7 Reasons Why Women Over 70 Are Done With Bras (Hint: It Was Never Comfortable), and What They Wear Instead
Their bras hurt, and most of them have never owned a comfortable one. By noon the band is squeezing their ribs, and the second they get home it comes off. Now they wear something else all day, and they forget it’s on.
My name is Carla Brenneman, and I’m a registered nurse. 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 senior center every Tuesday morning.
About 40 women come through every week. Almost all of them are 70 to 89. They sit across a little table from me, roll up a sleeve and talk. They tell their nurse things they don’t tell their doctor.
And week after week, I hear the same things about bras.
“Carla, this band squeezes my ribs like a belt.”
“These straps dig a ditch in my shoulders.”
“My band is halfway up my back by noon.”
“I can’t reach the hooks anymore.”
“My ribs can’t take the elastic anymore.”
“I unhook it in the car before I even pull out of the lot.”
So one Tuesday I started asking them all the same thing. “When was the last time a bra felt good all day?”
Not one of them could tell me. Most of them laughed. A few just said, “Never.” Women who have worn a bra for 50 years have never owned a comfortable one.
They put it on in the morning and feel it every minute after that. By lunch they’re tugging at it. By 3 o’clock they’re counting the hours. And the second they get home, before their coat is even off, the bra comes off.
Then they shrug. “That’s just what a bra feels like, Carla. It’s my body.”
For years I nodded along. Then one Tuesday, it hit me.
If it were their bodies, it would hurt in a different place on every woman. It doesn’t. A size 8 at 71 and a 3XL at 88 point to the same three spots: the band, the hooks and the straps. So it isn’t their bodies. It’s the bra.
Susie is one of my Tuesday regulars. She’s 67, and she comes in for her blood pressure and the coffee. One morning at the coffee urn, I told her what I’d noticed. She went quiet. Then she said, “Then I’ll make one for us.”
I found out later she’d spent years at one of the biggest makers of women’s underwear and bras. A few weeks after that, she brought a soft tank she’d made, with no band, no hooks and no wire, to the craft room after clinic and fitted it on my regulars. Susie’s says more than 50,000 women have ordered the tank since. Here’s what I’d been seeing, and the seven reasons my ladies give me most.
📋 What 40 Women A Week Told Me
THE SAME THREE SPOTS ON EVERY WOMAN
Here’s what I hear at my table, size after size.
- The band squeezes your ribs, rides up your back and gets tighter every hour you sit.
- The straps dig a groove in your shoulders and slide down your arm.
- The hooks press into your back every time you sit back in a chair, and they sit in the one spot you can’t reach.
Then there are the women who gave up and stopped wearing one. I see them too, arms crossed and cardigans buttoned. Going without stops the squeeze, but then nothing holds them, and they feel that with every step. Every one of them blames herself.
It isn’t her. Look at how a bra holds you up. One band and two thin straps, each about as wide as your finger, carry all of you. To hold you, those narrow strips have to squeeze. The better a bra holds, the harder it squeezes. That’s true of the cheap ones and the expensive ones, and it’s why the same three spots hurt on every woman at my table.
That’s what I told Susie. What she built has no band, no hooks and no wire. The molded cups are sewn in, the straps are wide and flat, and the long body tucks into your slacks, so the whole tank shares the work the band used to do alone.
Here’s what my ladies noticed first.
🚗 Lenora Used To Unhook It In The Parking Lot
REASON 1: SHE FORGETS SHE HAS IT ON, BECAUSE THERE’S NO BAND SQUEEZING HER RIBS
Your bra feels fine at 8 in the morning. By 3 o’clock it feels a size smaller.
That’s the band. A bra holds you up with one tight strip of elastic around your ribs, so it has to squeeze to do its job. Then you sit down. Your middle softens and spreads a little, and the band doesn’t give. Every hour you sit, it presses in a little more. That’s why you’re counting the hours by afternoon.
The Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank has no band, so there’s no strip of elastic around your ribs at all. The whole long body does the holding, a little bit everywhere, so no one tight line squeezes you as the day goes on.
The body is snug, so you’ll feel it when you first pull it on. By midmorning, most of my ladies tell me they’ve stopped noticing it.
Lenora is 81. For years she unhooked her bra in the senior center parking lot before she even started her car. She’d reach up under her blouse, pop the hooks and sigh so loud I could hear it from the door.
After her fitting, she came to clinic in the tank. She stayed for bingo, stayed for lunch and drove home with it still on.
“I forgot about it,” she told me the next Tuesday. “I don’t think I ever forgot about a bra in my life.”
👚 Hilda Rolled Up Her Sleeve
REASON 2: NOTHING DIGS INTO HER SHOULDERS, BECAUSE THE STRAPS ARE WIDE AND NO BAND DRAGS ON THEM
I see a lot of shoulders. Every Tuesday, 40 women roll up a sleeve for the cuff. Plenty of them have a deep dent where the strap sits, and a few have a thin strap sliding right down their arm while they do it.
Thin straps do that. All the pull lands on a strip about as wide as your finger, so it cuts in. And as the band rides up your back through the day, it drags the straps back and out toward the edges of your shoulders. They slip, and you spend the day pushing them back up.
The tank’s straps are wide and flat, so the pull spreads across your shoulder instead of cutting one line into it. There’s no band to climb your back, either. The long body is tucked in at your waist, so nothing drags the straps out of place.
A wide, off-the-shoulder neckline will still show a strap. Under an everyday blouse, they stay where they are.
Hilda is 79. She used to hold her strap up with two fingers while I pumped the cuff, then rub the groove on her shoulder when I was done. She told me that groove was still there when she went to bed. The first Tuesday she came in wearing the tank, she rolled her sleeve all the way up and folded both hands in her lap.
“Look at that,” she said. “Nothing fell. And nothing’s digging.”
⚖️ Viola Said Nothing Would Hold Her
REASON 3: SHE’S HELD UP WITH NO WIRE POKING HER, BECAUSE THE WHOLE TANK SHARES THE WEIGHT
In a bra, nearly all the weight hangs from the same three spots: one band and two thin straps. The fuller you are, the harder those spots work. The wire is supposed to help. But it’s shaped for a chest that sits high and round. On a softer chest it doesn’t sit under you. It sits right on you, and by afternoon it pokes.
The tank doesn’t hang you from three spots, and it has no wire at all. The molded cups hold you in front, the wide, flat straps take some of the weight, and the long, snug body, tucked into your slacks, takes the rest. No one spot has to carry it all.
It won’t hoist you up like a push-up, but it holds you lifted, where you belong.
Viola is 75 and wears a 42DDD. The week of the fittings, she sat down at my table and told me flat out, “Carla, nothing without a wire has ever held me.”
She was the hardest test in that craft room. Susie fitted her twice.
Two Tuesdays later, Viola walked into clinic, set her purse down and patted the front of her sweater.
“No wire poking me,” she said. “And look where everything is.”
🖐️ Estelle’s Stiff Fingers
REASON 4: THERE’S NOTHING TO HOOK BEHIND HER BACK, BECAUSE NO BAND MEANS NOTHING TO CLOSE
A bra closes in the middle of your back, the one spot you can’t see. That’s tricky on a good day, and harder when your fingers are stiff in the morning or your shoulder won’t reach back that far.
My ladies have their tricks. Some hook it in front, spin it around and wiggle it up. Some leave it hooked for a week and fight it over their head.
And once it’s on, those hooks sit right on your spine all day. Lean back in a pew or a car seat, and there they are, pressing in.
The hooks are only there because the band has to close. Take the band away, and there’s nothing left to fasten.
So this tank has no hooks, no clasp and no wire. Nothing goes behind your back. It goes on over your head like a T-shirt, then one arm, then the other. Tug it down and tuck it in.
Estelle is 86, and her knuckles are stiff most mornings. At her fitting she sat on a folding chair in the craft room with the tank in her lap. Susie and I both kept our hands to ourselves.
Over her head, one arm, the other arm, a tug and a tuck. She got it on the first try.
Estelle looked up at the two of us. “Well,” she said. “That’s that.”
🧶 Ramona Reached For The Top Shelf
REASON 5: SHE STOPS TUGGING AT IT ALL DAY, BECAUSE THERE’S NO BAND TO RIDE UP
Count how many times a day you fix your bra. You tug the band down in back. You hitch the front up. You yank it straight before you walk into church. Every one of those is your bra reminding you it’s there.
Most of it starts when you lift your arms. Reach for a can on the top shelf, and the band slides up your back. Bring your arms down, and it stays up there, sitting in the wrong place for the rest of the day.
The tank has no band to slide. It’s cut long, so the bottom tucks into your slacks, and that holds the whole thing down. Reach up, and it stretches with you. Put your arms down, and it’s right where it was.
Untucked, it can creep up when you bend over, so my ladies tuck it.
Ramona is 78 and wears a 5XL. At her fitting she said, “Watch this,” and reached for the top of the yarn shelf with both hands. In a bra, one reach like that used to send her to the ladies’ room to fix everything.
She brought her arms down and ran a hand along her side. There was nothing to fix.
“It didn’t move,” she said. “My bra would be up around my neck.” Then she did it twice more, just to be sure.
🧶 Alberta’s Plum Sweater
REASON 6: NOTHING SHOWS THROUGH HER FITTED SWEATER, BECAUSE THE MOLDED CUPS ARE SEWN IN
It’s sweater season. Soft, fitted knits hug you, and that’s why they show every hard edge underneath.
Under a fitted sweater, a bra shows plenty: two curved lines where the wires sit, a little bump in the middle where they meet, and the line of the band. A cheap cami is no better. Its two loose pads slide around and leave lumps.
This tank has no wire and no band. The cups are molded, so they hold a soft, round shape on their own, and they’re sewn into the same smooth knit that covers the whole front. They can’t slide, so under a sweater you just look smooth.
Under a very thin, clingy knit, you’ll still see you have something on, the same as with any layer. You won’t see a wire.
Alberta is 76. Her granddaughter gave her a fitted plum sweater two Christmases ago, and Alberta only ever wore it with a cardigan buttoned over it. This month she wore it to clinic by itself.
“Ten years I’ve hidden under cardigans,” she told me while I wrapped the cuff. “Who knew it was the bra?”
🃏 Elsie Used To Leave Cards Early
REASON 7: SHE STAYS OUT ALL AFTERNOON, BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING TO RACE HOME AND TAKE OFF
This is the one my ladies talk about most, and it’s about their afternoons.
When a bra squeezes from breakfast on, your whole day runs on a clock. You skip lunch with your sister. You leave cards early. You drive right past the store, because all you can think about is getting in your front door and getting that thing off.
The tank takes that clock away. There’s no band squeezing your ribs, no strap digging into your shoulders, no wire poking you and no hooks pressing on your back, so there’s nothing to race home and take off.
Elsie is 80. Every Tuesday after clinic, she plays cards in the craft room with the same three ladies. For years she folded her hand at 3 o’clock sharp. “My bra’s done for the day, girls,” she’d say, and off she went.
The week after her fitting, I walked past the craft room at 5 to lock up. Elsie was still at the table, dealing a new hand.
“Carla,” she said, without looking up, “I forgot to go home.”
WHAT ALL SEVEN HAVE IN COMMON
If you read all seven, you saw the same few narrow spots every time.
The band squeezing your ribs by 3 o’clock, the straps digging into your shoulders, the wire poking you, the hooks pressing your back, the band riding up every time you reach, the wire lines under your sweater and the clock on your afternoons. A bra carries all of you on a few narrow strips, each about an inch wide, and narrow things dig. None of it was your body.
Going without stops the squeeze, but then nothing holds you, and you feel that too. My ladies needed both at once: something that holds them up, and something they stop noticing by midmorning. Susie built that and fitted it on them.
WHAT WOMEN WHO WEAR IT TELL ME
Since the fittings, plenty of women have told me about theirs, at my table and outside it. Susie’s has over 10,000 verified reviews. Here are a few in their own words. You’ll see Susan again on Susie’s page, with her 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 QUESTIONS WOMEN ASK ME FIRST
Whenever one of my ladies hears about it, she asks me the same few things. Here’s what I tell her.
“Is Susie a real person?”
Yes. She’s one of my Tuesday regulars. She’s 67, she wears an XL, and she still comes in for her blood pressure and the coffee. Before Susie’s, she spent years at one of the biggest makers of women’s underwear and bras.
“Carla, are you telling me to buy this?”
No. I take blood pressures. I’m telling you what I saw at my table and in that craft room, and what my ladies told me. Whether it’s right for you is up to you.
“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, minus the parts that made you stop.
“Will it feel tight?”
It’s snug when you first pull it on, the way a good pair of socks is. By midmorning most of my ladies stop noticing it. If it still squeezes after that, it’s too small. Use the size guide, and if you’re between two sizes, take the bigger one.
“What size do I get?”
Use the size guide on Susie’s page. All you need is one tape measure around the fullest part of your bust. There’s no band number and no cup letter. If you land between two sizes, take the bigger one. It comes in S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL and 6XL, in 8 colors. Susie wears an XL herself.
“Will it hold me if I’m big up top?”
Viola wears a 42DDD, and she was the hardest test. It won’t push you up like an underwire, but the cups, the straps and the long body share the weight, so you’re held where you belong with no wire.
“Can I get it on with stiff hands?”
Estelle got hers on in one try at 86. Over your head, one arm, then the other, then tug it down. There’s 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 sewn in, so you wash it just as it is.
🏡 A Real Woman From My Tuesday Clinic
WHO YOU’RE BUYING FROM
My ladies always ask 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 knows exactly where a bra squeezes, because she spent years making them.
She tried every sample on my Tuesday ladies before she sold a single one. I watched most of those fittings. At the end of each one, she asked the same thing: “Can you feel it?” She kept changing the samples until they all said no.
Susie’s says more than 50,000 women have ordered the tank, and it has over 10,000 verified reviews. It’s sold only at susies.co. If you email info@susies.co, somebody reads it every day, and a real person writes you back. Every tank comes with Susie’s 90-Day Guarantee.
WHAT MY LADIES KEEP IN THE DRAWER
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 has 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 Susie’s page it’s called the Built-in Bra Comfort Tank. Buy 2, Get 1 Free is already picked for you there, and the free one comes off on its own at checkout. You don’t need a code.
⚠️ Look-Alikes Are Out There
WHY YOU WON’T FIND IT ON AMAZON
I’m telling you this because it already happened to one of my regulars.
Susie’s is only sold 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 comes in the mail is a thin shelf cami with two loose pads and a strip of elastic where the band would be.
Myrtle is 83. Her son ordered her a look-alike from one of those sites. After one wash the pads had slid sideways, and that strip of elastic rode up her back and squeezed her ribs the same way her old bra did. She brought it to clinic in a grocery bag to show me.
So get it from susies.co. That’s the only place the 90-Day Guarantee and the Buy 2, Get 1 Free apply.
The 90-Day Guarantee
Every tank comes with Susie’s 90-Day Guarantee. Put it on Sunday morning, wear it to church and to lunch after, and see how many times you think about it.
Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank
Buy 2, Get 1 Free · Free US shipping
- Put it on in the morning and forget it’s there
- No band squeezing your ribs, no hooks and no wire
- Wide, flat straps that don’t dig into your shoulders
- Cut long, so it tucks in and stays put when you reach
- Molded cups sewn in, so nothing shows through
- Pulls on over your head, nothing to fasten
- S to 6XL, 8 colors, no cup letters
90-Day Guarantee
CHECK AVAILABILITY →Free US shipping · 90-Day Guarantee · Only at susies.co
THE WAY I SEE IT NOW
You can close this page and keep going the way you are. Tomorrow morning you’ll hook on the same bra. By noon the band will be squeezing your ribs and the straps will be digging in. By 3 o’clock you’ll be counting the hours, and the second you get home, it comes off. Or you’ll leave it in the drawer, cross your arms and keep your cardigan buttoned.
And you’ll tell yourself that’s just what a bra feels like. I’ve heard it from hundreds of women.
Or you can do what Lenora, Hilda, Viola, Estelle, Ramona, Alberta and Elsie did. Pull it on over your head, tuck it in and forget about it until bedtime.
It was the band around your ribs all along. Take the band away, and you stop counting the hours.
Carla
P.S.
Lenora still stops at my table every Tuesday on her way out. She holds up her car keys and says, “Still on, Carla.”
P.P.S. The button below goes straight to the tank on Susie’s page. You don’t need a bra size there. Measure around the fullest part of your bust and check the size guide. If you’re between two sizes, take the bigger one.
Buy 2, Get 1 Free. Free US shipping. 90-Day Guarantee.
Fifty years of bras and I can’t name one I forgot I had on. Not one.
Joan, I said the same thing out loud in my kitchen. My husband asked who I was talking to.
“That’s just what a bra feels like.” I’ve said that so many times I started believing it.
The car! I thought I was the only one who unhooked it at the first red light.
Is this a real company? I don’t buy from anybody I can’t call.
Hi Gloria! We’re real. Susie is 67, and she still reads a lot of these herself. We only sell on susies.co. Email us at info@susies.co any time. Somebody reads that inbox every day, and a real person writes you back. Every tank comes with our 90-Day Guarantee.
Does it come in 3XL? I’m big up top and everything I own digs in.
Hi Marjorie! It goes from S to 6XL. Measure around the fullest part of your bust and check the size guide on the tank’s page. No band number, no cup letter.
Same me, completely different shape. The support pulls everything into place. I finally feel put-together, no hooks.
I volunteer at our senior center lunch. Arms crossed, sweaters buttoned, in a hot room. Half the ladies at my table. I never put it together until now.
Not a miracle. I still keep one underwire for weddings. The rest of the week it’s this, and my shoulders are happy about it.
I almost bought one on Amazon last month that looked just like this. Same picture and everything. Is that one yours?
Hi Elaine! 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.
5XL here. Nobody makes anything for me that isn’t a tent. Ordered 2 and got the third free. We’ll see.
My mom is 82 and stopped wearing bras two years ago because of her hands. Ordered her three. She called me that night and said, “I forgot I had it on until I brushed my teeth.”
I ran a dress shop for 25 years. A woman would try on a bra, tell me it felt wonderful, then come back two weeks later and say it was killing her by lunch. Ten minutes in a fitting room tells you nothing.