Nurses Reveal 7 Reasons Why Women Over 70 Are Quietly Replacing Their Bras

🛏️ Some Nights She Forgets To Take It Off

REASON 1: WITH NO BAND OR WIRE, THEY FORGET THEY HAVE IT ON

Ask a woman what time her bra starts to bother her, and she’ll give you a number. For most of my ladies, it’s about 3 o’clock.

That’s the band. It’s a strip of tight elastic around your ribs, and it feels tighter every hour you sit. The wire presses in under your chest, and two thin straps pull on the same two spots on your shoulders all day. When I help a lady get ready for bed, I can see where all three sat.

The tank has no band and no wire. Its straps are wide and flat, and they don’t carry the weight by themselves. So nothing gets tighter as the afternoon goes on, and you stop watching the clock.

Edna is 81. Of all the women I visit, she’s the only one I’ve never had to help with a bra. Her daughter-in-law found her the tank two years ago.

“Peggy, it’s the closest thing to not wearing one,” she told me. “Some nights I go to bed in it because I forget it’s on.”

I bought one to wear under my scrubs. By the end of the first week, I’d stopped counting the hours too.

🦴 She Wore A 42DDD For 40 Years

REASON 2: HER 42DDD IS HELD ALL DAY WITH NO WIRE

“Big ones need a wire.” That’s the first thing almost every fuller-busted lady tells me.

But the wire was never what carried you. A bra hangs all that weight from four narrow spots: the two thin straps on top of your shoulders, and the band pulling at both sides of your ribs. The bigger you are, the deeper those spots dig, from breakfast to bedtime.

Think about carrying a heavy grocery bag. Hold it by the thin handles and they cut into your fingers. Hug the same bag to your chest and you barely feel it, because the weight is spread out.

The Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank hugs the bag. The molded cups, the wide flat straps and the long, snug body all share the weight, so no one spot carries it alone. There’s no wire and no band.

Dolores is 74, and she wore a 42DDD for 40 years. She said she’d give the tank one day. She wore it to the grocery store, then to her grandson’s ballgame that afternoon.

That night she called me. “It held me,” she said. “All day. I didn’t hitch it up once.”

Susie’s is having their Fall Sale right now, so that’s the first thing you’ll see on their page. Scroll down to pick your size and color.

🚫 Not One Of Those Floating-Cup Camis

REASON 3: REAL MOLDED CUPS, SO SHE WEARS NOTHING UNDER IT

If you’ve tried a cami with a bra in it, you know how that goes. A cheap shelf cami has one thin strip of elastic across the chest and a couple of loose pads. That strip does all the work, so it digs into your ribs and still doesn’t hold you. Most women end up wearing a bra under it anyway.

This tank is built differently. It has real molded cups built into the front and wide, flat straps. It’s cut long, so you tuck it into your slacks and it stays down. You wear it as your bra, with nothing under it.

Bev is 68, and she’d been burned before. About the last cami she bought, she said, “The cups float around like they’re mocking me.”

So she tested this one the way she tests everything. In my kitchen, she put both arms straight up over her head. Then she bent down to the bottom shelf of the fridge and came back up.

“Nothing moved,” she said. “Nothing floated, and nothing’s digging into my ribs.”

Then she asked me where to get three before they change it.

🙋 She Used To Ask Me To Come At 7 For Her Hooks

REASON 4: IT PULLS ON OVER HER HEAD, WITH NOTHING TO HOOK

A bra hooks in the middle of your back, where you can’t see. You reach both arms behind you and line up tiny hooks by feel. That’s easy at 30, and hard with stiff fingers and a shoulder that won’t bend back. The CDC says nearly half of Americans 65 and older have arthritis, and I see it in almost every house I walk into.

The tank has no hooks and no clasp. You sit on the edge of the bed and put it over your head, then your good arm, then the other one. Nothing goes behind your back.

It isn’t a tight pull-on sports bra, either. One of my ladies, who is 83, calls those “a danger to life and limb.” The tank has no tight band to wrestle over your shoulders.

Joan is 72. She has arthritis in both hands, and she had surgery on her shoulder last spring. She used to ask me to come at 7 on Sunday “so you can do my bra before church.”

The first Sunday she had the tank, she called me before I left the house.

“You don’t need to come early,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

✨ Her Daughter Asked If She’d Lost Weight

REASON 5: THE ROLL ON HER BACK IS GONE, BECAUSE IT WAS ALWAYS THE BAND

A lot of my ladies hate the bulge across their upper back. They see it in every family picture, and they blame their weight.

What makes that roll is the band. A strip of tight elastic presses into soft skin and pushes it up and over itself. Take the band away and the roll goes with it, even though their weight hasn’t changed.

The tank has no band. Its long, snug body runs smooth from under your arms to past your waist, and the molded cups give you shape in front, so your blouse hangs right again. It won’t push you up the way a push-up bra does. It holds you where you belong.

Shirley is 70, and for years she stood in the back row of every family picture. This past Mother’s Day she wore the tank under a short-sleeve blouse, and her daughter asked if she’d lost weight.

“I didn’t lose a pound,” Shirley told me. “I lost the band.”

She showed me the picture on her fridge.

She’s right in the middle of the front row.

☀️ Why She Kept A Sweater By The Door In July

REASON 6: THERE’S NO BAND AROUND HER RIBS, SO SHE DOESN’T DREAD JULY

Ask a lady when she finally gave up her bra, and a lot of them will say it was summer.

That’s the band again. It keeps tight elastic around your ribs for 12 hours at a time, and on a hot day, by the afternoon, it’s a damp line you peel off your skin.

Going without brings its own trouble, though. Irene is 79. She quit bras one hot summer and never went back. After that she kept a heavy sweater on the hook by her front door “just in case somebody pops by,” and she put it on to answer the door, even in July. She asked me to bring in her mail so the neighbor across the street wouldn’t see her.

The tank has no band, so nothing wraps tight around your ribs. The cups, the wide straps and the long body share the work. She’s held, and the part that made her quit is gone.

Irene’s daughter ordered her some in June. A few weeks later, a delivery man knocked while I was there. Irene answered the door in her short-sleeve blouse, and the sweater stayed on the hook.

“Well, look at that,” she said.

📏 “Peggy, My Size Doesn’t Exist Anymore”

REASON 7: NO BRA MATH, AND IF THE SIZE IS WRONG, THEY SHIP THE RIGHT ONE FREE

A bra size is a number and a letter, and both stop matching as your body changes. The band number moves, and so does the cup letter. Every brand measures a little differently, too. Most of my ladies quit trusting the size on the tag years ago.

This tank skips all that. There’s no band size and no cup letter. You pick your size the way you’d pick a T-shirt, from S all the way up to 6XL.

If you still get it wrong, Susie’s has a 90-Day Perfect Fit Guarantee. Size not right? Tell them within 90 days, and they ship you the right size free. It’s a simple size exchange.

Loretta is 76. “Peggy, my size doesn’t exist anymore,” she told me. She was between two sizes and picked the smaller one, and it was snug. She told Susie’s, and they shipped her the next size up, free.

“Fifty-five years of bras,” she said, “and that’s the first time anybody fixed a wrong size for me.”

Susie’s says more than 20,000 women have ordered these tanks, and over 10,000 have left a review. After watching my ladies, I understand why.

WHAT ALL SEVEN HAVE IN COMMON

If you read all seven, you saw the same few parts come up again and again: the hooks behind your back, two thin straps, one tight band and a wire.

The band is behind the 3 o’clock countdown, the roll on your back and the damp line in July. The straps and the band hang all the weight on four narrow spots. The hooks are why so many ladies need help in the morning, or just quit.

A bra was made for the body you had at 30. Your body changed, and bras didn’t. Going without fixes the hooks, but then nothing holds you, and you reach for the sweater.

My ladies needed both at once: nothing to fasten, and something that holds them with the weight spread out. Take those parts away, keep the hold, and all seven problems go away together. None of my ladies has gone back.

I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE

Since then, I’ve told a lot of my ladies about it, and I’ve heard from plenty of women who wear it. Here are a few of them in their own words. You’ll see Linda and Susan again on Susie’s page, with their before and after pictures.

THE QUESTIONS MY LADIES ASK ME FIRST

Whenever I tell a woman about it, she asks me the same few things. Here are my answers.

“I already stopped wearing a bra. Why would I go back?”

You wouldn’t be going back. There are no hooks or band, and nothing to reach behind you for. It’s a tank top you pull on over your head. You get held again without the part that made you quit.

“What size do I get?”

Pick it the way you’d pick a T-shirt. There’s no band size or cup size. It comes in S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL and 6XL, in 8 colors. The size chart is above the sizes on Susie’s page.

“Will it show under my blouse?”

It looks like a plain tank top. The cups are molded and built into the front, and the straps lie flat, so there are no hooks or bumps showing through the back.

“Can I put it on with a bad shoulder or stiff hands?”

Yes. Sit on the edge of the bed, put it over your head first, then your good arm, then the other one. There is nothing to fasten.

“Will it ride up?”

Not if you tuck it in. It’s cut long so it tucks into your slacks and stays down. Untucked, it can creep up when you bend over.

“How do I wash it?”

Wash it on gentle, in cold water. Lay it flat to dry, or tumble dry on low. The cups are built in, so you just wash it as is.

“What if I get the size wrong?”

Tell Susie’s within 90 days, and they’ll ship you the right size free. It’s a size exchange, not a refund.

I DID THE MATH ONE NIGHT

One night I opened my own bra drawer and counted nine bras. I only ever wore two of them. Every other one was bought to fix the one before it.

One of my ladies has more than 25 in her drawer. “Most of them I wore once,” she told me.

Then I did the other math. Most women need three: one to wear, one in the wash and one clean in the drawer. That’s why Bev ordered three before she even left my kitchen.

When you get to their page, you’ll meet Susie herself. She’s 67. Every bra hurt her in the same spots, so she made one that doesn’t. She sleeps in it, just like Edna.

Right now, Susie’s is running their Fall Sale. The tank is marked down, and it’s Buy 2, Get 1 Free on top of that, so the third one costs you nothing. If you want five, it’s Buy 3, Get 2 Free. Shipping is free in the US, it ships the next day, and you can mix the colors any way you like.

I don’t know how long they’ll keep that going. If your size is in stock today, that’s when I’d get it.

On their page it’s called the Comfort Shaper Tank. Don’t let the word “shaper” put you off. It isn’t tight like a girdle, and it’s the same tank my ladies wear.

THE WAY I SEE IT NOW

You can close this page and keep going the way you are. Tomorrow you reach behind your back for the same tiny hooks, or you wait for someone to come do them. You count the hours until you can take it off. At night, you see the same grooves in the mirror. Or you leave the bra in the drawer and keep the sweater by the door.

Or you can do what Edna, Dolores, Bev, Joan, Loretta, Irene and Shirley did. Pull it on over your head, tuck it in and go about your day. If the size is wrong, they send you the right one free.

I’ve watched a lot of women stop going places because getting dressed got too hard. Every one of them still cared how she looked. What she needed was something made for the body she has now.

Peggy

P.S.

Joan still keeps her old bras in the drawer. She says she can’t throw out something that cost that much. But she hasn’t worn one since Easter.

P.P.S. Remember Irene, who asked me to bring in her mail? Last week I pulled into her driveway, and she was already out at the mailbox, talking to the neighbor across the street. The sweater was still on the hook by the door.

Fall Sale: Buy 2, Get 1 Free. Free US shipping. 90-Day Perfect Fit Guarantee.