how floored I was, and how in denial (I actually cried, which suprised the crap out of me), until the lady who fitted me brought out a DDD and it fit. Once I learned more about bras, I realized that I should’ve been in at least a D though most of high school. What most people don’t know (and that I didn’t know until about a year ago) is that cup sizes vary with band size – and most women are wearing a horribly incorrect band size. But the cups on a 32D are the same size as that on a 36B. Cup letters have nothing to do with the actual size of the boob and everything to do with the ratio of your rib cage size to your boobs. I’m dispensing all of this knowledge so that everyone understands that two people with equally impressive breast sizes can wear completely different cup sizes. Most women, and all men, have no idea about this. I didn’t.

The full story: hyacinthsandbiscuits.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-think-shes-making-this-up.html!

“I came back to my apartment about an hour or two ago. There was a package by my apartment door. At first I was excited! I knew it was the multiway Marks and Spencer bra I ordered off of Ebay! Yay! It finally came! But then I was immediately confused – why was it in front of my apartment door? If a package is too big for the mailbox, the mailman almost never just leaves it. He leaves a little note that says to come pick it up at the post office. Also, the mailman can’t get past the mailroom to put it in front of my apartment door, anyway.

So I was confused but ultimately decided not to care, and I came into my apartment and sat down. I went to open the box with my Ebay bra inside. But then I saw that someone had already opened it! There was packing tape all around which someone cut, and opened up the box, (and I guess decided they didn’t want it?), and then they sat it in front of my door.

I’m so angry and creeped out by this whole situation. I knew I had thieves in my building, but seriously. I don’t even get what’s going on here. At least they were nice enough thieves to give it back to me since they didn’t want it.”

Read the full story here, she actually talks about the bra too (another dissapointment, though). Enjoy her blog!