Who Knew Underwear Shopping Could Be Fun?

If you are anything like me, you are not one of the lucky few girls blessed with perfectly shaped and sized breasts.  For most of my life, shopping for a bra has been anything but fun.  However, I have recently discovered that shopping for a well fitting bra doesn't have to totally suck thanks to my younger sister who is a genius at her job.

My sister works at Aerie - the underwear store associated with American Eagle which has been gaining popularity in the past few years.  Their mission is to compete with Victoria's Secret and I have to say - Aerie's bras last much longer and are less expensive than those at Victoria's and personally - my amazing derriere is too big for most of Victoria's panties anyways lol.

 My sister has worked for Aerie for a few years now and she has slowly been helping me to update my underwear collection.  As Aerie comes out with new products, my sister has continued to help me to find out which bras fit me best - not an easy task since unfortunately for me, I am not the most common shape and am between sizes.  

I recently found out that my sister's favorite part of her job is helping women find the perfect bra for them.  My husband once asked me why women really care about what their bras and panties look like since - lets face it - men would rather see them on the floor The answer in my opinion is that when we have cute undies- we feel great about ourselves and I think that is enough to get a day off to a great start.  Sometimes starting out the day with a healthy dose of self confidence is enough to change the course of a day.

Anyways... my sister recently brought me to her store to try on some new bras... after hearing me describe some of my frustrations with my current ones she suspected that perhaps I wasn't wearing the right size.  That was the last thing that I suspected to be the issue, after all I have been wearing the same size bra for most of my adult life!

What I didn't know was three key things:

 1) Every bra fits differently - this sounds like common sense but I don't mean this in the sense that each style is different - that much is obvious- what I mean is that each bra may fit differently in each size just like clothes.  For example, I may wear a size 8 in one style of dress but require a 10 in another.  Brain surgery- I know!

and 

2) Every bra size has a very similar "sister size" combination of band size/cup size.  My sister - who is a professional at fitting people - had me try on several different size combinations and I discovered that she was right!  There was a better size than what I had been buying!  

and

3) The fit of the bras I already owned could be dramatically improved just by readjusting their straps.  This never really occurred to me either although I am not sure why.  Straps get stretched out and also changed in the process of being washed.  After spending about an hour tightening all of my bra straps I can happily report that they are all fitting much better.

While these three ideas may be obvious to some, I found them quite enlightening and I am happy to say that I am loving my new bras and have reached a much happier truce with the other residents of my underwear drawer.  I highly encourage my fellow "sisters" to go and get bra fitted by someone who knows that they are doing.  After all they have always said that the right pair of shoes could change your life (i.e. Cinderella) but who says that a well fitting bra wouldn't work just as well :)