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.

Book Review: Yoga For Wimps

I was really skeptical of yoga when it first became popular. I thought it looked like a bunch of uncomfortable poses and meditative mumbo-jumbo targeted at people who already look wonderful and skinny. Not my cup of tea. But when I picked up Yoga for Wimps, there was none of that. The poses are all easy. They each have at least one color photograph of a model doing the pose- and the models are all normal shapes, with not an unhealthily skinny person in the lot. The instructions are simple, and they even give permission to "wimp out" of a pose if it's too difficult. (Though they still want you to try.) It can be seen as a beginning, a way into the more difficult forms of yoga, or it can be all the yoga you need.

My favorite thing about this book is the section targeted to specific problems. There is an entire yoga session dedicated to achy feet, and another one called "The Cure for Museum-itis, or Shopping Without Dropping," which are poses you can do right in the mall to help you keep going longer.

Whether you've been needing an excuse to get into yoga, or simply want to dip your toes in, this is a perfect book for the random housekeeper.