TLBC & How To Find Your Proper Bra Size

I've been wanting to try The Little Bra Company for a while now since they offer petite-friendly bras in very small sizes.  I finally stopped by one of the lingerie stores that carry them today, but unfortunately they only carry one kind (Lucia) and the smallest size they had was a 32A:

I currently wear 32A bras, but only because that's the smallest that I can (easily) find, and more often than not the cups would gape.  The cups on this one actually do fit, but the band was still too loose, even though TLBC recommends going up a band size on their website.  There's another store in my area that carries TLBC, but I'm afraid they probably won't have the smaller band sizes either, so I think I will probably have to order online if I want to find one that fits.

Lately I've been looking into proper bra fitting.  To find your band size, the usual recommended method is to measure under the breasts and add 5", or measure above the breasts.  I'm not sure how accurate that method is though, because adding 5" makes me a 32 and I'm pretty sure I'm not.  The sales lady at this particular store measured me over the fullest part of the chest, told me that's my band size (30), and the difference between this measurement and the under-the-breast measurement is my cup size, which is another way that I haven't heard of.  She then proceeded to marvel at how tiny I was and suggested I try children's bras (just what a full-grown woman wants to hear lol).

I recently ran across this website which had a lot of interesting information.  For example, I didn't know that cup sizes actually change with band sizes.  Here a DD cup on a smaller band size is much much smaller than a DD cup on a larger band size:

And even though these two bras look exactly the same:

One is a 38A and the other is actually a 32DD!  Can you tell which is which?  I think the take-home point here is that when a bra doesn't fit, you have to take into consideration that is it the cup or the band that's ill-fitting?

For proper band fit, you shouldn't be able to stretch it more than 2" from your body:

(All my bras failed this test, so I definitely should be wearing a smaller band size!) 

For proper cup fit, the underwire should not be sitting on any breast tissue on the side, like this:

And if it does, over time your breast tissue will "migrate" into the armpit and even to your back!  So if you wear a correctly sized bra and properly scoop back all the "escaped" breast:

Then apparently "most girls reported that their cup size increased within a few weeks to a couple months after getting the right bra size."  I definitely would not mind some of that!  Even more incentive to get a properly fitted bra :)

Another thing I didn't know is that if the cup wrinkles at the top, it's too big... but if it wrinkles at the tip (or nipple area), that actually means it's too small!  Something about 'orange in a glass effect' and you should actually go up a cup size (and down a band size if needed).

But by far the most useful thing I found on the website is this bra size calculator.  You need to measure:

• underneath the breasts after full exhalation
• around the fullest part of your chest

Plug in the numbers (in cm), and not only will it tell you your size, it'll also tell you what to get if you need to go down a cup or a band size.  For example, I'm a 30A according to the calculator.  If I try on a 30A bra and the cup fits but the band size is too big, I should actually go down to a 28C (instead of a 28A, since cup size changes with band size as I showed before).

Hopefully some of that was useful information for you.  I definitely learned a lot and now I just need to find the bra that's right for me!