Molly and Cynthia's Bra Care Guide

If you follow these simple steps you should have little to no problems with your bras. There is always room for manufacturers defects, but most of the time it is caregiver issues. We want you to get the most wear out of your investment. We will be here to repair and alter down your bras as the need be. We will offer one free alteration within the year purchased. This allows you to get the most wear out of your bra. However we will not continue to alter a bra that is beyond help. We will ask you to purchase a new one.

Example of a bra beyond help: You are a G cup and have had only one or two bras that you have purchased from us. You did not buy the wash and have worn them consistently for 6 months straight. Your wire is bent and your bra has changed color due to harsh detergents. It is ripping and the wire is popping out, or it is about to, due to making its way into the dryer with the towels. (Which happens to the best of us.)

We have been in this business a LONG TIME and know the signs of improper care.

All underwired garments require great care when washing! We recommend hand washing as the best care for your bras. We do understand that this is not always convenient, so you may machine wash if you do the following:

• Always use a MESH BAG!
• Wash on gentle cycle or hand wash cycle
• Use LASTING CARE SOAP!
• Hang to dry (NEVER PUT YOUR BRAS IN THE DRYER!)

When you put your bra in the dryer the heat will melt the plastic tips off your underwire exposing the metal tips and causing them to poke through the felt.

We recommend that you purchase 3 to 4 bras to start and build to seven in a year! You need one to wash, one to wear, and one to rest, and the forth so you do not repeat a bra but every four wearings. If you have four bras, you are only washing your bras every other Sunday. When you get to seven bras, you are washing your bras once a month. This cuts down on the wear and care of your bras, and they should last you a couple of years. It is ok to have at least four of the same bra if this is your favorite.

You only need to wash your bras every 4 to 5 wearings any more than this and you are over washing. Bras are not like underwear. They do not get dirty in the same way. The only way your bra gets dirty is by sweat and oil drying in the bra overnight. If you sweat a lot one day, all you need to do is rinse your bra under fast tap water and hang to dry and the bra will be ready to go the next day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is underwire harmful?
A: Underwire is only harmful if fitted improperly. There is a right and wrong way to wear a bra. Wearing underwire on delicate breast tissue for long periods of time can cause calcification of cells, better know as lumps. The correct way to wear underwire is to make sure that your band is firm and low on your back and your underwire is laying flat against your rib cage with all of your breast tissue securely within the cup. You should have a pinky width between wire and breast. Wire is very important to the positioning of the breast. Without wire, the breast are allowed to migrate east and west, and as we say at LiviRae "migrations for the birds not boobs". Wearing the wrong size bra and poor fitting underwire would be the same as wearing the wrong size shoe all the time. We both know that most of us would never do that, first of all it would hurt. Second of all it would cause health problems such as bunions, or corns. So tell me this, why do we do it to our breast?

Q: How do I get rid of "BACK FAT"?
A: Oh yes, this unsightly puffy, yucky, flappy skin on our back! We refer to this hidious stuff as the "CHICKLET"! We give it a cute name for something everyone has and hates. Whether you're a 2 or a 22, you will have a chicklet. The only way to combat it is to wear a firm fitted bra positioned low on the smallest, thinnest part of your back. When you have your bra positioned correctly, it will disquise the chicklet when you are in your clothing. When you first wear a fitted bra, you will see more of it in the dressing room. Just know that it will get better the more you wear your bra the right way. The body will recognize that you are consistantly wearing a firm bra in the same spot and water will disperse into other areas of the body, lessoning the puffy look. Furthermore, wearing your bra low allows your shirt to hang off the largest part of your back loosely across the bra band area hiding the unsightly chicklet. In closing, how many times do we actually look at someones back fat anyway? Wouldn't you want your bustline to look better, and your silhouette more enhanced by a better fitting bra.

Q: How many bras do I need, and what is their life expectancy?
A: Well, you need to start with at least 3 to 4 bras and build to seven within a year! If you think of your bras like a good pair of shoes, that should last you at least a season or two, you will better understand bras. We all have at least 10 to 15 pairs of shoes, but we will only have 1 or 2 bras that we actively wear for one to two years straight. This makes no sense ladies ! The reason we do this is because we devalue the bra in the US. Why do we do this? The bra hurts, falls apart within a couple of months and most of the time we can not wait to get home and take it off, so why pay a lot or have a lot? You need to have a good fitted bra for every day of the week, because we wear them every day of the week! Our bra should be our most important article of clothing that we wear! We will go out in public without our shoes, before we will without our bra. If you have seven bras that you are rotating and taking care of correctly, you should have your bras for years. At LiviRae, we will alter your bra as it stretches giving you more life out of your bra. For Free! We want to change the way women feel about bras, so that they will wear them properly, and in turn help them keep a healthy bust.

Q: Should I Have "RED MARKS"?
A: If your bra is fitting tight and right, then your red marks will be bright! Indentions and marks at the bra band are a sign that your bra is fitting properly. We are not used to seeing them on this part of our body. When we take off a pair of panty hose, what do we have around our waist? Why yes, we have the indention and maybe redness from where the band of the hose was gripping into our tummy. We think nothing of this, because we know that if they are not tight, they will fall down to our knees, which is miserable! We would be pulling those things up all day and wanting to take them off because this too makes us miserable. The same holds true for the bra. Instead of pulling up, we are pulling down and hiking our straps up. Keeping your band firm pulls against the straps enabling a seesaw effect. If your back is low, your bust is high! We all want a nice lifted bust, so we must get used to seeing marks on our body in this area.