Review: Avocado Amber HTC Bra

Avocado is a brand I’m fairly new to. I’d only really started to hear about them earlier this year. Part of my late discovery may be due to the fact that I was placing myself very firmly in the core sizes camp and hadn’t started looking at other companies catering for different sizes. I made my first purchase from this company in August and it’s taken me this long to finally write a post about it! Better late than never…..

So after much deliberation between styles and sizes I decided on the Amber set. The bra I purchased in the HTC style is a 65F and the undies in the hipster shorts in a size small. It took me awhile to figure out what sizes I needed, as Avocado has its own method of sizing. This was also my first experience with a Polish bra company so I had no sphere of reference for the different cups and narrowness of wires.  To get your size in Avocado you are told to measure your underbust tightly in centimetres. My measurement that I took was 68 cm. You are then told to deduct 5 from that number and then round to the nearest number as they are in increments of 5. So mine was 63 so I decided to round-up to 65 rather than down to 60. The next part is to find your cup size by wearing your best fitting bra and measuring loosely on your overbust. I measured in-between like I always do so I went for the bigger cup. It’s best to look at the size chart for yourself to work out what cups size you will take.

I eagerly opened the package when it arrived and the first thing I noticed was the smell. I don’t know what it is but I want to buy more lingerie from them so I can smell that beautiful scent again. It seriously blew me away! After that it then took me a few days to actually try on the lingerie. I convinced myself that it wouldn’t fit me, it looked so big in the cups! I didn’t want to try it to confirm the fact that after all my measuring I still had gotten it so wrong.  I finally got over my bout of body dysmorphia and tried the set on. The fit is pretty much perfect and I was kicking myself for being so stupid and not putting this golden goodness on my body sooner.  The colour is a warm gold which works really well with my skin tone. It works as a nude colour for me which isn’t actually what I was aiming for. I was going for a little more bling a little less beige. The colour aside, this style works really well under most clothes because of the half cup style and the combination of the smooth stain and embroidered fabric.

The cup is a standard 3 part cut and sew style. It feels very supportive on and it kind of just enhances my natural shape rather than changing it too much. The two main panels on each cup are lined with a fine mesh but there is no extra sling like I was expecting.  The back of the band is mostly made up of a very soft and stretchy mesh. The frame of the bra is more of the embroided tulle on its own without any support fabric so it has the illusion of floating embroidery on the skin. The bra has 2 rows and 3 columns of hook and eyes and the straps adjust by 9 cms from the shortest to longest length. One thing that annoys me about this set is how the detail on the strap abruptly stops. I know it’s so you can adjust the straps but it just seems messy and avoidable. Another little detail is the centre front of the bra. It’s a very minor part of the bra, and it may not be on all of them, but once you see it you can’t unsee it. There is more mesh on one side of the bra than at the bottom of the gore. It’s a very minor detail and doesn’t affect the wearability of the bra at all, it’s just me being OCD.

I found this bra needed a few days to break it in. When I first started wearing it, I could feel it on. Not in an uncomfortable way, but you couldn’t forget that you were wearing it like an old favourite. Now it has been worn in enough I must say I think I should have ordered a 60G. The band fitted perfectly at first but now I wear it on the tightest hooks and I haven’t worn it more than 10 times. It really is crucial to measure yourself correctly!!!! Just before I started writing this I took my measurements again. I measured 65 cm tightly which puts me in firmly in the 60 band camp. If you measure in between band sizes, for this style I would go for the smaller one as it has stretched out fairly quickly. The bra is still very wearable and is still one of my better fitting ones, but next time hopefully I will have my size down pat. The wires are a good height, they don’t dig into my armpits but they aren’t as narrow as I was expecting. It always takes a few trial and errors to find your right size with a brand you haven’t tried before. It’s worth it though I would say as this is in my top 10 bra purchases this year. I’m not going to tell you out of how many because my friends and family reading this may have a heart attack.

The undies are a good fit but I was hoping they would sit a tad higher. In the campaign they seem to sit higher than what they do on me. They are very comfortable to wear and I love the design. It almost looks like you are wearing a thong but it’s just the illusion of the opaque material surrounded by the mesh. Overall a very cool design and a good fit, but next time I will be ordering the retro style undies so they sit above my hips.

This set worked out to be roughly $140 AUD. It definitely more than I would pay normally trying a brand for the first time, but in this case it was worth it. I’m trying to decide what style to get next, there is just too many good ones to choose from!

E. x