How a bowl of warm water can help you buy a bra that fits better
Think you need cosmetic surgery to have your breasts look at their best? Think again!
Many women who are considering a boob job would do better to find the right size bra.
Whether your breasts are big or small, perky or pendulous, watermelons or cones — whatever their shape or cup size, your figure benefits from wearing the right size bra.
Yet bra fitting is notoriously difficult — not just because actual bra sizes and the way bras fit differ from brand to brand, and from label to label, but also because your breasts change in shape and size all the time.
The first step to selecting the right bra is to know the exact size of your breasts. How? Stay tuned for an offbeat, but accurate way to measure your boobs:
[S]tyle gurus Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine [are] encouraging women to plunge their breasts into water to help them work out the exact size of their bosoms.
The bizarre technique, they say, is a far more accurate because it determines the weight, rather than the cup size of a woman’s breasts.
And it could help scientists design the ultimate, perfect-fitting bra for all women in the future.
With just a bowl of luke warm water, a baking tray and kitchen scales, housewives across the nation could soon all be using simple physics to work out the precise size of their bosoms.
The technique works by immersing each breast in a bowl of water and weighing the amount of water displaced.
One litre of water weighs one kilogram, so the volume of water can be easily converted to work out the weight of each individual bosom.
Susannah tried out the measuring technique to highlight the problems women face finding the right bra size for a new series of ITV’s Undress the Nation.
According to recent surveys, as many as 75 per cent of women either do not know their true bra size or are regularly wearing ill-fiiting underwear.
[...][A]fter dunking her assets into a bowl of luke warm water, design engineer Dr John Tyrer, was able to work out that Susannah’s breasts weighed two pounds each – or the equivalent of four bags of sugar.
He is currently designing a prototype for the perfect bra based on weight, rather than cup size.
Dr Tyrer said: “Women have this wonderful methodology about their breasts. They say ‘well, they’re different, they’re this shape, they’re that size.’
“The question is how do you know? Because the measurement process you have is an irrelevance.
“If you’re an engineer or a designer the first thing you want to know is how heavy – how heavy are each of your breasts.
“Knowing the displaced amount of water tells us what the breast weight is.
Then, using a conversion factor we can then convert the weight of displaced water to the weight of the breast.
[...]Susannah said that finding bras that fit perfectly could revolutionise the lives of women and stop those unhappy with their body shape from going under the knife for cosmetic surgery.
“It’s astonishing that so many women have no concept of how big their boobs are,” she said.
“Hardly anyone has the right size bra on. Bras are either way too big, or way too small.”
Trinny added: “The most awful thing is that every single bra manufacturer makes a different size bra again and again and again. So, you might be a B cup in one store and a D cup in the other, it is crazy.”
- Source: Liz Hull, Daily Mail, Nov. 7, 2007
How To Weigh Your Breasts
Equipment needed: kitchen scales, baking tray and a bowl
- Weigh baking tray and record weight. Fill bowl with lukewarm water to brim and place on tray. Place one breast into the bowl, until totally immersed.
- Water will be displaced into baking tray.
- Weigh tray and displaced water. Subtract weight of tray. You will be left with weight of displaced water.
- One litre of water weighs 1kg. To convert to weight of breast, multiply figure by 0.9
- A breast which displaced one litre of water, weighs around 0.9kg and is on average the size of a 36C.
I tried this method as I always have a hard time finding a bra that fits comfortably. It felt weird to use my baking equipment in this novel way, but it sure worked! I finally bought some bras that really fit me well. Thanks for this great tip.
I felt like a right sod trying this. My boyfriend laughed so hard he got the hiccups, which was just as well. Normally he’d have grabbed his camera. I wouldn’t have liked him taking pictures of me submerging one of my boobs!
It worked like a charm though. My new bras are fantastic!
did I miss something? How do you convert the weight into a bra size?
That’s difficult to do, Tricia, because there are no standard cup sizes. Cup sizes differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, which is why it is so important to try each bra before buying it.
Ellen and I weighed out breasts and gave the details to a professional bra fitter. That information, together with proper measurements, told her which bras to recommend.
What many women do not realize is that most of the weight of your breasts should be supported by the band around the chest instead of the shoulder straps — and that is where weighing your breasts come into account. The tension of this band actually supports the cups.
OK, the stupid part: “A breast which displaced one litre of water, weighs around 0.9kg and is on average the size of a 36C.” The “36″ refers to back/torso width and the letters refer to cup size. So, both of my friends have a C cup, but one has a back measurement of 38 and the other is 34. This is a theory that sounds like only a man could come up with it…