Busts 4 Justice

I’d never considered soft cup bras before, always assuming they were the preserve only of the pregnant and breast feeding. I was aware of them vaguely as large, unsightly mostrosities that – had the recent trauma of childbirth not successfully managed it – would kick your last feelings of being a sexually attractive being far in to the distance.

And then I wrote a post here helping a reader find a solutions to her uncomfortable boobs-at-bedtime situation. Not only did I discover some truly beautiful designs, I also became aware of my own body when I tried to sleep. Much like when you first get glasses and suddenly see how much you’ve adapted to imperfect vision, I realised that my own boobs had been a low-level annoyance for years. So when my BFFs at Freya Lingerie asked if I’d like to try one for myself, I leapt at the opportunity. I can’t let anything – not even my own body – get in the way of me and a decent night’s sleep.

The Freya Dotty – available in both nursing and simple soft-cup styles – was a beautiful surprise when it slipped through the letterbox in a whisper-thin envelope on Saturday. The rich blue colour matched with the vintage-style lace felt luxurious, and in spite of the slightly more cumbersome cup-size, it didn’t feel as if it had been compromised on style or design because it was a soft-cupped and more functional bra.

The bra does come up slightly big, but I’d suggest not sizing down on the back size: a boa-constrictor tight elastic band is not a recipe for a perfect night’s sleep. It also takes a while to get used to how high the cups come on your chest, so it probably helps to imagine it as more of a structured crop-top than a bra.

That said, it is surprisingly supportive. I ran it through all the tests I put underwire bras through (with the exception of taking it out on Cecil – I’m not a masochist), and it fared pretty well. It can’t compete on the higher impact activity, but for general mooching, housework, cooking, ambling, air punches, low-level jiggling and stairs, it offers more than enough support to be comfortable. And it passed the ‘sleep test’ with flying colours: apart from the fact that my boobs were in the place I’d left them when I fell asleep, after eight hours it felt so wearing-nothing-at-all comfortable that it was easy to forget I was in it.

So if you’re having trouble sleeping unsupported, or if you just like feeling liberated from your underwire at the end of the working day, I can’t recommend a soft-cup or Dotty enough. No longer only for the pregnant or the newly-mummed: the soft-cup is now a permanent fixture of my lingerie wardrobe. Will you try it?

Freya Lingerie’s Dotty soft cup is not as easy to come by as her nursing bra sister, but can be found up to an HH cup at retailers including Mish, Bras Galore, Bras and Honey, and Clara Olivia.