You're only saving money if you were going to buy it anyway.

Book Review: The Lingerie Handbook

Now, don't be scared. I'm not going to even mention sex, except for this sentence right here. This book, written by the owner of La Petite Coquette, a lingerie shop in New York City, is about more than just the bedroom. It has the express purpose of making you feel better, younger, and thinner simply by wearing better underwear. The psychological and physiological power of wearing beautiful and and well-fitting lingerie is overlooked and under appreciated. Most women are wearing the wrong size bra, and are suffering in silence because they think it's normal. Rebecca Apsan is here to say that lingerie is meant to be comfortable, and that you don't need the promise of an audience to justify wearing something pretty underneath.

A few highlights from the book:

Bras: The three factors of fit:

1. The band: Does the band of your bra make a perfect circle under your rib cage? Is it snug, but not so tight you can't fit a finger underneath? If not, your band is the wrong size. It is too loose if there is breast spillage (this may be a cup issue as well), if it rides up in the back, or if you are always adjusting it. It is too small if you're seeing rolls of flesh around the side wings.

2. The straps: It is a good idea to adjust the straps of your bra daily, especially as it ages and begins to loosen up. Your straps should never dig into your shoulders, and they should never provide the main support for your breasts. That's the band's job. The straps should be just tight enough to hold the bra in place on your shoulders. A good test to see if your straps are sharing the weight and not bearing the weight is this: if you slip the straps off your shoulders, the band should stay in place, even if the cups flop over. If the band falls off, go up a band size instead of adjusting the straps.

3. The cups: The top of your bra should never wrinkle. Your breasts should fill both the top and bottom portions of the cups. If your cups wrinkle, they are too big. They are too small if your breasts creep over the top and spill out the sides of the bra. If the cup runneth over, go up a size. If the underwire ever rests on breast tissue, or digs into the sides of your breasts, your cup is too small.

The perfect bra is snug, while still being able to fit a finger underneath, has a firm fit around the back, since that's where most of the support comes from, and the front and back of the band are even and parallel to the ground.

(Taken from La Petite Coquette, pages 44-46)

If you have any tips or suggestions, other books you think might be good to check out, stories good or bad, feel free to leave a comment.

Grease Stains

Yesterday was laundry day, and I was reminded of the fact that my husband had gotten grease stains all over his new shorts. Such is life, I suppose, and after I gave him a good sigh, I set to work trying to get it out. I had already tried just pre-treating it with liquid detergent, which had worked not a whit, so it was time to call in the big guns. I called my mother-in-law.

This is not a bad idea for anyone who has one, since not only is she about as knowledgeable as your own mother, but relations can be strengthened when you ask for advice (who doesn't enjoy being asked for advice?), and besides, you already know all your own mother's tricks. If you don't have a mother-in-law, any older woman you know will do. (Actually, ask everybody about everything. Ask your butcher about meat, ask a baker about bread, ask the lady at the dry cleaner about stains. Ask, ask, ask, and you'll get answers from people who know.)

My wonderful mother-in-law, who destroys all stereotypes of evil and wicked in-laws, advised me to try dish soap, since that stuff is built for cutting through grease. It was as though a light had shown through my stained day: it was so obvious, and yet so brilliant. Best of all, it worked.

Our method was to pour a few drops of dish soap on the offending stain, rub it in with a damp washcloth, and rinse. You probably don't need to rinse it, and if you feel like it you could scrub with something stronger than a cloth, but it did the trick.

One thing to remember about stains: if you try a method of stain removal you're not sure of (or if you're not sure your tried-and-true method will stand up to the honker you've got) don't put the item through the dryer: instead, just let it air-dry. If it's still stained, then you at least didn't set the stain in there permanently by drying it, and if it isn't stained, wonderful. This concept holds true for washing the stain out when it's fresh (the best way to remove a stain- get it while it's still hot): don't rinse any stain in hot water, since this will only make it stay more stubbornly. For delicates I like to use simple lingerie soap, which they sell at a lot of places that sell delicates, but hand soap works too if you think buying lingerie soap is a snooty way to spend your money (I didn't buy mine for myself, so I'm clear there).

The Law of the Purse

The law of the purse states:

The contents of the purse will expand in a direct one to one proportion to the size of the purse; or, no matter how big your purse is, it will always be full.

My mom discovered this law when she caught herself putting a pair of pliers into her gigantic purse. She stood there, thinking to herself, what will I ever use these for? And then got a smaller purse.

... And knowing is half the battle.