Bra Review: Brooks/Moving Comfort Embody Sports Bra

The Brooks/Moving Comfort Embody Sports Bra was recommended to me by someone who runs and is large chested.  She assured me that it was comfortable and fit great so I ordered one.  The first thing I did, though, was to eschew their method of determining for size.  To determine band size, it has you add as many as FIVE inches to what you measure under the bust.  FIVE inches!!  I measure at 37", snugly.  This would have had me ordering a 42 band size--two sizes too big for this 38 band size woman.  And their cup size determination...I can't even.  It has you in an AA cup if there is a three inch difference between your (actual) band and (actual) bust measurement and my 10 inch difference puts me in an F cup, by their chart.  If you'd like to experience this confusion, yourself, just click on "Expert Advice" and measure away.

Folks, bra math is fairly easy: 1 inch = 1 cup size.  It's the differences between the three main "sizers"--UK, US, and EU--that confuses many folks.   The part that you have to keep in mind is that UK sizing has no vowels beyond E and has double letters after F.  Here's a chart to show how US, UK, and EU sizing lines up.  Since Moving Comfort comes in FF cups, it's safe to assume that they use UK sizing.  But, by their measuring methods, I wouldn't need an FF.  I'd be in a 42F.  Needless to say, I didn't order a 42F.  I ordered my r/ABTF's calculated size of 38FF.

When I first opened the package, I was quite excited.  It appeared to have many of the features that I need for a bra in which I plan to run: wide straps, deeper cups, high gore to name a few.  And it really is just a nice looking bra.  My first step was to measure the bra--before I put it on so as to not skew the measurement.  Unstretched, it measured between 30 and 31 inches.  Eek!  I hope it's not too tight!!

The straps were great.  Nice and wide--a full 1 inch wide, fully adjustable--you can shorten them and lengthen them all the way from front to back, and you can criss cross them.

Checking out more of the construction, I see that it has two layers.  This is great if you like a little more coverage between your bra and your tshirt or don't want your boobs quite so "out there" in a bra.  It's also a great place to put your keys and ID without putting those items in the actual cup.  :)

The other thing that's nice is that the cup is multi-seamed.  This is an important feature if you have any sort of breast projection.  Your boobs won't be pushing the bra all the way down your ribcage, searching for a deeper part of the cup.

Okay, so how does it fit???
Not great.  The cup was too small.  The cups are compressing me enough that I have cleavage in this bra and that's not a goal of mine in a sports bra.  The gore tacked but you can see where the inner portion of the underwire is digging into said cleavage.    See the "dig" here:

The other indicator that it doesn't fit well, for me, is how the cup doesn't extend as far as I'd like towards my armpit.  This might be due to being too narrow, too, but I wouldn't know for sure unless I ordered a cup size larger--38G.  I also had more "wing overhang" than I was comfortable with.

I didn't order the 38G...yet.  Maybe sometime in the future.  I found another brand and style at a local store and purchased a few of those.  Be on the lookout for a store review for Bare Essentials in Delaware and a bra review for the bra that I bought.