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• 1

  Such a bummer! Sorry for the bad experience. Are they returnable at least?

• 1

  Yep, returns always work very well and quick where I ordered, fortunatly :)

• 1

  That's great! You were able to give it a try but not stuck with a horrible bra as a result. It's a win experience then. Yay! And we thank you for the added data and experience you shared for the database . Thank you!

• Empreinte definitely has a distinctive and very consistent cup shape and grading approach, at least in their unlined/unpadded designs, and if a wearer's proportions diverge too much from what their designers assume, or if the cup is not a size that works, it will be a major fit fail. I'm glad you can return these!
  I am just curious about the prices offered by German retailers though (since I see that's where you are based). Do they sell Empreinte for very high prices? It's a French brand and although there are huuuuge export markups outside the EU, within France at least it's not a brand with luxury price points or a super premium luxury image--their image is more that of a good, solid quality specialty brand. A bit better than Chantelle (formerly they would have been equivalent but Chantelle has started cheaping out on materials horribly, unfortunately) but not nearly as fancy as Lise Charmel for instance, and probably even a bit below Aubade just in terms of how recherche the designs and embellishments are. The shape works well for me so I regularly buy Empreinte from discounters or during the sales, and I find at 30-40 Euros it is very good value since the bras are really durable. If you are reading user or blogger reviews from North American customers you may be given a misleading image of the brand because those people would have to pay an OBSCENE price point for Empreinte if they purchased in their country at full price. So I've seen people refer to Empreinte as if it was a very, very high end, almost couture product, which it is definitely not. Just a good solid member of the bourgeoisie, not bra royalty or anything ;-)

• Nikki was originally 92€, Anna was 107€, on sale for 75€ + I have a bunch of 15% discount codes for the website I ordered on (Lace.de - for some reason they keep sending me these codes lol), so I was able to order both bras for ca. 140€.

  I tried Chantelle before and I definitely prefer them when it comes to quality. I think the nicest feeling bras I ever tried were from Chantelle, Mark&Spencer, Sugar Shape (relatively new german brand), Katherine Hamilton and I think Fantasie, but most of them were really bad fits for me, the wires are simply too wide most of the time and the cups too projected and cut off at the top and the KH was a C-Grade bra from the outlet section. All of those brands, except for Katherine Hamilton, were more afordable and felt way nicer them Empreinte. The fabric on the Nikki bra was even a bit itchy, wich surprised me, a lot of reviews I read specifically said that the material is comfortable even if the bra has a lot of applications. My skin is really sensitive so this is a big issue for me.
  I know there are brands that are even more expensive but for 99% of the average population on this planet 100€ or $ or whatever is really really expensive for one bra, it's a price you pay if you want to splurge on a really really really good item, that fits perfectly and feels like great quality and Empreinte is not that kind of a brand for me, sadly. Anything over 50€ is actually too much for me atm, but not having even one single bra that fits and is comfortable is something that has such a negative impact on my everyday life that I basically just bit the bullet and hoped for the best. It all depends on the perspective, really.

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  Oh yes, if your skin is very sensitive some of Empreinte's materials will not be comfortable because their bras tend to be very embellished. Nikki in particular looks like it has a lot of texture going on. If you liked the brand's shape I could probably recommend some that were nice and smooth but as it's a bad match for your shape obviously it's not something you want to pursue. I agree Chantelle's newer materials are much softer to the touch--I miss their old ones because they were more robust but I think you would have hated them because they were not nearly so smooth! Perhaps that is why they changed them.

  Are you small in height, or short-waisted, or with small shoulders/small build? Just asking because UK bras like Fantasie, Curvy Kate and so on are apt to have wider-spaced straps that will mess up the fit of the upper cup in more petite-framed wearers especially if they are in a higher cup range. French brands tend to have more centered straps even in youthful designs because French people are not as tall or well-built in frame as Nordic/British/Germanic bra-wearers--if I knew your fit needs I could recommend some well-priced options.

  I am really sorry to hear it's been such a struggle finding bras that fit recently! I do not see any photos of you in a bra, but my impression of your shape based on your comments is that perhaps the fullest part of the breast is fairly tall, more than the average. Does that sound right? (If you've taken all the breast measurements, a sign of a "tall" yet full shape would be a vertical breast perimeter that is equal, or almost equal to the horizontal one. People with average breast proportions tend to have a vertical perimeter that is appreciably smaller than the horizontal one--for example when I was about a 32FF/30G I had a good 4-5cm difference-- so a lot of bras are proportioned that way as well. This means they will often cut in or fail to tack on someone whose boob shape is taller.)

  If that sounds like it might be correct there are definitely options out there but you are absolutely correct in observing that many bras will lack the height and volume you need. FWIW, the now-inactive, but very prolific blogger BrasIHate has (or used to have, back then) a shape like this, although she dubbed it "full on top" (which only describes one aspect of her shape). Anyway, her old bra reviews might help to get visual impression of the constructions that work best for that shape.

• I'm actually half colombian and definitaly build more southamerican then germanic, I'm 165cm and have a pretty short upper body. I do have rather broad shoulders but the straps on Nikki were too far apart, I felt them cutting in somewhere right between my breast and shoulder joint.
  It can be difficult to figure out your shape but judging from what I've tried and from the guide on the ABTF reddit my last guess was that I'm narrow and projected with tall roots? I think my root goes up to my collarbone even if it dosen't look like it when I'm not wearing a bra, I can push my tissue up all the way to the collarbone. I also figured out that narrow U-shaped wires fit me the best. Shallow bras are always a total fail but bras like this one that are to short in hight and too closed off are almost as bad.

  I thought about trying the panache basics (Andorra, Envy, Jasmin, Tango ?) that are constantly recommended for figuring out your shape but that might be a waste off time after all. I tried so much but some bras are just hard to get my hands on, I literally found only one german website that offers a lot of panache bras and they don't have the sizes I need half the time.
  From what I remember most british bras were not tall and narrow enough for me, like the cup would be one size too small but the wire already too wide so I don't even need to bother trying a size up, it's always something like that. Or there's not enough immediate projection, a lot of bras lack space in either the top or the bottom of the cup, it's like my boobs always try to find a way out haha
  Oh nooo BrasIHate seems really interesting, too bad she's inactive :/
  I posted a photo in my Mimi Holliday review, the Coco Loco was too small in the cup sadly but the shape wasn't bad, Coco Loco and Cleo Piper are my best fits at the moment but both are way too small in the cup

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  juliaae ok I took a look at the Coco Loco photo. Yes! I think your description of your shape is exactly right, actually. Narrow, projected and very tall.

  I am not sure if you have the exact same "type" of tall shape that is most common. A lot of people will say mention have tall roots and it's true, they do, but in most cases they are talking about a moderate-thickness, nicely tapering amount of tissue that really just makes a straight line from the apex of the breast up to the collarbone. People like that can have boobs of all sizes and other dimensions, but with that shape (tall and very tapered upper boob) they will tend to need bras that also have an upper cup which has a sort of flat upper portion, and which matches the slope of their own tapered upper boob-line. So for these people, the famous Panaches like the Tango (harder to fit) or the Jasmine (a bit more forgiving) work really well in the right size, usually, if the wire width doesn't bother them. They will struggle with cups that curve up and around and then come in abruptly to contain a rounder upper boob (these are often described as "closed on top" like the Cleo Lily for instance).

  Since your photo is from the front, I can't tell if your shape is mostly like that, or if you have a more rounded-and-tall shape, with a distinctly tall rounded and projected breast mass and no super straight tapering line. The rounded-and-tall shape is one of the variants of the shape often described as looking in profile like a letter b or d, with the round bit representing the main projected part of the boob. I am sure you've heard of it--people sometimes refer to it as "full on bottom" when in fact the upper breast can still be full but not tall meaning they fit petite height cups. Whereas if you also have this shape but have tall boobs, your shape is still roughly the same but with different vertical proportions: it's now a taller b or d, basically.

  On people like BrasIHate the fit issue is that this rounded, full upper portion of the breast is already taller than average, plus it doesn't end super abruptly. On her it tapers slightly to the collarbone I believe, whereas on other people there is more really noticeable boob thickness going all the way up, but either way, all the upper boob business from nipple on up remains quite fleshy and curvy, not a real straight line. Sometimes bra seams will sit weirdly on these "tall but rounded all over" people, as if the apex of their breast was undefined--in fact, their natural breast apex might be defined, it depends, but either way, it just gets smushed higher in the cup, because that natural breast apex is so much higher up than the bra's apex. There can even be an odd wrinkly or unfilled area in the middle or lower-middle part of the cup, because the apex of the breast can't really settle at the lower point where the designer expected it to be on a cup of a given depth... andalso the whole breast tends to overflow at the top due to insufficient cup height and/or insufficient depth and curve in the upper portion. The Panaches with that straight tapered upper cup (Tango!) tend to be impossible for these people to wear but sometimes the Envy or Andorra are ok. Very occasionally a Jasmine. But overall, any bra that is super open on top or has better-than-average cup height while keeping generous depth (compared to the width of the bra) and a rounded structure will tend to work. Cleo Marcie often works if the projection-to-height ratio is compatible, and if the person's shoulders are not too narrow.

  Further variant: lot of the "letter b" people instead have this projected mass and then there is not a meaningful amount of tissue above it, there's no tapering. I am like this for example, you can see some of my photos in my bra reviews--you'll see I have a really short torso as well, but since my boobs just "end" abruptly without tapering, and since they are not especially tall, my main challenge is just to fit the center fullness. In contrast, someone with taller boobs will often not fit the same bras as me. They can wear a closed-in upper cup but the design of the cup has to match their overall breast height, their apex height, AND it has to be able to adapt to their round and curvy upper breast shape.

  Anyway all that is very long-winded--as the saying goes, "sorry, I did not have time to write something shorter" (i.e. concise and well-written). Maybe it will give you some clues about the dimensions of a cup that would fit you better--you can search by measurements throughout the Bratabase entries and see if anything looks promising.

• I'm kind of impressed, where the hell do you learn all of these things :D
  "...it just gets smushed higher in the cup, because that natural breast apex is so much higher up than the bra's apex. There can even be an odd wrinkly or unfilled area in the middle or lower-middle part of the cup, because the apex of the breast can't really settle at the lower point where the designer expected it to be on a cup of a given depth."
  That sounds familliar.
  I'm quite similar to brasihate from the side I think, in a bra everything gets shoved up and I'm ofter very curvy on top and more tappered and fob without a bra.
  If I ever find THAT bra I won't ever let go of it again and buy every single shade available but for now I just gotta keep searching haha

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  Aww thank you... get older and older and older and eventually, if you've sustained a bra obsession, you too will pick up all this stuff! I've had many years and many bra-fitting SOS calls/messages from friends to help me learn.

  There are definitely "tall" bras out there--it will just be a matter of finding them. Judging from BrasIHate's reviews, it seems that back in 2011-2015 she tended to get a decent fit in Bravissimo's own brand and also in Cleo Marcie, so those could be a place to start.

  If you don't mind nonwired bras, I think that may make things a bit easier because you won't have to worry about wire width, only the height of the overall cup structure.

  Finally, in general, if you are good with google and keyword searches, some clever search strings to look for reviews where people complained about the fit problems experienced by someone with average height boobs in a cup that is TOO tall for them, will often help you find those taller-than average designs. Try "gaping on top" "gaping near straps" "cup too tall" "cannot fill top" etc.

  Definitely update us on your quest!!

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