Every Bra I Ever Owned Hurt Me in the Same Three Spots. At 67, I Dumped My Whole Bra Drawer on the Bed and Finally Saw Why.

I Did Everything Right. The Drawer Proves It.

Here’s what was in that pile. I’d bet good money your drawer looks a lot like it.

The one from the fitting. Years ago I let the lady at the department store put her tape measure around me. She told me I’d been wearing the wrong size my whole life. I believed her. I bought two in the size she said, and I paid for the good ones. Two weeks later, the same three spots.

The wireless one. Everybody said the wire was the enemy. So they took out the wire and left me the band and the two thin straps. They took away one hurt and kept the three.

The front-closing one. I thought this would save my shoulders. It moved the hook to the front. The band was still a band, and it still grabbed my ribs like a fist by two in the afternoon.

The sports bra. It held everything, I’ll give it that. It held everything by squeezing the band tighter. I felt like I was wearing a blood pressure cuff that never let go.

The lace bralette. The only thing in the pile that didn’t hurt. It didn’t hold anything, either. I looked in the hall mirror on my way out and I looked like a woman who’d given up. I wasn’t ready to look like that, and I bet you aren’t either.

The strap cushions. Little foam pads you slip under the straps. They padded the dent. The dent was still the dent.

The bra extender. It loosened the band so it stopped cutting in. Then the whole bra slid up my back, and the straps fell off my shoulders every time I reached for a coffee cup.

The tank with the shelf bra. I thought I was so clever with this one. A tank top with a bra already in it! Except that “bra” was a thin strip of elastic under my chest. A band by another name. By eleven o’clock it had rolled up under me like a window shade.

Now let me tell you what I wish somebody had told me thirty years ago.

You did everything right.

You got measured. You bought the size they told you to buy. You paid more for the good ones, and you replaced them when they stretched out. You tried every new kind that came along, the wireless and the front-closing and the one from the TV. You adjusted your straps in the car and in the church bathroom and at the sink.

That is not a woman who gave up. That is a woman who did every single thing she was told, for decades, and still ended every day peeling her bra off like a bandage.

And here is what I didn’t understand until that Sunday: every one of those fixes failed for the same reason. Not one of them got rid of the three sore spots. They just moved the hurt around between them.

What Every Bra in That Pile Had in Common

Here’s what I saw on that bedspread.

I stopped counting at twenty. Different stores. Different sizes. Different colors, different prices, different promises on the box. And every one of them was built exactly the same way.

Hang the whole weight of your chest from two thin straps. Tie it down with one band around your ribs.

That’s it. That’s the whole design. It’s the same design they sold my mother, and her mother before her. I call it the three-spot design, because that’s all it is: three narrow spots doing all the work, all day long.

Your chest doesn’t get any lighter at lunchtime. But from the minute you hook it on, those three spots carry all of it by themselves. Hour after hour. Same three spots. Same weight.

So by afternoon, everything you feel, the dents, the burning line, the itch to reach up under your blouse in the car and undo it, isn’t your body being difficult. It’s three small spots that have been holding up the whole load since breakfast.

And it doesn’t get easier as we get older. At 25 you might not notice. At 67 it’s a different body. Heavier in some places, softer in others, with shoulders that don’t want weight pressing down on them all day. Our bodies changed. The design never did. It was drawn for a young woman, and nobody ever went back and redrew it for us.

That’s why nothing in my drawer could fix it. Move the hook, soften the band, pad the straps, pull the wire. It’s still the same three spots in a new outfit.

Once I saw that, the pile on my bed stopped looking like my failures. It started looking like evidence.

If twenty different bras, from different stores, in different sizes, all hurt me in the same three spots, then it was never my shoulders. It was never my chest. It was never my skin. It was the one thing all twenty had in common.

I’ll admit I sat down on the edge of that bed and got a little teary. Not because anything hurt. Because I’d spent so many years believing it was me.

That night I was folding laundry at the kitchen table, and I picked up an old stretchy tank top, the kind I’d worn under sweaters for years. I held it up and looked at it, and something clicked.

A tank touches you everywhere. Shoulders, sides, back, ribs, all the way down past the waist. It doesn’t hang from anything. It holds on a little bit, everywhere.

What if the tank did the holding? What if the weight got shared across the whole thing, from your shoulders down to your hips, instead of dumped on three spots?

I didn’t need a better bra. Nobody does. I needed to stop hanging my chest from three spots.

So I Stopped Trying to Fix Bras

I want to be honest with you. I’m not a designer. I’m a woman who got fed up.

The first ones I made were terrible. I’ll tell you exactly how, because you’re going to ask about all of it anyway.

The first one rolled up under my chest by noon, the same window shade I’d been fighting for years. So I made the body longer, all the way down over the hips, long enough to tuck in. Now it has something to hold on to below the waist instead of creeping up.

The first pads floated. I looked down during the sermon one Sunday and one of them was up by my collarbone. So now the bra part has a pocket built into it, and the pads sit in the pocket. You can take them out to wash, or leave them out altogether if you don’t want them.

The first straps were thin, and of course they dug in, because thin is thin. So I made them wide and flat, so your shoulder takes its share across a wide strip instead of a thin line.

And I took the band out completely. Not a softer band. No band. The hold comes from the whole body of the tank, snug from your shoulders all the way down to your hips.

Then I made one rule I would not break, no matter what: nothing behind my back. No hooks. No clasp. No wire. If I could pull on a t-shirt, I had to be able to pull this on.

The first women to wear the finished ones were my friends from Tuesday cards. A few days later one of them called me first thing in the morning. “Susie, I did the whole grocery run in it and forgot I had it on.” Then her sister wanted one. Then her sister’s neighbor. Then women I’d never met.

The Tank I Wear Instead of a Bra

This is it. It’s called Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank, and it’s what I have on as I write this.

Here’s what it does about those three spots, and about that morning spin-around.

The two dents on your shoulders. Wide, flat straps. Instead of two thin lines pressing into the tops of your shoulders, you get a wide strip that spreads the weight out. And because the whole tank is holding you, the straps aren’t carrying it all by themselves.

The red line around your ribs. There’s no band. Nothing gripping your ribs all day, so there’s nothing there to leave that line.

The spin-around every morning. No hooks, no clasp, no wire. It pulls on over your head like a t-shirt. Nothing to reach behind your back for. Nothing to spin around.

And the rest of what I fixed from those terrible first ones:

• A built-in bra with a pocket for the pads. The pads sit in their pocket, where they belong. Take them out to wash, or leave them out.
• A smooth, hip-length body. Long enough to tuck into your slacks. This is the part that does the holding, snug from your shoulders to your hips.
• A square neckline. Pretty enough to wear on its own on a hot day. Neat under a blouse or a cardigan.
• 80% nylon, 20% spandex. Smooth and stretchy, so it moves with you when you reach and bend. I’ll be straight with you: it isn’t a cotton undershirt. More on that below.
• Sized by your t-shirt size, S to 3XL. No band number. No cup letter. No lady with a tape measure. I wear an XL.

The first morning I wore a finished one, I pulled it over my head, tugged it down over my hips, and I was dressed. That was the whole thing. I stood in the same bedroom where I used to stand with my arm stuck in a strap, and there was nothing left to do. No hooks. No spinning. No fighting. I put my blouse on and went to make coffee.

I laughed out loud, standing there by myself. All those years.

Over 10,000 Women Have Told Me the Same Thing

Here’s what my days look like now.

I pull it on. I get dressed. I reach up for the good plates on the top shelf and nothing slides off my shoulder. I sit through a long lunch with the girls and nothing is cutting into me by dessert. At night, when I take it off, there’s no red line around my ribs. I actually checked, that first week, standing sideways in the bathroom mirror with my reading glasses on.

I never set out to start a company. I set out to stop hurting. But the women kept coming, and today over 10,000 women have reviewed this tank. I read more of those reviews than my family thinks is healthy.

The funny thing is how few of them talk about the tank. They talk about the bra. The drawer they finally cleaned out. The spin-around they don’t do anymore. The line around their ribs that isn’t there at night. Here are a few I’ve kept.

The Questions Women Ask Me

“I’m large-busted. Will this really hold me without a wire?”

Straight answer: this is everyday hold. It holds you by sharing the weight across the whole tank instead of hanging it off two thin straps, and a lot of big-chested women tell me that feels more held, not less, because no one spot is doing all the work. What it isn’t is a push-up. If you need a lifted shape for a formal gown, keep one bra for that evening. For every other day, this is what I’d reach for. Sizes go up to 3XL, and the size chart shows which bra sizes each tank size covers.

“Won’t it roll up under my chest like every other tank?”

That’s exactly why my first one failed, and exactly why the body is hip-length now. It’s long enough to tuck into your slacks or skirt, so it has something to hold on to below your waist. And there’s no thin elastic band under your chest to roll up in the first place. Tuck it in, then reach, bend and sit in it, and see for yourself.

“Will the pads move around?”

Mine used to. That’s why there’s a pocket. The pads sit in a pocket built into the bra part, so they aren’t floating loose inside the tank. Take them out when you wash it and pop them back in after. If you’d rather go without them, leave them out.

“Is it hot? I’m hot all the time.”

I’m not going to pretend it’s a cotton undershirt. It’s 80% nylon and 20% spandex, smooth and stretchy. What I can tell you is where the heat always got me in a bra: the band. That damp line wrapped around my ribs. There’s no band here. Nothing wrapped tight around you all day. Glenda down in Florida said it better than I can.

“Will I look like I’m not wearing a bra?”

No. That was the whole problem with the bralette. The built-in bra and the pads give you shape and coverage, and the smooth body sits flat under your blouse, with no hooks or band to show through at the back. You look put together. You just don’t feel like you’re wearing something that’s fighting you.

“How do I know what size to get?”

Your t-shirt size. That’s it. S to 3XL. No band number, no cup letter, nobody with a tape measure. If you’re between sizes, go one size up. If you want to double-check, the size chart on the next page shows which bra sizes each tank size covers.

“What if I pick the wrong size?”

Then we fix it, and it costs you nothing. That’s our 90-Day Perfect Fit Guarantee. Email us within 90 days of delivery and we’ll send you a different size, free. You don’t have to send the first one back. Keep it, give it to your sister, wear it around the house. I want to be plain about what it is: it’s a size guarantee, not a money-back guarantee. I’d rather tell you that now than have you find out later.

“Is this just another Facebook gimmick?”

Fair question. I’ve ordered things off the internet that showed up in a plastic bag looking nothing like the picture. So here’s what I’ll say. It’s a tank top. I’m not selling you a miracle. I’m selling you a tank that doesn’t hang your chest from three spots. Over 10,000 women have reviewed it. Shipping inside the US is free. And if the size is wrong, you get a different size free and keep the first one. The only thing I’m asking you to believe is what your own drawer has been telling you for years.

cta: Find My Size →

What I’d Tell You If You Were Sitting on My Bed

Go open your drawer tonight. I mean it. Pull it all the way out and look.

Every one of those bras was supposed to be the one. Every one of them came with a promise on the box. And every one of them ended the day the same way: in a heap on the chair, with you rubbing the dents out of your shoulders.

You didn’t fail those bras. They failed you, in the same three spots, every single time.

You don’t need a better bra. You can stop hanging your chest from three spots.

Pull it on in the morning like a t-shirt. Get dressed. Go live your day. Reach for the top shelf. Sit through the long lunch. Hug your grandkids with both arms up. Come home and don’t race to the bedroom.

The point was never to spend more time thinking about your bra. It’s to finally stop.

Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank. Buy 2, Get 1 Free. Free US shipping. Sized by your t-shirt size, S to 3XL. 90-Day Perfect Fit Guarantee: if the size is wrong, we send you a different size free, and you keep the first one.

— Susie, founder of Susie’s

P.S. I kept one bra from that pile. Not to wear. It hangs on a hook on the back of my closet door, so every morning, when I pull my tank over my head, I remember what I used to put up with.

P.P.S. If you’ve been hooking yours in front and spinning it around, you don’t have to do it tomorrow morning. Order your t-shirt size, and if you’re between sizes, go one up. If it’s wrong anyway, one email within 90 days gets you a different size free, and the first one is yours to keep.