Curvy Kate & Me, Part 2: Reviews of some recent padded options

In my last post, I looked at some of Curvy Kate’s recent unlined offerings.  Now, I’ll give you a roundup of all of the padded offerings I’ve tried within the past year.

Here’s what you’re going to see: some really cute, fancy-pants bras. Here’s what you’re not going to see:  Curvy Kate makin’ it work for my poor, desolate boobs.

Note: pretty much all of these bras end up below $30 by mid-season on Amazon.  This seems to be generally true of Curvy Kate, so if you’d love a Curvy Kate and are strapped for cash, know that there is hope!

Let me start with the Tease Me. Tease Me is a padded half cup, that has an absolutely over the top boudoir aesthetic!  Ribbon, bows, big gobs of lace, lace overlay, accentuated seams… it’s definitely not a T-shirt bra!  I have wanted to try Tease Me ever since this gold and black colorway came out. Gold’s awesome!  Take a look at size 30G:

Wowzas! That’s one flirty, sexy bra. As you can see in this first shot, there’s a good amount of cleavagey push up, and the shape is rounded. There appears to be a little gaping on my smaller boob, however.

I like the look. I really do. I probably would keep it just for the look if I hadn’t already purchased 3…4…5…7 bras in the past month.

There are enough fit problems, however, that I know that this bra wouldn’t be a useful bra for me.  I would hardly wear it, for a few reasons.  The number one reason is how wide the bra is.  Curvy Kate padded bras are terrible for me, where the strap meets the top of the cup.  That area digs into me without reprieve. See how wide the straps are:

The wires of this bra are also fairly tall and wide. The gore is a little too wide (I prefer the narrowness of Fantasie’s half cups) for my close set boobs. The padding is a little thicker than I’m interested in right now.  Finally, all that decor is going to be fairly conspicuous under most summer clothing. And as an aside:  the front of the bra is so fancy, but the straps and back of the bra are so boring.

A word on sizing.  For my boob shape and volume, I’ve been sizing at 30FF in Fantasie, 30FF or 30G in Cleo, Panache, or Freya, and consistently 30G (or higher?) for Curvy Kates (plus sister sizes in 28 bands).  With these observations I’ve noticed that Curvy Kate runs a bit smaller in the cup than the other brands, so you may want to try your normal size and a cup size up.  The bands are fairly true to size (and in this size range have 3 rows of hooks!), although I did find this Tease Me 30 to be a little looser than the others.

In the picture below, you can easily see how this bra is a bit too big at the sides for a petite frame.  You can also see a bit of seams and lumpiness under the shirt (though it’s better than I expected!)

Next, we have a bra that is extremely similar to Tease Me in its construction:  the Ritzy.  Ritzy is also a padded (seamed) half cup, and it is a lot more subdued in its aesthetic. Here it is in a bright red colorway, in size 28GG:

Ahh!  Get out of my armpits!  Just look at that atrocity!  The problem with Curvy Kate’s straps is that they are usually a bit on the splicey side, too. Ritzy is real pretty, gives rounded cleavage, and feels very supportive, but the wideness of the straps on my frame cannot be ignored.

Just like Tease Me, the wires here are rather wide, and the gore is wide.  Wide, wide, wide. Luckily, that works for some people!

Now we have Roxie, in 28GG – a padded plunge. This colorway is from about a year ago, and since then Roxie has come out in blue.  Roxie’s great. Roxie is padded, but the padding is much lighter than the padding in the half cups above. I love the lace overlay of Roxie, and the scalloped tops of the cups.

This is an interesting plunge for me. It actually fit perfectly in the cups and band, and when I first put it on (it was my first Curvy Kate), I had to have it. It’s got that Victoria’s Secret look to it, that I thought I’d been sized out of! But what’s interesting about the construction is that the cups are very low cut near the center (although the cups are tall), and the low gore is wide. But my semi-soft, yet full breast tissue was spread out into an impressive decolletage.

There were two main gripes I had with this bra, which made me hardly ever wear it.  First – you guessed it. The straps and tops of the cups painfully cut into my armpits.  This was probably the worst offender of all the Curvy Kates I’ve tried (although it was the only one I wore all day). Second, this bra gave me a projected/pointier look.  By no means was it awful looking, but I tend to prefer bras that hold my breasts closer to my body.

Penultimately, here’s the Carmen Longline in 30G.

Very unique design. Any bra that makes my boobs look like two bundles of flowers – I’m okay with! The longline is very sleek and attractive.  In the very little time I wore this bra, the longline bottom did not seem to be riding up.

It seems like the 30G cups are a bit larger than normal. I had some gaping, and it seemed like the largeness of the cups prevented a maximal cleavage effect.  The construction of the cups seemed similar to Tease Me and Ritzy, though perhaps a bit less thick. The gore is equally wide.

Perhaps I would have been happy to try a 30FF or 28G in this bra, but the painful straps situation made me give up. You can see how there is very little room between the cups and my armpit. Even the wings and wires are very tall in this bra. I knew that I could not tolerate wearing this bra all day.

Finally, here’s Curvy Kate Starlet in 28GG. I was pretty horrified with the amount of quadboob created here:

Starlet is a padded bra with no seams, so it is supposed to be a good T-shirt bra option.  The cups have a subtle diamond design, there’s a cute star pendant in the middle, and the colorways for Starlet have been very fresh.  I really adored this particular colorway.

So, about that quadboob.  Either I need to size up in the cup to 28H (which would mean that this bra runs very small), or this bra is not well suited for upper and inner fullness.  The height of the gore is really nice in Starlet, I gotta say – fairly low. Now if only the gore wasn’t floating!

Well, that’s all I got. Now tell me:  am I missing some magical Curvy Kate bra that’s going to work magic on my boobs, and without chafing my armpits?