Thursday 19 January 2012

If Your Boobs Are Bigger Than Your Budget...


This is just part of my bra collection—as you can tell, I own way more bras than just the basics. Since I’m obsessed with lingerie, I tend to buy a lot of it, order a lot of it, return a lot of it, and keep a lot of it.

Unfortunately, as a student, I don’t have the biggest of budgets for this activity. And as you might have noticed, bras in bigger cup sizes have a nasty habit of being quite expensive at full price. So I sustain my lingerie buying partly by budgeting more in other areas, and partly by shopping around obsessively for the best available bargains. Here are my tips to get as much as you can of what you want while spending as little as possible. I've listed most of the prices in UK pounds, but my tips include what to do in the US.

Brastop.com is a great source for bargains, especially if you just want a bra and don’t really care which bra. They have a range of prices, but everything is always discounted, and there are always at least a few bras under £10. The best thing about Brastop is that they have a huge number of styles and colors available even in very high cup sizes and very low back sizes.  Brastop is best for fashion colors of Curvy Kate bras from past seasons--the continuity colors don’t make it onto Brastop. If you want black, white, and nude, try their own brand, Flirtelle, which has the same fit as Curvy Kate. There are also some options from Panache, Freya, etc. They don’t sell out of sizes quickly, so you can really mull it over. And to get the most out of Brastop, you should wait for periodic free shipping or half-price international shipping. Unfortunately, you will have to pay your own return shipping costs, which is a major drag especially if you’re not in the UK.

Amazon.co.uk is a good source for discounted prices on current-season Curvy Kate bras and some sale prices on past-season bras, including Panache and Cleo. For some reason, the current collections of Curvy Kate always seem to be marked down to £18-£20, so if you can’t wait to have a new color or model, check here. They also have some crazy bargains on older stock, which will occasionally beat out Brastop—it’s worth comparing both. The best thing about Amazon is that they usually have free shipping and free returns on bras for UK addresses. But sadly, if you’re in the US, you can’t buy bras from Amazon even if you log onto their UK site—I don’t fully understand why, but some legal issue prevents them from shipping to the US.

Debenhams.com is another decent source for random sales on current lines. They don’t have a huge number of items in the upper size ranges, but there are a few, and I’ve found some good bargains on Cleo bras from them. They also offer free shipping in the UK. They do ship to the US too, but that will cost £10, which will probably cancel out any bargain you find.

Ebay.com is always a great place to check. If you’re in the US, this is the site that will save you the most money on bras, even though most of the time you’ll still have to ship from the UK. Ebay sellers nearly always offer cheaper international shipping than you’ll find anywhere else—often just about £3. To get started, just search “bra” and your size—for instance, “bra 28J”. If you don’t want something used, look for items with “BNWT” (brand new with tags) in the title. You’ll usually find a selection of Panache, Cleo, Freya, and Fantasie bras, occasionally with some Curvy Kate thrown in there. These are generally sold by well-rated, established sellers and are either overstock, styles that never ended up getting produced, or factory seconds (bras that are slightly inconsistent in some way, but not damaged or useless). Keep in mind that certain bras seem to cycle through, so you might come up with six sellers stocking a red Freya Estelle but none stocking a purple Jolie, and then if you check a month later there will be nine purple Jolies. If you have a very small back/large cup, you will probably find mostly boring Panache styles in uninspired colors. But if you are willing to put up with this and keep searching, you can usually get bras for around £12-£15. There are also sellers who are just regular women like you, selling bras that don’t fit them right. These bras more often require bidding rather than Buy It Now, so I personally steer clear of them, but if you like bidding on eBay you can sometimes get a great bargain this way.

Edited to add: Leia Lingerie's Outlet section is usually the best place to buy Freya bras, often at really amazing discounts--some are under £10. Sometimes you can even find the matching panties for £3-£4, meaning you can ignore my warning below. Leia Lingerie also has Fantasie and Fauve items. Unfortunately, they only ship to the UK and because of the form you have to fill out with your billing address, it can be tricky to use a US credit card even if you're living in the UK, so it's best to have a UK card along with your UK address.

My final tip for a low-budget lingerie obsession is to not buy the matching underwear. Even on deep discount, these undies are usually never less than £6. If you’re willing to poke around you can get at least 2 or 3 pairs for that price. In the US, Victoria’s Secret 5 for $25.50 panties are amazing, especially the ones with lace around the waist. You can save even more if you buy single pairs at Marshall’s, TJ Maxx (that’s TK Maxx for you UK ladies), and those somewhat trashy-looking mall clothing stores with neon lighting. I know some people like to have sets that match perfectly, but if you don’t mind trying something new, it can be quite fun to do some shopping around for fun colors and patterns that coordinate and nearly match. Since underwear is a wear-once-before-washing type of item, you might find that it’s more fun to favor quantity over quality here.

14 comments:

  1. I totally could have used this three weeks ago. I ordered 3 bras from Debenhams and I'm still waiting for them. International shipping really sucks! I guess I'll try brastop next time around.

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    1. Sadly the international shipping from Brastop is pretty pricey too, but in my experience they do tend to ship fairly quickly relative to other international shipping. Three weeks is a long time! Have you contacted them?

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    2. If you watch their deals, though, sometimes they have free international shipping! Also, their package took about a week for me, which is pretty good considering it had to go from the UK to Brazil. ;)

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    3. I was really disappointed last year when I made up a large order during a summer sale...& then for unknown reasons, Debenhams simply couldn't make sense of my Visa card. I had to call the credit card company (a huge one btw, with a card I've had 10 years), who assured me all was fine on their end. Still no go from D'hams. But they did send me an unintentionally funny email from Customer Service, basically using very formal, stuffy language to convey how sorry they were that my lingerie dreams had been crushed and they deeply regretted letting me down. (No pun intended, I guess.)

      Also, I've always found that lovebras.com has the cheaper international shipping than their sister site brastop - but the drawback is that you they do not include reviews on lovebras. So you then have to go look them up on the other side.....Its a vicious bra addict cycle.

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    4. I miss when Lovebras used to ALWAYS have half-price international shipping.. I wept bitter tears when they stopped doing it. At least it still pops up sometimes. And sometimes they have different deals than Brastop.

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  2. A note on using eBay: If you know your size in a particular brand, or are looking for a particular model or colorway, you can save a search for it and eBay will notify you as soon as one is listed. Just search for the phrase ("Freya 28FF" or "Curvy Kate Thrill Me 30G" or whatever), then click "Save Search" (it's near the upper left, but under the search field in which you type). It's a lot simpler than constantly searching eBay and you'll always be the first to know when something you want is listed.

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    1. Cool, didn't know about this! Thanks for the info!

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  3. I ENVY your bra collection. I have ONE good bra and like four old bad ones that don't fit. I learned that I am a 36J and the old bras that I am still squeezing these knockers into are like38-40 DDs... :-(

    Bra shopping is on the short list of main priorities! Thanks for the tips!

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    1. Don't worry--Just four months ago, I had only TWO bras! They sure add up quickly!

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  4. bybabyrules Lulu Lonsdale is launching in the next few weeks with a variety of designers and sizes. We ship internationally at reasonable prices, please give me an email if I can help any further lucy@lululonsdale.com and I'm sure we can sort something out for you :)

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  5. Do you what the cheapest way is to return a bra back to UK (Lovebras.com)?

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  6. thanks for the suggestions in this article...helpful to a US shopper! I really like to shop figleaves.com since they have a US address for returns and $6 US shipping. They're my go-to for trying out sizes and bras thanks to the easy returns.

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  7. If you like Leia try www.clara-olivia.com
    We stock Freya, Fantasie Fauve and Elomi. Most items are discounted.

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  8. I usually end up spending $50-70 on bras, even trying to buy on eBay is hard. I often buy from herroom.com and breakoutbras.com. But the prices are always horrendous, especially since we struggle to put food on the table.

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