Buying a good bra

I apologize in advance for the indelicacy of this post. But lately I've been giving a lot of thought about buying bras. Happy ending first -- I bought a couple of great bras at Marks and Sparks over the weekend. But only after a lot of mental agony.

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The source of almost every woman's first bra is their mother. Your mom will give you a "trainer" or some other "starter" bra that will almost always be made with cotton, be white, have no pads, no underwire and will be itchy as hell.

You will wear this for a few months (maybe even a year) and then "graduate" to a "regular" bra, again, almost always bought by your mother. Cotton, white, no pads, no underwire and thank you Jesus, less itchy.

As a girl gets older, she starts buying her own bras, finding her own style and preferences. Padded, with underwire, lacey, multi-color. Any combinations thereof. The selections are infinite.

The thing is, I am not most girls.

Until this day, I wear white, cotton, no pads, no undwire and thank you Jesus, non itchy bras.

And as styles of bras become more modern and trendy, you can imagine that buying a "simple" bra can get tricky. Specially if you're "blessed" in that department. I'm no Dolly Parton, but in Manila, buying bras for gals like me can be a challenge. Don't you agree, N.?

It's a fact -- almost all bras are padded. Sorry to break this to you, Dad and G. (the only two males who read this blog). Buying an unpadded bra is like buying a yellow car. There are some out there, but you have to look for them. Most unpadded bras are made for young girls -- the trainers I mentioned. I think I've also mentioned that I've outgrown those years ago.

Most bras have underwire. I understand this gives extra "lift" to those who need it. (God I pity those poor women. I've never owned one, but I'd think it would be a bitch wear.)

So for the last 20 years or so, I've been buying facsimiles of the same bra. Most of them sold by a Pinoy manufacturer. Does this sound like something your grandmother would do? Because it surely sounds like something mine would do; I guess when it comes to bra preference I'm an old soul.

The Philippine-made bras while a perfect fit (figuratively and literally) lose their elasticity after a year. So you need to replace them regularly. And that's tricky if you live in HK. HK, where the women have even smaller breasts. Sigh.

Thank God for Marks and Sparks, where bras are made for Caucasian women and my bra size is like a size 6 for shoes (ie the most common size). Where white, cotton, unpadded, no underwire bras are sold by the truckload.