BEAUJAIS ~ Sweet Nothings in Teal . 28E

I first heard of British luxury brand Beaujeais on the wonderful blog of Miss Underpinnings last summer. I really fell in love with their Sweet Nothings line but at £95 the bra and £49 the bottoms, there was no way I would ever place an order. I just couldn't justify spending that much money on a lingerie set when I had a whole collection to build.

But  shortly before Christmas, I saw that they had the Sweet Nothings on sale for £30 in a 28E. I couldn't believe my luck. First positive effect of having lost a cup-size. The panties were still at £49 so that rounded things up to £79 for the set. But what the heck, Christmas only comes once a year. I decided to treat myself. With very mixed results.

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The set arrived in a plain, soft envelope, the kind online stores like Brastop use. For a company that describes itself as selling " luxury lingerie for fuller busts " (cf the homepage on their website), I admit I was a bit disappointed. I expected at least a little box, even a plain cardboard one. Maybe it was because the bra was on sale? More on that later.

The packaging might have been underwhelming, but the goods were truly gorgeous. To me, the materials themselves don't seem any more luxurious than what I get from more mainstream brands (although I might not be the best judge of that) but the design is very classy.

The teal color is gorgeous and I love the bow in the middle and the assymetrical thickness of the straps. It's a very very pretty bra. But things started to go downhill from the moment I put it on.

Band and straps

First, the band. It runs big. I have to wear the bra on the third set of hooks if I want the band to be supportive enough. Since I don't want it to stretch too quickly and I don't intend to wear the bra more than a couple of hours at a time, I make myself use the second set of hooks.

The straps look very pretty from the front but they are a bit impractical. You have very little wriggle room if you want to shorten them (I sure wish I could tighten them more) and they're a bit too widely set for my narrow shoulders. They tend to slip.

View from the top

The center gore lies nice and flat against my sternum. My breasts are on the verge of being too wide-set for it but it still works.

Side view

I really see the decrease in size when I'm wearing an unpadded bra and I'm looking at myself in profile. I can see bustier people than myself preferring this type of bra to magic boosters like the Freya Deco but for me it's the reverse. I need the extra boost in size to balance the rest of my body better. The type of natural, slightly minimazing shape the Sweet Nothings gives isn't my favorite one. As far as unpadded balconnettes go, I far prefer the shape the Cleo Lucy gives: it adds nothing to the size of my breasts but it lifts and rounds them beautifully. I find it more pleasing to the eye.

I think there's something weird going on with the label. The sizes written don't correspond to a 28E. And I suspect the label originally read 28F but the F was altered with a bit of thread to look like an E. No biggie if it's just a question of right size/wrong label but it did make me wonder if the bra was on sale because it was the runt of the litter, so to speak. Are all the £30 Sweet Nothings rejects or somewhat defective pieces?

Because there's also something weird going on with the cups. The lace material of the cups draws taught at a very inconvenient place and it deforms my breasts.

The shape is pretty ugly. Granted, my breast tissue is kind of soft so it doesn't help matters. But a bra has never won a battle against my breasts in such a way before. Maybe the straps aren't attached where they're supposed to be and it causes the lace material from the cup to draw taught like that? I tried pinching the cups a few centimeters away from the straps (a bit more to the inside) with my fingers and the indentation disappears, my breasts are nicely supported.

Or maybe it's because of the side panels? But the indentation starts a couple of centimeters away from them.




I even considered the fact that I might have ordered the wrong size. But when I see how the top of the cups fits, I really don't think so:

This looks fine to me. A 28DD would have given me some pretty terrible quadboobs and a 28F would have been way too big.

The deformation/indentation thing is not very noticeable under clothing, especially under thick materials, but it's not something I want from a bra. And especially not from such an expensive bra.

Which brings me back to my question: Are the bras on sale defective ones? Older versions with a less perfect fit? Anything less than the full-price bras? I'm toying with the idea of emailing Beaujais to ask them if such a fit is normal.

You'd think that a loose band + a deformed shape would mean that the bra went straight back to England. Well, it didn't. I actually kept it. 2 things decided me. First, I didn't want to pay 8€ to send it back (I'm cheap, I know). Second, I was still in love with the design and the idea behind the bra. I decided to make it my "special occasions" bra.

If you don't look too closely or for too long, the deformation caused by the cups can be somewhat overlooked and you are left wearing a very sexy set. A girl always needs one of those in her lingerie drawers.

And speaking of the set, I forgot to talk about the panties.

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Bottoms

They're called the "Barely There" panties and it's easy to see why. They're gorgeous. But when I saw that there were elastics on the front, I knew I had to size up. Elastics like those are bad news if you want to avoid the muffin-top effect. I chose a UK12. I think I could have got away with a 10 but I'm very happy with the 12. The elastics don't dig into my skin at all and my bum is adequately covered. You can't see it in the picture above but the back is actually made of the same satin material as the straps and the band of the bra. It's cut to give minimum coverage (think a Panache Cleo kind of coverage) so it was another reason to size up. My bum isn't very dainty!

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Verdict

Beaujais... Beaujais...

I think the Sweet Nothings will be the only thing we share together. I will probably choose not to pursue our acquaintance. Your bras look gorgeous but if the fit of the Sweet Nothings is anything to go by, I will not pay £150 for one of your sets. Even if the fit I got with the Sweet Nothings was a mistake, an aberration, I don't think I'm brave enough to take a chance on another set. My wallet wouldn't allow it.

I'll keep the very pretty Sweet Nothings and make the most of what it can bring me but that's the end of my foray into luxury lingerie for the time being.