1 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY GIVEAWAY - EWA MICHALAK

In the occasion of my blogiversary, I present:

Ewa Michalak is a Polish bra-brand with the widest size range on earth!

They are what many full-busted women have been dreaming of: A front and centered shape you’ll hardly find anywhere else, padded bras in larger cup sizes, colorfull plunges – everything you’ve wanted for your boobs!

I find myself always reaching for my Ewa Michalak bras when I want to have an amazing-looking chest, and I’ve thus bought and blogged about these incredible garments many times :)

Many other bloggers, namely CurvyWordy, are also spell bound by these bras, so they are rightfully quite a popular brand in the ‘bra-community’

And who can blame us? Look at some of these brilliant bras:

S Ptýs

 

HP Rokoko

 

PL Onyks

 

3DM Malinka

CHP Orchidea

I’m therefore happy to tell you, that one of you can win one of the beauties (or any other EM bra), including shipping, here in my giveaway!
Just fill out the Rafflecopter, and I’ll draw the winners on the 31^st of July!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Alterations: Stiffening the cups

Most of you have probably heard by now that I have some problems with the much loved Ewa Michalak bras. 

My main problem is that they are too shallow at the bottom, and thus collapse - My inability to fit in the bottom of the cup can't really be helped much, but I've experimented with preventing the bra from collapsing, by making the lightly padded cup a bit more stiff.

My first attemps have been pretty half-arsed, by using the plastic from Q-tips, to sew a small bit of boning in. This was obviously not a good solution, and I was thus on the look-out for something better.

I then stumbled across the plastic-sheets that you can roll up and stick in your long boots:

It was thin and sturdy, so it seemed bendable and supportive enough to do the job.

My first go was to try and make an entire plastic pad - I used a pad from a PL bra as a template, and cut out a piece, and then made holes to stitch through. The cutting was easy enough, but making the holes were a tough job. I made these with nails that I hammered through, but it was tedious work to get them all done, and even then they were quite small:

I quickly stitched it on a pad, and stuck it in a PL bra to see how it worked - well, not well!

As you can see, the profile is awful - the pad is completely stiff, and stick out.

Furthermore, it doesn't follow the bottom of the cup, and thus actually makes the fold more extreme. Not what I wanted.

So, my next attemp was cutting a little "wave" - I figured this would follow the curve much better, direct the breast towards the middle, and make a smoother transition from boned area to soft area. I cut the wave shape first, and then adjusted the bottom to fit the curve of the wire.

(sorry, forgot to take pictures of the process!) This time, I cut the holes with a scissor, which was much easier, and the holes were about the same size as with the nails anyway - Experience told me that the smaller the holes was, the more difficult it was to make small neat stitches!

I has just recieved an S and a PL bra, so I would test this out on both types:

On the S bra, I sew them on the inside - This was tricky work! I tested where my dreaded fold was likely to form, and then safty-pinned it in place. I made sure to try get it under the seam of the wire, to prevent potential pinching.

Here's how it ended up looking:

For most of the stitches, I could make sure not to stitch through the outer-most layer, keeping it smooth on the outside. This was a little difficult at the bottom of cups, as my hands didn't have much room to work in, making neat work more difficult. But it's not really enough to show through anyway:

So here it is on!

I would saya it's definitely a succes - more uplifted than anything! And no signs of anything going on in the cup. And it's surprisingly comfy too - I can't feel it at all! And added bonus, I usually also feel like the gore doesn't really tack on me, but this seems to tip the whole bra upwards a bit, forcing the gore a bit closer to my chest. All around good points for this!

Next up, I tried it on a Pl - The difference here being that they have pockets on the inside for pads. I therefor had to sew on the outside. 

This was much much easier, because it wasn't the nitty-gritty work in the cup, but the results aren't as good either. The edges would not completely follow the cup, and this could stick out a bit, which does show through clothing:

So, I'd deem this one succes (that I will definitely repeat!) and one not so much (though not unbearable for me). I don't know if this will inspire others to make alterations like that, but there you have it, this is how I intend to make EM's work a bit better for me!

S Wiśniówka reviewed!

I've said it many times, and I'll say it again - Ewa Michalak bras are not compatible with my breasts.

So why do I keep trying? Well, because there's nothing I love more than the Ewa Michalak shape. Even when my Pl Onyks was actually unwearable wrong in size/worn out, I would still get, well, slightly disappointed when I saw my boobs in other bras.

The Ewa Michalak shape is like the holy grail to me - lifted, centered, not wider than my body, projected, not minimizing in the slightest.

And I want that. So I'll just have to work around my Ewa Issues. 

My boobs are a bit soft-ish on their surface, which means plunges aren't actually that good an idea, but so far, that has been my only Ewa option.

So when I heard that the new S-shape would be specifically made to target softer boobies, I was ecstatic  and made my order right away 

S Wiśniówka

I went for a 70KK - I have the PL Cappuccino in 75K, and it indeed looks too small these days, definitely quadro-boobing, but I reasoned that it was just due to my soft boobs not being held properly into the cup - something the S-bra would hopefully solve. 

I went for a smaller band, because the Cappuccino was loose from day 1, and definitely is now - so even though the Karmelki was too small in 70, I took a chance with this one: After all  I've heard that the Karmelki is one of the tightest.

When the bra arrived an early February morning, I popped it on right away, and well, I was not disappointed!!

Gaping on my smaller boob

Much less gaping on larger boob

It's so good! The band feels very good - I've felt like a lot of EM bras had narrow, un-stretchy seam which could be uncomfortable, but this feels really nice! And the straps are stretchy as well, which means you can tighten them enough to not slide anywhere, but they won't feel constricting.

Cup-wise, I felt very contained, but not in a full-cup kind of way - just really stable and secure. And the shape is even better than the PL's in my opinion!

Ewa had said it was pointier, which I think worried some people, but I think I can see what was meant by 'pointy' - the shape at the tip is definitely more concentrated at one point:

PL vs S

PL vs S

Which I happen to think looks awesome!

Another thing that worried people was the seams - those wide, black lines on top of the red sure can make them look quite threatening  but upon closer inspection, they really are just thin black lace - much like the type we so often see at the edge of cups:

Seams are less visible than the edge of the gaping cup

Now, I started off this review by saying me an EM-bras don't mix well - have I just proven myself wrong? Well, no. As you can see on some of these pictures, it gapes, especially when I move my arms forward.

Should I go down a cup-size, then? Well, maybe. The next issue is that first up, the gore isn't flat - and when I push it flat, the cups don't gape. So technically the volume is pretty good.

And then there's the annoying fact that I do get orange-in-glass-effect, which tends to ruin the stability of the bra:

Slight wrinkling at the bottom of the right seam - sorry, the flash kind of overexposes it.
Here you can also see the amazing centering shape, though!

For now, these issues can be sort of solved by popping in a pad (2 on the smaller boob), so it is definitely not something that keeps me from wearing, and loving, this bra:

with pads

With pads

Over at Bratabase, I've gotten some suggestions on how to better fix these issues, and particularly the idea of boned pads and moving the strap (to close gaping + maybe stretching out the orange-on-glass fold?), and I am very interested in trying out these alterations.

Figuring out Ewa Michalak

EwaMichalak, worlds biggest size selection of bras. They even make sizes if they don’t have it. Their narrow wires are like an answer to so many busty womens bra-prayers. Their uplifted, centered shape is one of the most coveted looks. So it is no wonder, that finding your right EM size is of high priority for many!

In the dawn of time, I ordered a 36H CH Biszkopty bra from Ewa Michalak. I loved the lightly padded cup, the uplift, the shape… But  then I noticed something:

What is that?! Well, I soon learned that it was the “Orange-in-a-glass” effect! I’ve talked about it earlier when I had my “shape epiphany” (funny how I didn’t notice for so long, and now it seems so obvious… But I guess I needed to be closer to my size to have other fit issues than “too small”)

The bra is not big enough near the bottom to allow the boob, much like if you put an orange in a narrow glass: It’s not that the glass doesn’t have enough volume, it just the shape that isn’t compatible:

 (Was it reasonable that I was super surprised when nothing bra related came up when I searched for “orange in a glass”, or do I just forget that others don’t have bra-related connotations to everything? I even had to take this picture myself!)

Since then, the CH has become too small on me (as I mentioned in this post, my boobs have grown noticeably since last spring when my proper “bra journey” started), and the Orange in Glass has become ridiculous (because it is too small all over, it is even pulling more at the fabric near the bottom, making it flatter!) 

(Difficult to photograph, as the best angle to see it, would mean the camera was covering it, with my oh so stealthy pics-in-mirror-shots)
This would turn out to be quite the obstacle between me and Ewa Michalak.
I tried some PL's in 36H which were definitely too small cup/too big band, and returned them for PL Onyks and Carmen in 34JJ. I have since referred to these as “disaster bras”. The obviously have similar problems, but Carmen is made of a thinner, less stiff fabric, and it is therefore not as noticeable, so Onyks will have to take all the rap for this mess:

Despite 34JJ being my “larger cup volume” (I estimate that I am a 34J-JJ, and sometimes a 32band), it did create a whole lot of “orange in a glass”. Well, no harm, I thought. Wrong!

^That is what eventually happened. The gap was not stable enough to support either boob or bra, and it was bound to collapse under the weight at some point. When it did so, it made some ugly folds in the bottom of the cup, making the bra cup sit lower than the wire itself, dragging my boobs down with it (droopy boobies!), distorting the entire fit horribly (as also discussed in the Shape post)
Because of excessive wear of this bra, these folds have turned quite permanent, and therefore the problem just worsens, because now the folds have taken up more space than the gap originally did!

Here we have so pictures to prove the mess this bra is on me:

And here we see how that messes with the overall compatibility between me and the bra:

I saw  another example of orange-in-a-glass, and the same incompatibilities again in a CHP Brzoskwinka in 34HH, though had it been larger, I think it would overall be much better for my shape. (Took a chance with a non-returnable order, just to try it out) (Only took one side-shot before I put it up for sale, and the picture was super blurry, so you’ll have to take my word for it ;) )

I discussed this on Bratabase, and both me and MilkAndHoney compared which styles, CH, CHP or PL we found the most bottom shallow. I felt like the PL was the most bottom-shallow, and CHP had the most volume, but she felt that CHP was the most shallow, and CH was the deepest! Hmm! I had already sold my CHP at this point, but she took a look at the bras, and concluded that *actually* CH goes out in the deepest angle from the wire, and PL the most shallow. So we concluded that whether the cup is too small at the bottom, can come as a result of different things in the overall compatibility  for example, the width of the bra overall, the width of the bottom if the wire etc. So many factors! It is not too difficult to see that you can't just pick bras of the rack and expect them to fit!

But, what to do when a bra is not compatible with your shape? You size up!

Here we have PL Cappuccino in 34K:

Now, I do think that this is technically too big, and some fitting issues associated with that comes into play: For example, it covers a lot of my armpit too (which is often the result of too big cup with too tight straps), and it is fuller coverage than I think was intended (I don’t mind though! My soft-ish boobs would appreciate the higher center gore promised to come in a future style, too!), and there can be slight gaping unless I am 100% scooped! But, what makes me confident that this is more like my EM size, rather than a smaller one, is the fact that I STILL get a bit of orange-in-glass:

But, I am quite happy with this bra! I am glad I have found something from EM that really does work for me, and I will continue to fine-tune my fit, because I really appreciate their shape, and I applaud EM for accommodating so many hard-to-get sizes! 

So, for me, EM is a really, really tricky business! But I feel like it is such a must have bra! When ever I’ve been wearing one, even my disaster bras, I get sort of disappointed by the shape of most other bras: I would do anything for that centered look, which so far I’ve found only EM to give!

On an unrelated note, I AM SELLING BRAS at Bratabase!!