No Bra Day: Women Tweet About The Merits Of Not Wearing Lingerie
Mark today in your calendars, Friends. July 9th is national No Bra Day.
According to the event’s official website (this is serious business), “Boobies are fantastic… We all think so. And what better way to express the way we feel than to support a full day of boobie freedom?”
Of course the organizers of No Bra Day are far from the first to extol the virtues of going brassiere-free. Hallie Seegal blogged for HuffPost about making peace with her small breasts and ditching bras for good last July: “It was as if I had finally opened my eyes. That was that. Since then, it’s just been me and my small boobs, hanging out together. And I’m happy,” she wrote.
And the relief one feels when taking off a bra has been a frequent topic in our weekly round-up of the best tweets from women. During the last week of June Kdn tweeted, “Having one of those days where I have to take off my bra during my car ride home from work.” A few weeks earlier, Charlene de Guzman tweeted, “‘Living the dream,’ I said dryly, as I took off my bra and threw it on the kitchen table.” Unsurprisingly, today has inspired even more praise of the bra-free life from the women of the Twitterverse (see some of them below).
Not everyone is excited about No Bra Day, though. Victoria’s Secret admitted that this day of celebration isn’t so good for business:
How do you feel about not wearing a bra? Tweet @HuffPostWomen using the hashtag #NoBraDay.
LOOK: Women Tweet About #NoBraDay
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Treacle
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Jessica Davies
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Jessica Chahanovich
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Aly Walansky
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Evelina
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Samantha Anne
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Jean Ann Nichols
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Rachel Morris
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Nymphomaniac Ness
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jay-alli✮
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kiran 
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Nicki
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Claire Toms
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✞Ablarrrrrrrr ☯
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Lindsay Adamson
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ⓤⓗⓗ-ⓛⓨⓢⓢⓐ ♡
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Karmen Vidal
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Meredith Johnston
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Flanter
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Isobel Daryll
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Helen Kelly
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Tinie
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Jessie Lowdermilk
Also on HuffPost:
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Wash Them Often … Enough
Although this depends on your personal lifestyle and levels of hygiene, Nethero recommends that women wash any bra after wearing it twice. Of course, if it’s a sports bra, you should at least rinse it out in cool water (cold water helps a bra maintain its elasticity) after each use to get rid of the perspiration on it so that the fabric itself isn’t damaged. “You don’t want to destroy the fibers in the sports bra that cause it to wick moisture,” said Nethero.
If you rotate through your bras, this should come out to about once a week, according to Iris Clarke, owner of a href=”http://irislingeriebrooklyn.com/index.html”Iris Lingerie/a in Brooklyn. If you don’t rotate your bras, Iris recommends making sure they are washed every three or four days. br /
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Hand Wash Your Bras (If Possible)
Each and every expert we spoke to said that hand washing your bras with gentle soap and cool water is the best way to prolong their lives. This suggestion becomes especially important if you’re caring for lingerie that’s nicer than your average t-shirt bra. “When it comes to underwire or more sturdy bras, always handwash,” Steve Boorstein, a href=”http://www.clothingdoctor.com/dec-07-dec-09-/about-steve-boorstein.html”The Clothing Doctor/a, told The Huffington Post.
But what if you just don’t have time to hand wash every bra? “It’s preferable to wash by hand, but not necessary,” said Nethero.
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Always Use Gentle Cycle
If you forgo hand washing, it’s important to machine wash your lingerie correctly. One of the most important rules is that you should always, always, ialways/i set your machine to gentle cycle. “A lot of mechanical action and movement is a problem [for delicates],” said Jim Kirby, Chief Analyst at Maryland’s Drycleaning Laundry Institute.
And remember — always use cold water when washing your delicates, never hot. “Cool water is going to shock the lycra, give back some elasticity,” said Nethero. “It will referesh the Lycra fabric and improve the strength and stretchability. We don’t want the bra to be cooked in hot water.”
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Clasp Your Bras Before Washing
Many of us have probably pulled a bra out of the laundry machine to discover that it’s straps are completely entangled and the hooks have ripped holes in its delicate lace. (I have, at least.) To avoid this unfortunate predicament, make sure to always a href=”http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/cleaning/laundry/how-to-clean-undergarments-delicates-10000001721821/index.html”fasten your bra’s clasps/a before washing. “Clasp your bra’s hooks so that it doesn’t twist and turn the underwire and cause [it] to become deformed,” said Nethero.
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Take Advantage Of Laundry Bags
Another way to prevent twisting and snagging is to separate your bras from the rest of your clothing by using a laundry bag. Boorstein recommends using some sort of mesh net bag, which can be a href=”http://store.myintimacy.com/intimacy-lingerie-bag”purchased online/a or at most hardware and home stores.
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Stay Away From Bleach
In order to protect your bra’s elasticity and fabric, you don’t want to use any harsh detergents when you wash it. Bleach is especially terrible for your bra’s shelf life. This is important to remember even if you choose to hand wash your garments. Clarke told The Huffington Post that even popular hand-washing detergent Woolite contains bleach.
Nethero recommends using an extra-gentle soap or baby shampoo. This also means that when you travel, washing your bra in the shower isn’t a bad idea at all — unless you like showering in (literally) scalding hot water.
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Don’t Mix Your Whites And Colors
Although this rule holds for all laundry, it’s especially important when it comes to your lingerie. “Classify, classify, classify,” said Kirby. “Be very careful when you’re washing undergarments because they contain synthetics, [which means that] they have a great propensity to pick up dyes from the washload. Only clean whites with whites.” So that brand new lacy red bra? You most likely shouldn’t throw it in with your crisp, white t-shirt bra — unless you ireally/i love pink.
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Keep Your Loads Light
Be very careful not to overstuff your washing machine when you’re throwing your bras in. Heavy items can do a lot of damage to your undergarments — especially if you wear a href=”http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/cleaning/laundry/how-to-clean-undergarments-delicates-10000001721821/index.html”underwire bras/a. “No jeans, no towels, no sheets,” says Clarke. “These items are too heavy. It’ll ruin the bra to dump everything [in] together.”
Nethero goes a step further, recommending that you not only stick to small laundry loads, but only wash Lycra items together. “Save up things like tights, panties, exercise tops and shorts,” she said. “Lycra is subject to degradation if you don’t care for it properly.”
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Always Hang Dry
Although our experts were willing to stray from the “always hand wash” rule, they insisted that hang drying your bras is the only way to go. “Never ever put a bra in the dryer,” said Nethero. Kirby also said that extreme heat — which is used in a mechanical dryer — was a major problem when it came to caring for delicate items.
Instead, hang dry your bras by the strap or lay them to dry on a towel, cups facing up (i.e. nipples facing up). And make sure that your bras are properly reshaped before you dry them.
“If [your bra cup] gets dented [while being washed], just take your fingers and gently smooth it out so that it looks like a cup again,” said Boorstein.
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