BRA FATIGUE (Laundering and Big Boobs -- a bra's worst enemies!) After about six months of regular wear, bras start to give out. After a year, you should retire them and get measured for new ones. Normal Aging Let's face it, some of us just cannot part with our favourite old bras. They are ratty, faded and don't fit right anymore but we keep wearing them anyway. After about six months of regular wear, bras start to give out. After a year, you should retire them and get measured for new ones. Here's why... Over time, the elasticity in cups and the band weaken and a lot of support is lost. Cups and band stretch and become loose so your boobs droop and bounce more. The more they bounce, the more they damage the straps and band. Plastic buckles, sliders, and rings on straps are originally soft and flexible but become brittle and break with repeated strain. Often they will slip on an angle and this distributes the same amount of pressure onto a smaller surface, causing the plastic to bow or bend. The more it bends, the more it slips and the pressure increases on a smaller area until it breaks. Average or even smaller sized breasts will cause this damage as easily as larger breasts if the straps are tight. On larger bras, metal parts are used instead of plastic ones since the heavier loads they much support tend to snap them more easily. But unlike their plastic counterparts, the metal pieces can cut at the fabric and the straps become frayed over time. The left strap shows the normal position of a plastic buckle which is supporting weight across its full 1-inch width. Notice that even in the normal position, the once straight buckle has been permanently warped. On the right, the buckle has slipped onto an angle and now has to support the same weight on only 0.75 inch, causing it to warp even more. This is what can happen to straps with metal rings and sliders on them. Everyday movements rub the strap fabric against the edges of the metal and they begin to fray. With repated wear, the metal cuts deep into the fabric and these frayed straps will begin to tear. I have seen some bra straps that are half of their original width from excessive fraying. The bra should be thrown out if the straps are being cut into. Accelerated Damage from Laundering If you've never had a washing machine rip the wires out of your bra or had it wrap around the agitator, then consider yourself lucky. Unlike other articles of clothing which are relatively bulky, bras are long and slim which make them more susceptible to damage: hooks can caught on other articles of clothing like a sweater; the sweater can get damaged and/or the hooks get pulled out of the bra the bra wraps around the agitator; straps can break, elastic can tear, wires can get twisted or pop out the bra can get stuck under the agitator; either rip out the bra (ruining the bra, but part of it is still in the machine) or call a repair man to take the machine apart (which is expensive) movement pushes end of underwire out through the fabric; wire can get damaged or get stuck in the bottom of the machine When washing, each bra should have the hooks closed and then folded into a "bra bag" or mesh bag so this type of damage won't occur. The drier is not nearly as bad as the washer but the heat damages fibres, weakens stitching, and hardens plastics. The more often you machine wash and dry your garments, the quicker they age. It is recomended that you handwash bras and let them air dry to extend their life. Often with underwires, they will rub the end of the channeling until they have poked a hole through the fabric. This is caused by everyday movement but can happen prematurely if the bra is machine washed without a "bra bag". Not only is it uncomfortable to wear a bra with a loose, poking wire, but you run the risk of bruising or stabbing yourself in the boob or ribs. It is also possible that the wire could become lost during the laundering process so fix the end right away. Accelerated Damage from Wearing Boobs... the reason that bras exist... are also the undoing of many a support garment. And the bigger the boobs, the quicker the garment fails. Large breasts put more pressure on the straps and cups. They also tend to bounce more than smaller breasts. Even with walking, a repeated hefty bounce stresses seams and stretches elastics. Here is a closeup of the right underside of a bra band with the edge of the underwire showing on the left side. The Blue Circle shows minor damage; the horizontal puckering indicates that the elastic fibres have become stretched and a few are starting to break. Eventually, more will break in the weakened area and the fabric will tear in the form of a run. The Red Circle shows were a run has developed parallel to the band. Elastic fibres closest to adjacent seams (or underwire in this case) undergo more stress than other areas. This is an extreme closeup of an inside band. The small white streaks are the ends of broken elastic fibres which are now poking out of the fabric. Once you get this many broken fibres, the band has lost most of its elasticity and support. A weak band transfers all of the support to the straps which make the shoulders sore (not to mention making your back sore and increasing bounce). Many women have warped underwires -- not from washing machine damage -- from simply wearing them! This does not happen instantly but with repeated wear. It is the result of wearing a bra is simply too small. When the width of the cup is less than the diameter of the breast, the flesh crammed into the cup makes the space wide enough by bending the wire. Not only does the breast push the ends of the underwire apart, it pushs and pulls the opposite ends. Imagine gripping the ends of a U-shaped wire in your hands. Now move your hands apart, pushing your left hand away from you and pulling your right hand towards you and hold that position for several hours. In addition to the cup being too small, sometimes the band is too tight so the band also pulls on the outer side of the wire and bends it. The wires are designed to flex and support but are not designed for this extra undo stress. These forces put an extreme amount of pressure on the vertex of the wire and often snap it in two -- but this is exactly what breasts do to bras. One lady I did a fitting for came in wearing a 40DD but needed a 40G. The wires in her bra were so bent I thought they had been warped by a washing machine but she said that she only handwashes her bras. After a year of wearing, her breasts had reshaped the wires from 7 inches wide to over 8 inches! She left her old 40DD bra with me so I decided to take some pictures to illustrate this type of bra fatique: Here is what happens when you wear an underwire cup that is narrower than your breast. The original shape of the wire (about 7.00" diameter) is shown in red. The wire was about 1.50" too narrow and her breast exerted enough pressure over time to widen it to 8.50" in diameter! This is another view to show how the wire has twisted. This demonstrates how a wire that is too small is bent and pushed and pulled by the breast. Normally the wire lays flat. The original shape of the wire is shown in red. Notice that it is laying flat. The Blue Lines show how the warped wire now has it's right end raised much higher than the left. Even more devastating than large breasts are large nursing breasts. Regardless of whether the breasts are large or small, they are still considerably heavier than normal and the quick daily swelling put extreme pressure on seams. In fact, each nursing breast becomes at least one and a half pounds heavier than it was prepregnancy due to increased blood flow, enlarged glands, and milk production. The average difference in fullness or circumference between an emptied breast and one bulging with milk is 2 inches -- that's two full cup sizes! Last year I made a couple of custom nursing bras for a mother who had problems with her other bras wearing out very fast. Since nursing bras become soaked with milk, they have to be washed more frequently than fashion bras. Overwashing can be brutal on any type of bra but the breaking point comes when you add extremely heavy breasts that are simply too large for it. Her store-bought bras only lasted about eight weeks... the left underwire had snapped in each one, seams let go in multiple places, and hooks burst on the nursing flaps. The two worn out bras were size 40J (she needed larger but that was the biggest size they carried) and I measured her at a 42K! Update: This lady e-mailed me recently (and also sent a picture of her wonderful daughter :-). She was happy to report that the two custom bras which I made for her were holding up very well and she intends to continue wearing them until she weans her daughter at about 12 months. An example of extreme fatiguing caused mostly by large, heavy breasts and poor design rather than laundering damage. If your garments look anything close to this one, get new ones to replace them! The Blue Circles show thread breakage where stitching will soon let go along the seams. The Red Circles show where the weight of the breasts have actually ripped large areas of lace away from the straps and have begun to separate between the cups. When you add up all of this abuse, is it any wonder that our bras become so fatigued? When you get a new bra, remember to admire it for a moment and perhaps ask for its forgiveness for hardships it will indure for you over the next 6-12 months.