After 31 Years, a Nurse Reveals Why Women Over 70 Are Done With Bras (Hint: Their Back Rolls Are Gone), and What They Wear Instead
Every Tuesday, 40 women over 70 blamed their weight for the roll across their backs. Their nurse saw the real cause, and one regular built the fix.
My name is Carla Brenneman. I’ve been a nurse for 31 years. I spent 20 of them on a hospital floor. For the last 11, I’ve run the free blood pressure clinic at our town’s senior center every Tuesday morning.
About 40 women come every week. Almost all of them are between 70 and 89. They sit across a little card table from me, roll up a sleeve and talk. They tell me things they don’t tell their doctor.
And week after week, I hear the same things about bras.
“Carla, these straps dig a ditch in my shoulders.”
“The band rides up my back all day long.”
“I can’t reach the hooks anymore.”
“I unhook it in the car on the way home. I can’t even wait till I’m in the house.”
“And this roll on my back shows through every blouse I own.”
Then every one of them finishes the same way. “It’s just my age, Carla.”
For years I nodded and pumped up the cuff. Then one Tuesday I noticed something that told me they were all wrong. Once you see it, I don’t think you’ll look at the bra in your drawer the same way again.
THE SAME THREE SPOTS ON EVERY WOMAN
Here’s what I noticed. When a lady told me her bra hurt, she’d point to where. And they all pointed to the same three spots.
The straps, on top of the shoulders. The band, around the ribs. And the hooks, in the middle of the back.
A tiny woman of 71 who wears a size 8 pointed to the same three spots as a woman of 88 who wears a 3XL.
If it were age, it would look different on every woman. Age doesn’t pick the same three spots on everybody. A bra does.
Then I started watching the ladies who had quit bras for good. They sat across from me with their arms crossed tight over their chest the whole visit, even in that warm room.
Wearing one hurt and going without showed, and every one of them blamed herself for it.
WHO EVERY BRA IS REALLY CUT FOR
Then I remembered something I’d read years ago and never thought twice about.
Every bra pattern starts on one woman. Bra makers call her the fit model. They pin the cups on her and fuss with them until they look right on her. Then they make thousands, in every size, all shaped like her.
And she is almost always young, usually in her twenties.
So the bra in your drawer was made for a 25-year-old. At 75, your chest is softer, sits lower and spreads to the sides. The bra still expects that young girl. So the band climbs your back trying to hold up a shape that isn’t there. The straps dig because they carry the whole load. And the hooks sit right where stiff shoulders can’t reach.
That’s why going up a size never fixed it, and neither did the “comfort” bra. They were all cut from the same young girl.
WHAT SUSIE SAID AT THE COFFEE URN
One of my Tuesday regulars is Susie. She’s 67. She comes for her blood pressure, stays for the coffee and had the same bra complaints as everybody else at my table.
Before she started Susie’s, she spent years at one of the biggest makers of women’s underwear and bras. She can’t name the company. But she knows how a bra gets made, every piece of it.
One Tuesday we were standing at the coffee urn, and I told her what I’d been seeing.
“It isn’t their age, Susie. It’s the same three spots on every woman. The band, the hooks and the straps. Those bras were made for a 25-year-old.”
She didn’t say a word for a long time. She just stirred her coffee.
Then she set the cup down. “Then I’ll make one for us.”
WHAT SUSIE TOOK OUT
I figured that was just talk. Three weeks later she walked into clinic with a shopping bag.
Inside was a tank top with a bra built right in. I turned it inside out on my card table, the way I’d check anything a patient was going to wear. There was no band, no hooks and no wire. There was nothing to fasten anywhere.
She’d taken all three spots out.
But something still had to do the holding, so Susie had spread it around. The cups were molded and sewn into the front. The straps were wide and flat, like the straps on a top. And the body ran long and snug from under the arms to past the waist, so it tucks into your slacks. The cups, the straps and the long body each take a piece of the load, so no one spot carries it all.
“Who’s going to try it on?” I asked her.
She looked across the room at my ladies. “Them.”
TUESDAYS IN THE CRAFT ROOM
After clinic, the senior center lets us use the craft room down the hall. So for the next two months, that’s where Susie did her fittings. It has folding tables, a sewing machine on a cart and a long mirror on the back of the door.
Susie had one rule. Everybody she fitted had to be one of my Tuesday regulars. The youngest was 70 and the oldest was 89. Some were small and some were big, and plenty had stiff hands or bad shoulders. If it didn’t fit them, she didn’t make it.
I stood by the door with my clipboard most of those Tuesdays. Here’s what I saw.
THE DAY RAMONA’S OLD TOP LOOKED NEW
Ramona is 78 and wears a 5XL. Every Sunday for years, she put on a bra and a girdle over it, and she peeled both off the minute she got home from church.
In a bra, she got a shelf where the band sat and a bulge right under it. Every knit top she owned showed it.
Susie’s tank has no band to cut her in two. The molded cups lifted her in front. The long, snug body held her smooth from under her arms to past her waist, the way her girdle tried to, without the squeeze.
Ramona tucked it in, pulled her navy knit top on over it and walked out into the hall. A lady at the puzzle table looked up. “Ramona, is that a new top?”
She’s had that top for six years, and she still wears a 5XL.
“I look put together,” she said. “And nothing’s squeezing me.”
ELSIE’S CREAM BLOUSE CAME OUT OF THE CLOSET
Elsie is 72. She’d quit wearing her favorite cream blouse because of the roll it showed across her back. She blamed her weight.
That roll comes from the band. A strip of tight elastic presses into soft skin and pushes it up and over itself. On a firm young back, a band lies flat. On an older back, it digs in.
So Elsie put the cream blouse on over Susie’s tank and turned her back to the long mirror on the craft room door. I held up a hand mirror so she could see it. She looked for a long time.
“Where’d it go?” she said.
She weighed the same as the week before. There was just no band to push the roll up.
She wore that blouse to clinic the next two Tuesdays.
VIOLA KEPT HER UNDERWIRE IN HER PURSE
Viola is 75 and wears a 42DDD. She came to her fitting with her underwire folded up in her purse. “Just in case,” she said. She was sure nothing without a wire would hold her.
But a wire is shaped for a chest that sits high and round. On a fuller, softer chest it doesn’t sit under you. It sits on you, and you feel it by lunch. And the fuller you are, the deeper the band and two thin straps dig, because they carry it all.
Susie’s tank spreads that weight around. The molded cups, the wide straps and the long body each take a piece, so no one spot takes it all. It lifted her up where she belongs.
Viola stayed for the 11 o’clock chair exercise class in it. That’s a whole hour of arms up and arms out, and she never hiked a strap once.
The underwire stayed in her purse.
ESTELLE WAS BACK IN UNDER A MINUTE
Estelle is 86. Her knuckles are stiff, and her shoulders don’t go back the way they used to. Every morning she hooked her bra in front at her waist, twisted it around and worked it up. “Ten minutes on a good day,” she told me.
A bra fastens behind your back, where you can’t see. That’s easy at 30. With stiff hands, it’s a fight every morning.
Susie’s tank has nothing behind your back. There are no hooks and no clasp. It goes over your head, then one arm, then the other. Tug it down and tuck it in.
Estelle took it behind the folding screen in the corner of the craft room, and I watched the clock. She was back out in under a minute.
“Is that all there is to it?” she said.
Susie packed up her sewing machine that afternoon.
THE TANK SUSIE BUILT FOR MY TUESDAY LADIES
Think about what those women had been fighting: straps digging into their shoulders, a band riding up their backs, hooks they couldn’t reach and a wire they felt by lunch.
Every bit of it came from a bra made for a 25-year-old and worn on a body that’s 70, 80 or 89. It was never their weight, and it was never their age.
Going without stops the digging, but then nothing holds you, and it shows. My ladies needed something that holds them without those three spots.
That’s what Susie brought into the craft room. It’s called the Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank.
It has no band, no hooks, no wire and no clasp. The molded cups are sewn in. The straps are wide and flat. The long, snug body holds you smooth from under your arms to past your waist. You pull it on over your head and tuck it in. You order by your shirt size, from S to 6XL.
Susie’s says more than 50,000 women have ordered it since.
WHAT I STOPPED HEARING ON TUESDAYS
Most of the ladies Susie fitted ordered their own. Then their friends at the next table did. Now when I wrap the cuff on a lady who wears one, I don’t hear the old list anymore.
- No more “these straps dig.” The straps are wide and flat, and they don’t carry it all by themselves.
- No more “it rides up my back.” There’s no band to ride up.
- No more “I can’t reach the hooks.” There aren’t any.
- No more unhooking in the car. Nothing gets tighter as the day goes on, so there’s nothing to tear off.
- No more lines under a fitted sweater. No wire edge, no band line, no hook bumps. Alberta wore her fitted plum sweater to clinic this month with nothing buttoned over it.
- No more arms crossed through the whole visit.
And nobody tells me “It’s just my age, Carla” anymore. At least not about her bra.
WHAT WOMEN WHO WEAR IT TELL ME
I’ve only seen it on my Tuesday ladies. But Susie’s hears from plenty of women who wear it, all over the country. Here are a few in their own words. You’ll see Linda and Susan again on Susie’s page, with their before and after pictures.
“My old bra was halfway up my back by the time I got to the grocery store. This one stays put if I tuck it in my slacks. It doesn’t lift me like my underwire did. It just stays where it is, which is what I wanted.”
Barbara, 69 · Size 2XLVerified Customer
“A strap used to slide down every time I reached. Now I just reach, smooth and go, no readjusting all day.”
Susan D.Verified Customer
“Tucked in it stays down all day. Untucked it creeps up when I bend over, so I tuck it. Took me a couple days to stop reaching back for a band that isn’t there.”
Carol, 71 · Size LVerified Customer
“The back bulge my old bra dug in for years? Gone. Smooth across, and I feel good from behind again.”
Linda M.Verified Customer
🏡 She Sits In My Chair Most Tuesdays
WHO YOU’RE BUYING FROM
My ladies always ask me who’s on the other end before they order anything off the internet. Good. You should ask.
Susie is a real woman. She’s 67, and she wears an XL. Before Susie’s, she spent years at one of the biggest makers of women’s underwear and bras. She can’t say which one. She built this tank at her own kitchen table, then fitted it on my Tuesday ladies, 70 to 89, before she sold a single one.
Susie’s says more than 50,000 women have ordered it since, and it has over 10,000 verified reviews. It’s sold only at susies.co, and every order comes with a 90-Day Guarantee.
She still comes to clinic most Tuesdays. I think she mostly comes for the coffee.
WHAT MY LADIES KEEP IN THEIR DRAWERS
Most of my ladies end up with three. One to wear, one in the wash and one saved for church. Viola has one in every color.
Right now Susie’s is running their Fall Sale. It’s Buy 2, Get 1 Free, so the third one costs you nothing. If you want five, it’s Buy 3, Get 2 Free. Shipping is free in the US, and you can mix the colors any way you like.
I don’t know how long they’ll keep that going, and the popular sizes go first. If your size is there today, that’s when I’d get it.
On their page it’s called the Comfort Shaper Tank. Don’t let the word “shaper” scare you off. It isn’t tight like a girdle. It’s the same tank Estelle pulled on in under a minute.
Susie’s Built-In Bra Comfort Shaper Tank
Fall Sale · Buy 2, Get 1 Free · Free US shipping
- Made for women 70 to 89, and tried on them before it was sold
- Order by your shirt size, S to 6XL, 8 colors
- No band, no hooks, no wire, no clasp
- Built-in molded cups that stay put
- Holds a full D and up, with no wire
- Wide, flat straps that don’t dig in
- Pulls on over your head and tucks in
90-Day Guarantee
CHECK AVAILABILITY →Free US shipping · 90-Day Guarantee · Only at susies.co
⚠️ Look-Alikes Are Out There
WHY YOU WON’T FIND IT ON AMAZON
I need to warn you about something that already happened to one of my ladies.
Susie’s is sold only on susies.co. It isn’t on Amazon or Walmart, and it isn’t in stores.
Copycat sites have copied the look, and some even took Susie’s own photos. What shows up in the mail is a thin shelf cami with two loose pads.
Myrtle is 83 and one of my Tuesday regulars. Her son ordered her a look-alike from one of those sites. After one wash the pads had slid sideways. She brought it to clinic in a grocery bag to show me.
So get it from susies.co. That’s the only place the Fall Sale and the 90-Day Guarantee apply.
THE QUESTIONS WOMEN ASK ME FIRST
Whenever a lady at my table asks about it, she asks me the same few things. Here’s what I tell her.
“Is Susie a real person?”
Yes. She sits in my chair for her blood pressure most Tuesdays. She’s 67, she wears an XL, and she still brings new colors to the craft room before anyone else gets them.
“I already stopped wearing a bra. Why would I go back?”
You wouldn’t be going back. There’s no band, no hooks 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?”
Start with your shirt size, then check the chart. There’s no band number and no cup letter. It comes in S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL and 6XL, in 8 colors. The size chart is right above the sizes on Susie’s page.
“Will it hold me if I’m big up top?”
Viola wears a 42DDD and came with her underwire in her purse. It won’t push you up like an underwire. It holds you where you belong, with no wire and nothing digging in.
“Can I get it on with stiff hands?”
Yes. Estelle is 86 with stiff knuckles, and she was back out from behind the screen in under a minute. It goes over your head, one arm, then the other. There’s nothing to fasten.
“Will it show under a fitted sweater?”
There’s no wire, no band and no hooks, so there are no lines or bumps. Under a very thin, clingy knit, you’ll still see you have something on, the same as with any layer.
“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 sewn in, so you just wash it as is.
THE WAY I SEE IT NOW
You can close this page and keep going the way you are. Tomorrow you’ll hook a bra that was made for a 25-year-old. The straps will dig, the band will climb your back, and you’ll count the minutes till you can unhook it in the car. Or you’ll leave it in the drawer and sit with your arms crossed.
I heard my ladies say “it’s just my age” for 11 years, and I believed them.
Or you can do what Ramona, Elsie, Viola, Estelle and Alberta did. Pull it on over your head, tuck it in and go about your day.
The band put that roll on your back. So Susie made one without a band.
Carla
P.S.
Estelle still times herself. Last Tuesday she rolled up her sleeve for the cuff and said, “Forty seconds this morning, Carla.” I haven’t heard a lady blame her age for her bra in months.
P.P.S. Start with your shirt size, not a cup size. It runs from S to 6XL.
Fall Sale: Buy 2, Get 1 Free. Free US shipping. 90-Day Guarantee.
The same three spots. I just pointed at all three of mine sitting here reading this.
Rosemary, me too. Shoulders, ribs and the hooks I can’t reach anymore.
I unhook mine in the car every Sunday after church. I really thought I was the only one.
Is this a real company? I don’t order from anybody I can’t email.
Hi Sharon! We’re real. Susie is 67, and she still reads a lot of these herself. Email us at info@susies.co and a real person writes back. We only sell on susies.co, and every order comes with our 90-Day Guarantee.
I’m a 4XL. Does it really go up that far?
Hi Kathleen! It goes from S to 6XL. Start with your shirt size, then check the chart right above the sizes. No band number, no cup letter.
I’m a 42DDD like Viola and I’ve never gone one day without a wire. I’ll try it. But I’m keeping my underwire in my purse too.
I’ve said “it’s just my age” about a hundred things this year. Nice to be wrong about one of them.
My mother is 88 and has the same knuckles as Estelle. Ordered her three. She called and said, “Somebody finally asked women our age.”
Not a miracle. It won’t push you up like an underwire. But it holds me where I belong and nothing digs. That’s all I wanted.
I almost bought one on Amazon last month that looked just like this. Same picture and everything. Is that one yours?
Hi Roberta! That one isn’t ours. We only sell on susies.co, not on Amazon or in stores. Some sites copy our photos, but our 90-Day Guarantee only covers tanks bought from susies.co.
I volunteer at our senior center and our Tuesday nurse hears all of this too. Nobody ever tells the doctor about her bra.
The roll on my back in every picture. I always thought that was just me.
I’m 79. Ordered 2 and got the third free. Went by my shirt size like Carla said. I’ll let you know.