Girls, you know how it is. You go to a clothing store. Find some cute tops. Try on one of those spaghetti-strap/camisole/cami types and notice: There is an extra layer of fabric in there. But it only reaches halfway. And it ends in elastic. Enter the built-in shelf “bra.”
I don’t really get the point of these built-in supposed bras. If you’re cute and tiny. Thin. An A-cup. Tops with built-in bras like these probably work for you. Give you just enough coverage and keep things in place so you can flit around in the summer heat and no one’s the wiser. But for us C-cup or larger women? Do these spaghetti-strap-built-ins give us a nice boost, some extra coverage, or allow us to go braless? Not a chance. You know what these extra pieces of elastic do under our bustlines? They pull the shirt necklines down.
Many woman wear camisoles almost daily. They serve to assuage a low neckline, add to a crop top for those not wishing to show the skin, or keep one appropriate under a completely sheer blouse. But that only works if you can wear a built-in-shelf camisole without the neckline-down/bustline-up issue or find a cami without that obnoxious bit of elastic. And those can be damn near impossible to find. They may even be endangered.
And thus my dilemma. If I wanted to uncomfortably push up what-I-got then I’d have endless possibilities – every color of the rainbow. But my point to wearing an extra layer of clothing today was to cover what the first one did not. One piece kind of cancels out the other in this scenario, you see. So unless clothing companies start providing realistically-sized pieces of boobie-material in “shelf bra” tops or begin producing a higher number of plain, old, no-extra-elastic camisoles, I guess I’m left to my own devices. Or this.
Your bosom friend,
sweettems
