Can a sleep bra give you Liz’s cleavage?
That’s what La Hurley says. With sales booming, our writer (36E) puts her chest to the test
FOr most women, there is nothing like the feeling of pure bliss that comes with whipping your bra off at the end of a long day. But, instead of falling asleep with their breasts free of a squashing, uplifting or supporting brassiere, many women are now wearing them to bed. Some do it for comfort, while others are convinced that 24/ 7 support will keep sagging at bay.
elizabeth Hurley, 55, says the secret behind her astonishingly pert bust is wearing a bra to bed. lorraine Kelly and Mariella Frostrup do the same as, famously, did Marilyn Monroe. Could they be on to something?
last month Marks & Spencer launched its first bra designed to be worn while sleeping. The Flexifit Sleep Bra was devised after a 150 per cent surge in sleep-related searches to its website in 2020.
One in three bras purchased in the UK is from M&S and it remains to be seen if women will take to night-time lingerie. But with larger sizes already selling out, signs are the biggerbusted have been won over.
Bravissimo, which specialises in bras for larger sizes, says it introduced sleep bras in 2017 to meet customer demand.
Products in the non-wired and sleep category have seen a 124 per cent rise in sales over the past 12 months, with more than 45,000 sleep bras sold. But is there any benefit to wearing a bra in bed — specialist sleep models particularly — or is it just another marketing ploy to fleece us of our money?
Plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico says: ‘There is no hard science on this. It’s certainly not going to do any harm and many larger-breasted women do find that the added support makes it more comfortable to sleep.
‘Breasts aren’t under the same stress from gravity as they are when women are upright.
‘However, I believe that any form of general breast support, which takes the pressure off the skin envelope (the part that supports the breast) could help reduce sagginess over time.’
Here’s what happened when I, and my 36e boobs, tested several over a week.
JOLLY GOOD SPORT
Flexifit Sleep Bra, £16, marksand spencer. com SIZE RANGE: 8 to 22 and available in navy and light grey. AT FIrST sight it looks like a sports bra. Made from a cottonmodal blend, it feels as soft and as cosy as a favourite pair of pyjamas. The bra has a built-in internal frame to provide support throughout the night.
Purchasing a bra according to dress size is confusing, but I opted for a size 14 as that’s the top size I wear.
It fitted perfectly and as soon as I put it on, I felt very ‘contained’ but not constricted.
There is no wiring and while the central band is firm and sturdy it isn’t overly tight, a pet hate of mine. It’s bad enough forever tugging a bra down during the day, I don’t want to be doing it at night, too.
I have sloping shoulders and worried that the non-adjustable straps would slip down, but they stayed firmly in place all night.
Halfway through, I did wake up feeling hot and the bra did lead to some squashing, but with a little bit of ‘rearranging’, all was well.
Soft, comfortable and supportive but I wouldn’t want to wear it on a hot summer night. 4/5
ANOTHER FINE MESH
Sleep Bra, £24, simplybe. co.uk
SIZE: 12- 34. The pack contains two bras — one black and one white. MADe of Nylon and elastane, the bra looks and feels cheap and crackly. With a mesh panel above the cups, it looked like the sort of crop top I wore to nightclubs 30 years ago. But, back then, I was a 34B and needed little support.
I opted for the size 16-18 as I thought the size 12-14 might be too snug. Despite going up a size, the central band was very, very tight. The material is very flimsy and offers no support, which made wearing the bra just pointless.
Several times I woke up feeling uncomfortable and had to tug the band as it rose up each time that I turned over.
It was so horrible to wear, I couldn’t wait to take it off the next day. The only good thing was the meshing meant that I stayed cool. 1/5
THE GREAT DIVIDE
In My Dreams Bralette, £30, curvykate. com SIZE: 30DD/e to 40J/JJ THIS was the first sleep bra I tried that actually looked and felt like a bra, albeit a soft, lightweight one. It comes in proper bra sizes, has adjustable straps and four rows of hook-and-eye fastenings. The dual peach and grey colouring made it look cute and feminine.
With no wires or padding, it still managed to feel sturdy and well-made, too. The bra has an internal ‘ boob separator’ to reduce breast rub — a piece of stitched- in fabric that sits between each boob and keeps them apart. When I put it on, it felt very much like a dress bra, not a sports one, but far more comfortable and luxurious.
Once in bed I barely noticed I had a bra on, and the separator meant my chest wasn’t crushed and I didn’t overheat. 5/5
A BIT OF A FLOP
Comfort Sleep bra, £24, figleaves.com SIZE: 30F to 38GG comes in charcoal. WITH a wrap-style design, the bra looks more like a stylish bikini top. There’s no wiring and padding, but, as with regular bras, there are three rows of hook- and- eye fastenings to adjust the fit.
The central band is thick and stretchy, so it never felt tight, no matter how much I tossed and turned. As I often wake with my duvet on the floor, I know that I thrash around in my sleep.
The straps are thickly padded, which means there is no digging in at night when your body is pressed into the mattress or pillow.
A cotton-modal mix, it was cool and comfortable but, even after tightening the hooks and straps to make it fit, I didn’t feel there was much support in the cups and could feel my boobs flopping to the side when I changed position. 3/5
PADDED PERFECTION
Padded Sleep Bra, £30, bravissimo. com SIZE: 28D/DD to 40JJ/K THe sleep bra also comes in an unpadded version, but I was intrigued by the idea of a padded one. Surely that would be uncomfortable, especially for front sleepers?
It has regular bra fastening and adjustable straps, which are also padded for extra comfort.
The fact this was 92 per cent viscose (and eight per cent elastane) didn’t fill me with confidence either. I get hot at night and usually avoid man-made fibres.
I know I’m buxom, but the cups looked huge, like you could fit a giant watermelon in each.
But that was exactly what was needed. My breasts were held firmly in place. As a (mostly) side sleeper, the padding provided extra comfort and I didn’t feel hot or sweaty.
The sheepdog of sleep bras (it rounded them up, it held them in place), this offered some strong support, even if it isn’t the prettiest. 4/5 VERDICT: After a week of wear, I wasn’t any perter and I certainly won’t be traumatising my neighbours by doing any liz Hurleystyle shoots in my garden.
But the purpose-made sleep bras are comfortable and supportive and if, as Mr Pacifico says, long-term wear could keep sagginess at bay, then I’m happy to keep wearing one.
Intuitive Fasting centres on a fourweek plan of intermittent fasting, where food can only be eaten during a specific window: 12 hours in the first and fourth weeks, six hours in the second and four hours in the third.
When food can be consumed, it’s low carb and low sugar. The aim is to improve general wellbeing, with the claimed benefits including: regulated hormones and blood sugar levels, improved sleep, concentration and energy. There are also tweaks to the plan for those who also want to lose weight.
And Gwyneth credits the ‘Will Cole effect’ with easing the symptoms of long Covid. She revealed on her Goop website: ‘I turned to one of the smartest experts I know in this space, Dr Will Cole. After he saw all my labs [test results], he explained that this was a case where the road to healing was going to be longer than usual.’
While following his plan she says: ‘I fast until 11am every day. I’m accustomed to cleanses, but something more freewheeling like Will’s plan has definitely been more of an adjustment.
Will says: ‘I meet people who are struggling with health issues and then people like Gwyneth who are good and are very healthy and are looking to optimise their health and take it to the next level.’
Given she works out for two hours a day and mostly eats ‘clean’, what could the ‘next level’ mean?
He explains: ‘We ran labs (blood tests) and we looked at things to fine-tune and tweak and really enhance her health. She wanted to boost her energy levels, she wanted to improve how she felt throughout the day.’
Despite criticism, he also believes she takes her responsibilities as a health influencer seriously.
‘She has a whole science and medical team that checks and backs everything that they say.’
While endorsement from an Alist superstar is one thing, Dr Cole doesn’t want people to think that his book and methods are just for the super-rich.
‘From 8am until 6pm, all day long I am consulting patients and so is my team. We take that very seriously and 99 per cent of my patients are regular people,’ he says.
‘ Teachers, engineers and nurses are my top database. You improve somebody’s health and their inflammation markers improve, their hormones improve, their digestion improves. Improving your health isn’t just for celebrities.’
THAT may be so but his ‘ regular people’ still have to find $780 (£550) for a one-hour consultation with him or $497 (£350) with one of his colleagues. After that patients can expect to pay anything up to an additional $5,000 (£3,550) for a full nutritional programme.
Around 75 per cent of his patients are women aged 40 to 60 and, yes, some of them are in the UK.
He says: ‘The appeal of fasting is that it’s free, anybody can do it — celebrity or a regular person.
‘My plan is not aggressive — these aren’t long water fasts or juice fasts. We’re talking about very flexible fasting windows. And you’re eating ample amounts of food on the plan, just in specific windows because that’s what all the research points towards when it comes to reaping the benefits.’
Dr Will’s method is based around something he calls ‘ Ketotarian eating’, a mostly plant- based Mediterranean diet that encourages the body to go into ‘ketosis’, where it burns fat for fuel.
The book is full of the sort of healthy recipes you can just picture Gwyneth sitting down to eat such as ‘smashed bean wraps’ and ‘cauliflower tabbouleh’.
But surely even movie stars and lifestyle gurus fall off the wagon occasionally? I’m hoping Will might bend the rules of patient confidentiality a tad when I ask what Gwyneth’s go-to naughty treat is. A pepperoni pizza perhaps? A bar of chocolate?
‘We both love this brand called The Coconut Cult and they make a non-dairy coconut yoghurt that’s so delicious and I know she enjoys that,’ says Dr Cole, naming something that most people would class as a health food and pat themselves on the back for eating.
Although, in reassuring Gwynnie style, the yoghurt, not available in the UK, does cost £20 a jar.
OVEr dinner one evening six years ago, Craig Franklin gave his wife Katie permission to leave him. ‘he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not good enough. I can’t give you what you want. Go and find someone who can,” ’ recalls Katie who, through tears, rebuffed her husband’s suggestion, but admits: ‘I couldn’t cope with how he was behaving. A few times, I wanted to run away.’
Weeks earlier, Craig had been told he was infertile, a revelation that not only almost destroyed the couple’s marriage but would cost Craig his job and cause a financially crippling compulsive spending habit. Although he and Katie have since rebuilt their relationship, he is still coming to terms with the fact they can’t have children.
‘It feels emasculating,’ says Craig, 42. ‘I also feel grief, that I’ve had that choice ripped away.’ he is far from alone in suffering the devastating effects of male infertility. One in ten men in the UK are similarly impacted and those figures look set to increase, with research revealing that sperm counts among Western males have more than halved in the past 40 years.
Although everything from excess alcohol consumption to the way the male foetus develops in the womb is being considered as a factor, scientists are still not really sure why.
When a couple are struggling to conceive, we tend to assume the woman has problems. In fact, men account for 50 per cent of all difficulties. Yet, while there are 8,000 gynaecologists and obstetricians focusing on the female reproductive system in the UK, there are fewer than 200 andrologists — specialists who deal with male fertility. In a new BBC documentary, Stand Up To Infertility, comedian rhod Gilbert, 52, whose poor sperm motility means he is struggling to have children with wife Sian, looks at why so many men are struggling to become fathers — and why so few talk about it.
‘ Men are certainly marginalised,’ says Professor Sheryl homa, an andrologist and director of male fertility clinic Andrology Solutions in London.
‘Society focuses on female fertility issues. It’s always the woman being asked, “When are you going to have children?” In terms of how doctors are trained, there is a huge emphasis on gynaecology but negligible teaching when it comes to the male reproductive system.’
Equally significant, however, is the stigma that surrounds male infertility.
‘Men consider their fertility as equivalent to their virility, and I don’t think that is so true for women,’ she adds. ‘Being unable to father a child has a huge psychological impact on men, both for themselves and where they view their status in society.’ To know they are ‘at fault’ can be doubly distressing. She says: ‘It’s very difficult for men to articulate this. It becomes internalised and puts a lot of stress on their relationship.’
Craig and Katie, 41, started trying for a baby after their 2010 wedding. When they failed to conceive, both assumed the issue was Katie’s. ‘As a man, you don’t tend to think it’s a problem on your side,’ says Craig, from Clacton- on- Sea, Essex. In 2013, Katie’s GP referred her to a gynaecologist for tests. It was only when they came back clear that Craig visited his GP, who took a sample for semen analysis.
WHEN he called back, the couple were shocked by the GP’s bluntness. ‘he said you have no sperm. You can’t have children,’ Craig says. Katie, who burst into tears in the surgery car park afterwards, adds: ‘I felt it was as if, “You’re a man, you just have to deal with it.” ’
Katie, a hospital theatre assistant, insisted on a second opinion. Craig was referred to a hormone specialist at Colchester hospital who, after blood tests, diagnosed Craig with non- obstructive azoospermia, which means his body is unable to produce sperm. In Craig’s case it was genetic and caused by low testosterone.
he was prescribed testosterone injections every three months but told his chances of fathering a child were slim. his powerlessness quickly gave rise to anger, his once laid-back personality barely recognisable as he began hitting walls and doors.
‘he would shout at me,’ says Katie, who didn’t feel personally threatened but says: ‘It got to the point where I knew he’d have to walk away from an argument. That’s the only way he’d calm down. We learned together to deal with it.’
‘I became very closed. I didn’t want to talk to friends,’ says Craig. ‘I wasn’t the person Katie married. I considered counselling but couldn’t find any experts geared up to deal with my specific situation.’
Several weeks after his diagnosis, Craig suggested she leave him. ‘I said, “If you want to find someone else who can give you a child naturally, then go, I understand,” ’ he recalls. ‘She said if she did, the vows she took on our wedding day would mean nothing.’ Katie adds: ‘ We ended up crying together.’
As a coping mechanism, Craig became a compulsive spender, buying endless gadgets for his car and computer he didn’t need. ‘I’d get the parcels delivered to work, but Katie eventually caught on and started asking questions,’ says Craig. ‘I started hiding it more.’
A year after his diagnosis, Katie found a credit card statement that showed he’d run up bills of £20,000. ‘I was livid,’ says Katie, who took control of all his bank cards and gave him an ultimatum: ‘I said, “Stop doing what you’re doing, or I won’t be here any more.” ’
Craig stopped, but lost his job as an IT helpdesk worker in 2017 because he ‘didn’t have the drive to do anything’. Shortly afterwards, he got another job and is now an IT support analyst. In 2019, the couple paid £8,000 for IVF, a procedure they weren’t eligible for under their local NHS at the time. An embryo formed but failed. ‘Although it was only a cluster of cells it felt as if our child had died,’ says Craig.
They are now considering embryo donation to give fertility treatment the best chance of success. ‘Katie is aware that as she gets older her fertility is an issue,’ says Craig.
‘ I am still desperate to have children. It does hurt. But I don’t blame Craig at all,’ says Katie.
Antidepressants, which increasing numbers of men take in these troubled times, have been found to affect sperm motility.
RESEARCH by scientists in Germany last month found men who have had coronavirus may also have a lower sperm count. But this could simply be a temporary effect, says Professor homa. An unhealthy diet, stress and excess alcohol have also been linked to lower sperm counts.
‘It’s absolutely true that lifestyle exacerbates the situation but, invariably, if you are infertile there is an underlying clinical cause,’ says Professor homa.
Underlying infections can also factor, along with hormone imbalance and illnesses such as diabetes. ‘A lot of doctors say there’s not a lot you can do about male infertility. It’s not true,’ says Professor homa. ‘ You can treat infections with antibiotics, treat diabetes and sometimes alter hormone levels.’
Chemotherapy can also affect male fertility, by stopping sperm production. Anthony Shapley, 33, a
digital marketer from exeter, devon, suffered from Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, as a child. in remission since age five, he was warned at 18 by his consultant that his fertility may have been affected by the chemotherapy he had.
‘i was shocked,’ says anthony. Yet it was only at the age of 21, after meeting his girlfriend, that the ramifications sunk in. ‘We wanted to try for children,’ says anthony. in his mid-20s, semen analysis revealed no sperm. ‘i was gutted,’ he says. ‘i wanted the joy of watching someone grow up.’
He and his girlfriend were referred to a fertility clinic, where he was scheduled to have a testicular biopsy to see if his sperm was blocked. if sperm is found in the testes, it can be harvested and used for intracytoplasmic sperm injection, where individual sperm are injected into an egg to increase the chances of fertilisation.
but in 2016, 12 months after being provisionally booked in, he had yet to be offered an appointment. ‘i felt angry,’ he says. ‘My partner was understanding but it made our relationship challenging. it should be easier for people like me to get answers.’ Since they broke up in 2017 anthony has told prospective girlfriends about his infertility before their first date.
‘i think it’s better to be upfront,’ he says. ‘Some don’t bat an eyelid. others politely say they want a family. Sometimes they’ll stop talking to me.’ He finds it difficult to discuss with friends. ‘it makes me upset,’ he says.
adam Haslam, 38, and his wife emma, 40, had been trying for a baby for a year when they visited their gP in 2013. their tests revealed that emma was perimenopausal and adam had a low sperm count.
When the couple, from Cononley, north Yorkshire, told his mother about their fertility struggles, she revealed adam had had a procedure to correct an undescended testicle as a child. a couple of years later, after they had still failed to conceive, they asked doctors if the procedure adam had as a child could be looked at as a cause. ‘they said there were no further tests. there was no support,’ says adam.
emma says: ‘i found it easy to talk to my friends. adam didn’t. He said there was no point. He’d always been jovial but became quiet.’ adam admits, ‘i became embarrassed, which turned me into a bit of a recluse.’
THEY were unable to afford the cost of iVF in the UK, where one cycle can cost £10,000, and they were not eligible on the nHS because emma, having already lost 6 st, was still 2 st over the maximum weight limit in her area. So the couple had the procedure in the Czech republic, where iVF is around 40 per cent cheaper, includi ing flights and accommodation. they used donated sperm and egg and their son was born in august 2019. they set up yourivfabroad. co.uk, a business advising how to navigate iVF abroad.
reverend Matt Woodcock, 45, discovered he had a low sperm count 18 months after he and wife anna, 43, a council administrator, started trying for a baby in 2005.
His gP took a sperm sample that revealed he had ‘virtually’ no sperm. ‘My doctor said, “if i was a betting man i’d bet you couldn’t have children” He was unbelievably rude,’ says Matt, from York.
desperate for a second opinion, the couple sought a private consultation with a urologist. He found that whereas the average man produces between 40 million and 300 million sperm per millilitre of semen, Matt’s sample had just 37 sperm per millilitre.
‘We both cried our eyes out,’ says Matt. ‘anna had a massive maternal instinct and i felt horrible i couldn’t give her what she wanted. anna said we were in this together. but i felt that i wasn’t a proper man, that my wife wouldn’t find me attractive any more and was going to leave me. ‘i made a joke of it with male friends. i told them was firing blanks. i didn’t know how else to handle it. Most recognised it could happen to anyone.’
not everyone was as sensitive, however: ‘Some would say, “i only have to look at my wife and she gets pregnant.” i laughed it off but was silently seething.’
in 2008, after trying for three years, the couple, who were told there was no funding available in their area for iVF on the nHS, used their savings to pay for it. after it failed, a family friend funded two further attempts. the third attempt resulted in twin girls, Heidi and esther, who were born in december 2010.
‘We were both wailing when we saw two flashing heartbeats on the monitor. We’ve been so blessed,’ says Matt, who has written a book, becoming reverend, about his fertility struggles. ‘the problem with men is they internalise everything. but i realised if it had happened to me it must be happening to millions of others too and they shouldn’t suffer in silence.’
n RHOD GILBERT: Stand Up To Infertility is available now on BBC iPlayer. For more information on male infertility and support available, visit himfertility.com.
‘I felt that I wasn’t a proper man’