2
Jul 23, 2013
I'm a little confused, the site made me take measurements for the perimeter of one boob, and a nip to neck measurement. I'm sure there's a purpose for this when it comes to fitting bras and telling you something about your boobs, I'm just not really sure how to interpret it. I looked at other peoples measurements close to mine and didn't really learn anything. Does the nip to neck tell you something about how high or low they are on your chest, or do these measurement not really tell you much because it varies by body shape and it's more for just comparing how your breast will fit in certain bras. If there is anything I can learn from this please enlighten me.
Filed under Boob and body issues
These measurements were devised back in 2007 when I first started the site. The idea is not to match these numbers to a bra fit. But they are used to find similar profiles and match fits and recommendations among them.
Of course plain numbers have proven to be insufficient so in 2009 the breast shapes were introduced as part of the profile and they are currently matched to bra fit but they have another issue of self identifying shapes, that is why last year I started the Breast shapes project, to help facilitate the self assessment of breast shape http://www.bratabase.com/blog/2012/nov/21/determining-your-breast-shape-202/
This will play an important part of the recommendations as measurements only will not be used to find matches but also breast shapes.
As a side note there are concrete plans to extend the current profile measurements to add more optional measurements on the profile to do other kind of match between users.
Breast perimeter can be used to get an idea of what cup depth might be needed. Depending on how it is measured it says something about the minimum or maximum cup depth that might still work. Of course, there are personal differences: some people find they consistently need respectively slightly smaller or slightly larger cups depths, but for others it is a reasonably good indication. It is also useful in fitting help requests: when someone requests help for a bra of which the cup depth is miles off from their breast perimeter it is almost always certain that the cup size is wrong.
Nip-to-neck is a more difficult one as it is as much determined by body shape as by breast shape. For a person with reasonably self-supporting breasts nip-to-neck can indicate whether their breasts are set high on their chest or low on their chest, but for someone with more pendulous breasts this measurement is not that useful. I personally think it might be more useful taking this measurement while wearing a bra and comparing how different bras give different results.