Bras

I was doing some research on the weekend. It was about the type of clothing worn by people in the 1850s so that I could accurately represent it in a story I'm working on.

Naturally, this led me straight into the world of bras.

Yes, I'm well aware that these tortuous garments weren't all the rage back in the day, but I still managed to find myself reading about them.

There were the well-known facts, such as the most comfortable moment of a woman's day is when she hurls this dreaded contraption across the room, and lesser known facts such as the optimum wash to wear ratio is 1:3.

What?

I don't know about anybody else, but I've always considered my bra to be underwear. Possibly because when I shop for new bras they're kept in a section commonly known as underwear, or less commonly as lingerie.

A lot of the personal hygiene knowledge that my parents instilled in me over the years may have left in the wake of disinterest and non-retentive brain conditions, but there's one thing I know.

You wash your underwear every day.

But now Google was telling me otherwise, and I trust Google to feed me correct information. Kind of. Not really.

Luckily my darling volunteered enthusiastically and immediately started to harangue the women around his workplace as to their habits in regards to brassieres. Rather to my surprise some of them even volunteered information.

The evidence thus gathered, and the original Googling done, seem to confirm the position that as a garment of underwear bras are in fact some sort of second tier that don't require the same level of cleanliness that the first tier underwear demands.

Hmmmm. Very hard to overturn habits that have been fine-tuned over thirty years, but...

Less washing, and apparently the bras last longer and stay in better shape while they last. So it works out well for everybody.