Bwitch in association with Vapour celebrate Womens Day!

Room For Socks In The Cup Of A Bra!

High street stores in UK fails to deliver the right fit bras to the customers. This include six retailers of Debenhams, La Senza, and Marks & Spencer.

The reports say that there were the worst cases where there was room for a pair of socks, in the cups of a bra! The shops were also selling ‘off the market stall’ products, too. The costumers dismays that it is better to stop the business than offering the services like this.

Women always want to look the best, what ever their bra size may be. A well fitted bra make sure the best profile in the appearance and comfort.

The good fitters will always check the fit and comfort of the inner wears. It is very important to go for the right brand, style and wire shape to alternate our figure to the best, says consultant bra technologist, Gillian Spencer.

The larger bust requires a firmer fit, reinforced fabric and more supportive elastics in the back side.

Saudi calls for boycott against men selling lingerie

Having men staff in lingerie shops a contradiction in Islamic Saudi Arabia, says organiser. A call for boycott has emerged in Saudi Arabia over lingerie shops that employ male staff.

Since 2007, the Labour Ministry has required women staff in these shops, but the law has not been enforced. Reem Assad, an economics professor and organiser of the boycott call, told the BBC that having men staff in lingerie shops is a contradiction in Islamic Saudi Arabia.

Assad urged women to begin a two-week boycott of lingerie shops with male staff.

The call for the boycott was organised through her Facebook page since public protests are illegal in the country. Islamic scholars have given their support to the campaign. ”I am calling for salesmen to be replaced with saleswomen,” Asaad told the media. “I just hope that many respond and boycott,” she said.

Since 2008, Asaad has been urging officials to allow saleswomen in shops open to both male and female clients.

The Bra- A Brief History

It’s a lot to ask from one small piece of fabric. Conceal but also entice. Not to mention enhance or minimize, flatten or uplift. Contained in just 2 cups and bit of strapping are the vanities of millions of women, not to mention the fantasies of countless men. We just got a recent reminder of those fantasies when an Australian banker was caught ogling pictures of Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr on live TV.

The odds a sexually active woman picks at least one occasion to wear something sexy for her partner are 1 in 1.41 (70%). There’s no better occasion than Valentine’s Day, but for the guys about to venture into Victoria’s Secret to buy something red and lacey for their Valentine, a bit of advice: you might want to factor in some comfort along with sex appeal.

It was a personal revolt against her own very uncomfortable corset that spurred 19-year-old Polly Jacob of New York to whip together the first modern brassiere in 1914. Frustrated that her bulky undergarment was ruining the lines of her delicate evening gown, Jacob announced her intention to go without, prompting her scandalized maid to point out that the eyelet fabric would leave Jacob’s nipples exposed. Undeterred, Jacob quickly stitched together two pocket handkerchiefs and some ribbon, while conceding the point that no one should suspect an unmarried woman was possessed of breasts.

Those two hankies caused an immediate sensation, and Jacob’s friends—and soon total strangers—began to clamor for their own homemade brassieres. Before the end of the year, Jacob had obtained a patent, and fearing the invention would deprive them of business, the Warner Brothers Corset Company promptly paid her $1,500 to acquire the rights. Those rights have since been valued at $15,000,000.

The war effort accelerated the push to substitute bras for corsets. When the US War Industries Board calculated that American women required 28,000 tons of metal for their corsets—“enough to build two battleships”—patriotic American women were encouraged to embrace the bra.

Over the years, bra shapes have changed as different breast profiles have gone in and out of fashion. During the flapper era, the vogue was to appear flat. By the 1930s, womanly curves had made a comeback, and the Maidenform Company had pioneered individual cup sizes. By 1937, Warner was offering the A, B, C, and D cups women are familiar with today (thanks to implants, the range has recently expanded to cover AA all the way to JJ). The late 1950s and early ‘60s brought us the “sweater girl” bra, torpedo-shaped cones that were stiffened into sharp points by circular stitching. Today this shape is best enjoyed by watching the television show Mad Men.

Alas, nature did not give every woman either the shape or the substance to fill out such spheres, and at a 1955 conference of underwear manufacturers in Great Britain, a public estimate was given that 3 out of 4 women had resorted to wearing falsies—some of them inflatable devices. In fact, breast enhancers have been around since the 1850s, the earliest made of wire or rubber. Almost a century and a half later, in 1994, the first Wonderbra® was marketed in Britain, and suddenly even flat-chested women had cleavage. Seven years later, the Air Wonder model promised every woman “high altitude cleavage” through an old idea—special shaping enhanced by air pumps.

Today, 16 billion dollars a year are spent on brassieres. And there are still plenty of new ideas, and new patents—sports bras with built-in heart monitors, bras with radiation detectors in case of nuclear war, and after 2001, special wireless underwire bras, designed not to set off airport security alarms.

The Internal Bra Breast Lift

Women are always being told how important it is to wear a bra which is the correct size for them, particularly as research shows that a large proportion of women regularly wear the wrong sized bra. An ill-fitting bra will not support the breasts fully and can cause poor posture over time.

However not all women like to wear bras as they can sometimes chafe or generally just feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, some women are also loathe to remove their bras as they dislike the sagginess of their breasts without the support that a bra provides.

Now, there is a solution – the internal bra breast lift. The Internal Bra System is a new form of breast-lift cosmetic surgery. In a normal breast lift, the newly formed breast is held up by skin alone. This means that over time, scars can stretch and the breasts will be start to sag.

However the new breast lift takes the strain away from the skin by using a mesh-like material called Breform. A similar material to Breform is already in use in hernia operations and it helps to provide inbuilt support.

Cosmetic surgeons perform the breast lift and then insert a cone-shaped piece of the polyester Breform mesh underneath the skin. It is then secured to the layer of fat just above the breast tissue. Over time, the mesh gets incorporated into the breast as the body produces a fibrous tissue that cements the structure into place. This means that the mesh turns into something akin to an internal bra system. One implanted, the patient should not be able to feel the mesh underneath the skin.

The results of the Internal Bra Breast Lift are said to last longer than the usual breast lift procedure.

Trials in Holland have shown that 60 percent of women who have had the mesh implanted now go on a regular basis without a bra. 170 women have been followed for four and a half years and no serious complications have been found so far. Physical and X-ray examinations of the breasts are also still possible.

The downside of this procedure is that America’s Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet approved the Breform device as the long-term safety of the device has yet to be proven. Although a similar substance has been used in hernia operations for over 40 years, cosmetic surgeons are keen to point out that putting anything into the body must be monitored for at least ten years to ensure that the product does not become harmful to the body over the course of several years.

There is also little research on how the mesh system will cope with pregnancy – breasts tend to swell in size during pregnancy and may become too big for the internal bra system. It is also unknown whether the mesh will cause problems with breast-feeding.

Thus, anyone who is looking to have this Internal Bra System cosmetic surgery must be aware of the possible risk they are taking with an long-term unproven elective surgery.

Dear Bwitch!

I have an embarrassing problem. My sport bras have a mildew smell that just won’t come out, no matter how much I wash them. Any suggestions? Or do I have to throw them out and buy new ones?

Usually, it’s a buildup of mildew and/or bacteria that causes that musty odor — which only gets stronger in warm, damp conditions, such as during a sweaty workout.

Before tossing your bras, try a stronger detergent. Specifically those formulated to eliminate odors embedded in the fibers of workout clothes that most laundry detergents can’t budge.

You could also try such home remedies as soaking your sport bras in water to which baking soda or white vinegar has been added — or adding either of those products to the machine during the wash cycle.

Also, try to launder all workout gear as soon as possible after a workout. And once it is washed, dry it immediately and thoroughly.

Finally, when you do need new sport bras, look for brands with antimicrobial treatments, which inhibit the growth of bacteria.

Undergrad wins bra unhooking contest!

An undergraduate is the fastest “bra unhooker” in Taiwan. The student of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology unhooked all the bras worn by eight models within one minute at a competition.

He walked away with TWD5,000 (S$222) cash prize, Taiwan’s TVBS reported. ”This is the first time I unhooked a woman’s bra,” claimed the student.

The event on Thursday was held in conjunction with an automobile expo in Kaoshiong to attract visitors. A total of eight people including an elderly man took part in the competition, which required them to unhook the models’ bras with only one hand.

Give your old bras a lift

Modern boho: Glue bits of vintage lace or old lace doilies to the straps in an overlapping fashion. If you don’t have old lace, stain new lace in tea. Use hot glue for your projects, but fabric glue holds up better when the bras are handwashed.

Contemporary chic: Hand-sew strands of rhinestones to the straps.  You’ll find rhinestones at craft stores or online at Web sites such as mjtrim.com.

Rulebreaker: Honestly, this one sounds a little, uh, nutty. Tie a bunch of mini washers and mini hex nuts to the straps using black ribbon or tulle

Dear Bwitch!

Q. Is there any truth to the Internet rumor that the incidence of breast cancer is more than 100 times greater in women who always wear bras than in women who never wear bras?

There is no scientifically credible evidence of this,  and the proposed mechanism — that bras prevent elimination of toxins by blocking lymph flow — is not in line with scientific concepts of how breast cancer develops.

Internet traffic on the issue is mostly inspired by one study with several scientific flaws. The study, never published in a peer-reviewed journal, did not adjust for known breast cancer risk factors that might be associated with bra-wearing behavior, like weight and age. Also, study participants knew the hypothesis before taking the survey.

Because the idea of bras’ causing breast cancer is so scientifically implausible, it seems unlikely that researchers will ever spend their time and resources to test it in a real epidemiological study.

Milk production hormone can help prevent aggressive breast cancer

A mechanism by which a hormone responsible for milk production blocks an oncogene that makes breast cancer more aggressive has been discovered by researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson.

The researchers found that prolactin, a pituitary hormone that normally stimulates breast development and milk production, in fact reduces levels of an oncogene called BCL6.

The BCL6 protein has previously been shown to play a role in poorly differentiated breast cancer, which carries a poorer prognosis. According to Hallgeir Rui, a professor of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, prolactin’s role in breast cancer is, to a large extent, carried out by a protein pathway called Stat5.

In breast cancer, the inactivation of Stat5 is related to poorly differentiated breast cancer, and thus poorer prognosis. ”We found that prolactin will block expression of the BCL6 protein, and showed that Stat5a, but not the very similar Stat5b variant, is involved in this process as a mediator of prolactin,” said Dr. Rui.

“We think that prolactin plays an important role in preventing aggressive breast cancers, and that there is a connection between the loss of Stat5 and the increase of BCL6 in making breast cancer more aggressive,” Dr. Rui added.

Dr Rui and his laboratory investigated the phenomenon in several different breast cancer cell lines grown in the laboratory, and also in mice and in human breast cancer samples. The relationship held up across all three.

Receptors for prolactin are present on a majority of breast cancers. Prolactin levels in blood are relatively unaffected by menopause, and breast cancer patients across all age groups are exposed to the hormone.

The new findings, published in the journal Cancer Research, could lead to better diagnostic tests for breast cancer, and also the development of new treatments, according to the researchers.