7 Reasons Why Women Over 70 Go Without a Bra and Nobody Can Tell (Hint: Not Even in a Plain T-Shirt), and What They Wear Instead
Ladies wore bras that hurt so nothing would show. Read this quick article to find out what hides just as much and doesn’t hurt.
My name is Peggy Lawson. I’ve been a home care nurse for 26 years. I drive to women’s homes all day, and almost all of my ladies are in their 70s and 80s.
Most of them take their bra off the minute they get home. Then the doorbell rings, and I hear the same things in every house.
“Hang on, Peggy. Let me grab my sweater.”
“Don’t open it yet! I’m not decent.”
“I only put a bra on to go out. Nobody wants to see this.”
There’s a cardigan on a hook by almost every front door I walk through. It hangs there all year, even in July, in case somebody knocks.
My ladies put a bra back on for the mailman, the neighbor and their own son-in-law. Or they open the door with their arms folded tight and hope nobody looks down. Every one of them thinks that’s just how it is now. “It’s my age, Peggy. Nothing about me is pretty anymore.”
For years I believed it too. Then I took care of Susie’s mother for the last three years of her life. She wouldn’t let a visitor past the porch until I had hooked her bra. Not the pastor, not the man who read the meter. It hurt her, and she wore it anyway.
That’s when it finally added up for me. I’d heard “let me grab my sweater” in hundreds of homes, and now I knew why.
One morning over coffee, I said it out loud to Susie. “Your mother doesn’t wear that thing to be held up. She wears it so nobody can tell, and it hurts her every day. If she could get the hiding without the hurting, she’d never put a bra on again.”
Susie is 67. Before she started Susie’s, she spent years at one of the biggest makers of women’s underwear and bras. She knew what every part of a bra is for, which parts do the hiding and which parts do the hurting. She didn’t say much that morning. She went home and started sewing.
It came too late for her mother. But Susie made a plain tank top with the bra built right in, and she tried it on women 70 to 89 at her kitchen table before she sold a single one. Susie’s says more than 50,000 women have ordered it since. Here’s what I’d been seeing all those years, and the seven reasons my ladies give me most.
🧥 What I See In Every Home
WHAT A BRA IS REALLY FOR AFTER 70
Here’s what I see, house after house.
When you’re young, a bra holds you up. Past 70, what my ladies care about is that nobody can tell. So a bra has three jobs now, and all three are about hiding:
- Keep anything from poking through your top.
- Keep you from moving when you walk.
- Never let a strap or a band show.
A bra does all three. But you pay for it with hooks you wrestle with behind your back, a band that digs in by afternoon and a wire that pokes. So the bra comes off at the front door, and the sweater goes on every time somebody knocks.
Going without stops the hurting, and then everything shows. A thin shelf cami doesn’t fix it either. It has one strip of elastic and two loose pads that slide around and make lumps you can see through your blouse.
My ladies have their own tricks. Some still tuck a cotton ball in there, the way their mothers taught them. Others keep an old stretched-out sports bra just “for company.”
None of it gives them the hiding without the hurting. That’s what I told Susie that morning, and that’s what she built: the cover a bra gives you, inside a plain tank top, with no hooks, no band and no wire. She knew how, because she’d spent all those years making the kind that hurts.
Here’s how it went for the women who wear it.
👕 Pauline’s Favorite T-Shirt
REASON 1: NOTHING POKES THROUGH HER PLAIN T-SHIRT, BECAUSE THE CUPS ARE SEWN IN
Pauline is 76. Her favorite thing to wear is a plain cotton T-shirt. But for years she wouldn’t wear one out of the house without a bra under it. Not to the store, the bank or lunch.
“In a T-shirt with nothing under it, you can see everything,” she told me. “I’m not going out like that.”
So every morning she had two choices. Wear the bra she hated, or stay home.
The Susie’s Built-in Bra Comfort Tank has molded cups sewn right into the front. They hold their shape like a padded bra, so your T-shirt lies smooth over them and nothing pokes through. Because they’re sewn in, they stay put. They can’t slide off to one side and leave a lump under your top.
The first week Pauline had it, she wore it under a plain gray T-shirt to lunch with her daughter. Halfway through her soup, she leaned over and whispered, “I’m not wearing a bra.”
Her daughter looked right at her and said, “Yes, you are, Mom.”
Pauline had to tell her about the tank before she’d believe it. “My own daughter couldn’t tell,” she said. “So I figure nobody can.”
👚 Lavonne’s Closet Full Of Tents
REASON 2: SHE LOOKS LIFTED AND SMOOTH IN A FITTED TOP, BECAUSE THE TANK SHAPES HER
Lavonne is 78. For ten years she wore nothing but big, loose tops. “My tents,” she called them. Her nice fitted tops sat folded in a drawer.
“In anything fitted, you can see everything that’s dropped,” she said. “So I hid under a tent.”
My ladies get stuck both ways. Go without a bra, and everything drops and rests on your middle. In a fitted top you look like one long shape from your chest to your belt. Put the bra back on, and you get a shelf where the band sits and a bulge right under it. Either way, your top shows it.
The tank shapes you instead. The molded cups give you a shape in front and hold you where you belong, so you’re not resting on your middle. The long, snug body runs smooth from under your arms to past your waist and tucks into your slacks, so your middle looks smooth too. And there’s no band, so there’s no shelf and no bulge.
It won’t make you a size smaller, and it’s not a push-up. But your top lies in one smooth line from your chest to your waistband, the way it looked on you in the store.
Lavonne took a fitted rose-colored knit top out of the drawer and wore it to her sister’s birthday lunch. Her sister looked her up and down.
“Look at you,” she said. “You look ten years younger. Is that a new bra?”
Nobody could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her sister just figured she’d finally found a good one.
“I told her it’s a tank top,” Lavonne said. “Then I gave three of my tents to the church.”
🍋 Delores Used To Walk Very Softly
REASON 3: NOTHING BOUNCES WHEN SHE WALKS ACROSS A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE
Delores is 79 and wears a 42DD. Her son-in-law came by early one Sunday to pick up a casserole dish, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. She crossed the kitchen to hand it to him with tiny steps, holding the dish up in front of her chest.
“Like I was carrying eggs,” she said. “I felt every step.”
That’s what my bigger ladies dread most about going without. With nothing holding you, a full chest moves with every step, and you’re sure everybody in the room can see it.
A bra keeps you still by squeezing you with a tight band. This tank keeps you still another way. The molded cups hold you in front, and the long, snug body runs from under your arms to past your waist and tucks into your slacks. You’re held all the way around, gently, so nothing swings when you walk.
It won’t hoist you up like an underwire push-up. It holds you where you belong and keeps you there.
At her grandson’s graduation party, Delores carried a tray of lemonade across the whole backyard, right past every relative she has.
“I walked like a normal person,” she told me. “I forgot to worry about it.”
👗 Lucille’s Mother Had A Rule
REASON 4: NO BRA STRAP SLIDES DOWN HER ARM IN FRONT OF COMPANY
Lucille is 74. “My mother said a lady never lets her bra strap show,” she told me. “She said it looks cheap. I still hear her.”
So all through her church socials, Lucille kept one hand near her collar. Every time she reached for the coffee pot, a thin strap slid out and down her arm. She’d push it back and look around to see who noticed. She checked her shoulders in every store window she passed.
A thin bra strap carries a lot of weight on a narrow strip. It stretches, it creeps out to the edge of your shoulder, and then it slips.
The tank’s straps are wide and flat. They don’t carry you all by themselves, because the long body tucked in at your waist holds the bottom. So they sit still on your shoulders under your blouse.
A wide, off-the-shoulder neckline will still show a strap. Under Lucille’s everyday blouses, nothing peeks out.
At the next church social she poured coffee for an hour. “Both hands on the pot, Peggy,” she said. “Mother would’ve been proud.”
⛪ Nadine Thought About The Pew Behind Her
REASON 5: FROM BEHIND, NO BAND OR HOOKS SHOW THROUGH HER BLOUSE
Nadine is 77. She never worried about the front as much as the back.
“The lady in the pew behind me looks at my back for a whole hour,” she said. “And there’s my bra, right across it.”
That’s the band. A bra band is a strip of tight elastic around your back. Under a fitted blouse you can see the line it makes, the little bumps of the hooks and the roll it pushes up above it.
This tank has no band and no hooks. The back is cut high and straight, and the long body lies flat from your shoulders down past your waist. Under a fitted blouse, your back looks smooth.
Nadine wore her good cream blouse to her granddaughter’s wedding and sat in the third row with her back to the whole church. Her daughter took a picture of the vows from behind.
“Look at my back,” Nadine said when she showed me. “Not one line on it.”
🦃 Winona Stopped Reaching For The Turkey Platter
REASON 6: NOTHING RIDES UP WHEN SHE REACHES FOR THE TOP SHELF, BECAUSE THERE’S NO BAND
Winona is 81. Every Thanksgiving, the whole family comes to her house. And every year the big turkey platter waits on the top shelf over the refrigerator, because she only uses it once a year.
A few years ago she reached up for it with a kitchen full of people behind her.
“My bra went up with my arms,” she told me. “When my arms came down, it didn’t. I came right out the bottom of it.”
She stood there with the platter in one hand and the other hand up under her sweater, tugging her bra back down. There were twelve people in that kitchen. “Every one of them watched me fix it,” she said. “I wanted to crawl in the oven with the turkey.”
After that, her grandson got the platter down every year. She let him think it was her shoulder.
That’s what a band does. A bra is held on by a strip of tight elastic around your ribs. When you lift your arms, your chest lifts, and the band slides right up with it. When your arms come down, the band stays up high, and you’re left hanging out underneath it. So my ladies quit reaching for anything over their heads when company’s around.
This tank has no band to slide up. The cups are sewn into a long, snug body that runs past your waist and tucks into your slacks, so your waistband holds the bottom down. When your arms go up, the soft knit stretches up with you. When they come down, the tank is right where it was, and so are you.
Tuck it in, though. Untucked, it can creep up when you bend over. Tucked in, it stays put all day.
Last Thanksgiving, Winona got the platter down herself. Then she hung the paper turkeys over the kitchen window with both arms up and the whole family right behind her.
“I didn’t fix a thing all day,” she told me. “My grandson said, ‘Grandma, I thought your shoulder was bad.’ I told him it got better.”
🎄 Clarice’s Christmas Turtleneck
REASON 7: NO WIRE LINES SHOW UNDER HER FITTED SWEATER, BECAUSE THERE’S NO WIRE IN IT
Clarice is 80. Three Christmases ago, her daughter gave her a soft cream turtleneck, the thin, fitted kind. Clarice put it on Christmas morning over her good underwire bra and looked in the bathroom mirror.
“You could see my wire,” she told me. “Two little smiles right across my chest, and a bump in the middle where they meet. It looked like somebody drew my bra on the outside of the sweater.”
So she put a cardigan on over it and buttoned it to the top. She kept it buttoned through dinner, the presents and the dishes. The turtleneck went to the back of the closet, and she never wore it again without that cardigan.
Winter sweaters are soft, and they hug you. That’s why they show every hard thing underneath. An underwire is a stiff curve sewn under each cup, so a fitted knit shows two curved lines and a little bump in the middle. A soft bra with no wire still has seams and edges, and a fitted sweater shows those too.
This tank has no wire and nothing hard in it. 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. Under a sweater, there are no curved lines and no bump in the middle.
Under a very thin, clingy knit, you’ll still see you have something on, the same as with any layer. You just won’t see a wire.
This Christmas Eve, Clarice wore the cream turtleneck to dinner at her daughter’s house. No cardigan.
Her daughter looked at her for a second and said, “Mom, you finally wore it.”
“I just needed the right thing under it,” Clarice told her.
I thought about Susie’s mother, buttoned into a cardigan over every nice sweater she owned, all winter long, so nobody could tell. I wish she’d had this.
WHAT ALL SEVEN HAVE IN COMMON
If you read all seven, you saw the same thing every time.
The T-shirts she wouldn’t wear out of the house, the closet full of tents, the tiny steps with the casserole dish, the strap down her arm, the line across her back in church, the turkey platter she stopped reaching for and the turtleneck buttoned under a cardigan. Every one of them was a woman hiding. A bra hides you, and it hurts. Going without doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t hide anything.
This tank hides you, and there’s nothing in it to hurt: no hooks, no band and no wire. So you can take your bra off when you get home and still open the door as you are.
WHAT WOMEN WHO WEAR IT TELL ME
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 back bulge my old bra dug in for years? Gone. Smooth across, and I feel good from behind again.”
Linda M.Verified 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
“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
“Same me, completely different shape. The support pulls everything into place. I finally feel put-together, no hooks.”
Karen B.Verified Customer
THE QUESTIONS WOMEN ASK ME FIRST
Whenever I tell a woman about it, she asks me the same few things. Here’s what I tell her.
“Be honest. Will my nipples show through?”
Under your everyday tops, no. The cups are molded and sewn into the front, so they keep their shape and cover you the way a padded bra does. Under a thin, see-through blouse, you’ll be able to see you have a tank on, the same way you’d see a bra.
“Will it look like underwear if somebody sees it?”
No. It has a square neckline and comes in real colors like Black, Coffee, Olive and Burgundy. If your collar slips, what shows looks like a top.
“I don’t wear sleeveless. Do my arms have to show?”
No. Most of my ladies wear it under their own blouses, T-shirts and cardigans. Nobody sees the tank. They just see you.
“Will it hold me still if I’m big up top?”
Delores wears a 42DD and was sure nothing without a wire would keep her still. The cups hold you in front and the long body holds you all the way around. It won’t push you up like an underwire, but nothing swings when you walk.
“Do the cups move around in the wash?”
No. They’re sewn in, so they come out of the wash right where they went in. Wash it on gentle in cold water, then lay it flat or tumble dry on low.
“What size do I get?”
Order the size of the T-shirt you wear, then check the chart right above the sizes on Susie’s page. 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.
“Is it hot?”
It’s a smooth nylon and spandex knit. It’s still a layer, so on a hot day you’ll feel it. But there’s no band to sweat under, and you won’t need a sweater over it.
“Is it hard to put on?”
No. It goes on over your head like a T-shirt, and there’s nothing to fasten behind you. Then tuck it into your slacks.
🏡 A Real Woman With A Kitchen Table
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 watched her own mother wear a bra she hated just so nobody could tell, and that’s why she made this.
She made the first one at her own kitchen table and tried it on women 70 to 89 before she sold a single one. I was in that kitchen more than once.
Susie’s is sold only at susies.co. If you email info@susies.co, somebody reads it that same 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. Pauline keeps one in black just for company.
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 Pauline opens the door in.
⚠️ 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 ladies.
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 of them even took Susie’s own photos. What comes in the mail is a thin shelf cami with two loose pads.
Opal is 83. Her niece ordered her a look-alike from one of those sites. After one wash, the pads were folded in half and sitting crooked, and you could see both lumps right through Opal’s blouse. She wore it once, to the beauty shop, and kept her arms folded the whole time.
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. Wear it the next time the doorbell rings, and see if anybody can tell.
Susie’s Built-In Bra Comfort Shaper Tank
Fall Sale · Buy 2, Get 1 Free · Free US shipping
- Molded cups sewn in, so nothing pokes through
- Long, snug body that holds you still when you walk
- Wide, flat straps that stay put under your top
- No band and no hooks to show through your back
- Square neckline that looks like a top
- Order by shirt size, S to 6XL, 8 colors
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 you’ll take your bra off when you get home. The doorbell will ring, and you’ll run for the sweater, or open the door with your arms folded and hope nobody looks.
I’ve watched my ladies live like that for years. Susie’s mother lived like that until the end.
Or you can do what Pauline, Lavonne, Delores, Lucille, Nadine, Winona and Clarice did. Pull it on over your head, tuck it in and answer your own door as you are.
You were raised to look decent. You still can, with nothing digging into you.
Peggy
P.S.
Pauline has a new joke. When I knock on Tuesdays, she yells, “Come in, Peggy. I’m decent!” She doesn’t get up to check anymore.
P.P.S. Next time the doorbell rings, notice what you reach for first. If it’s a sweater, this was written for you.
Fall Sale: Buy 2, Get 1 Free. Free US shipping. 90-Day Guarantee.
The cardigan on the hook by the door. Mine’s blue. It’s been hanging there for nine years.
Darla, mine’s a bathrobe on the bedroom door. I yell “just a minute!” and run.
My mother would have died before she let a bra strap show. I’m 78 and I still check every store window I walk past.
Be straight with me. Does it really not show through? I’m a 40DD and everything shows on me.
Hi Jolene! The cups are molded and sewn in, so under your everyday tops nothing pokes through. Under a very thin, see-through blouse you’ll see you have a tank on, the same way you’d see a bra. It goes up to 6XL, so start with your T-shirt size.
Everything I use is on the bottom two shelves. I’m 84. I never told anybody why until right now.
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.
Mailman, meter reader, my son-in-law. I’ve hidden behind the front door from all three.
Does it come in 3XL? I’m big up top and everything I own digs in.
Hi Marjorie! 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 44G. Every wireless thing I ever tried flattened me into one long shelf. This one doesn’t. It’s not a push-up, but everything sits where it belongs.
I only bought it so I could get the mail without changing. Now I wear it to church.
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.
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.
My mom is 82 and stopped wearing bras two years ago because of her hands. Ordered her three. She called me and said, “Finally somebody asked women our age.”