Getting My Daughter Her First Bra: Girl Lux Is Pitch Perfect

She’s my baby, the last of three, and so maybe I’ve dragged my feet a little when it comes to doing the things necessary to help my 12-year-old get ready to make the transition from tween to teen. Psychologically, it’s hardest as a mom to watch the youngest kid grow up. Thing is, girlpie hasn’t really been all that helpful with the journey: there are still plenty of moments when she fights me on basic things, like taking showers, using deodorant, wearing something other than tank tops and shorts when it’s 50 degrees outside and, good God, putting lotion on her little ashy legs. But when it came to getting my girl her first bra, my daughter was good and grown with it: she spoke up and made it plain that she was big enough—literally and figuratively—to upgrade her underwear drawer.

No matter that I was in denial: she was ready. Beyond wanting to fit in with her girlfriends, whom were all sporting bras under their tanks and t-shirts this past summer, the fact of the matter was that my daughter had buds and they were poking through her shirts and she was getting uncomfortable with the rubbing and stuff against the material as her breast tissue grew. Getting her a bra or two was inevitable.

And so a few weeks before she hit the 7th grade, just as we were hooking up her school wardrobe, I put my big girl panties on and took my daughter into the tween sections of a few kid sections that boasted a halfway decent line-up of starter bras. What we found was shocking to say the least: there was underwire and padding—lots of padding!—and hot pink and red material(!) and push-ups(!) and contraptions that were so low-cut I wasn’t really clear what, exactly, was going to be covered—budding breasts or belly buttons. One store had so many inappropriately fancy bra and panty sets I half wondered if I’d stumbled into Victoria’s Secret, the Tween Edition.

I managed to find a few bras that were simple and age-appropriate with decent coverage, but I couldn’t help but to leave the store feeling like they were trying to grow up my kid faster than any of us need or are ready for—my daughter included.

Then I got a call from a friend of mine asking me if I’d let little girlpie try out a new line of bras and panties designed specifically for teens and tweens, called Girl Lux. What makes the line special, she insisted, is that it’s not only seamless and comfortable, but the bras come in a range of skin tones—including brown!

Say whuuuuuuut?!

Brown mamas, let me holler a you for a minute: you KNOW how hard it is to find brown bras that match our skin tone in grown folk sizes. Finding one is about as easy as spotting a glittery hot pink unicorn walking next to a leprechaun, hauling a pot of gold from the end of the rainbow. Rather impossible. But should you find one by some small miracle, you rock it till the straps pop off because, man, there’s nothing like being able to wear a bra beneath clothes that gives you nice lift and shape, but can’t be seen by everybody and their crooked-eyed mama. Brown bras are glorious.

Imagine, then, how amped I am about being able to buy my tween daughter a brown bra of her own. While she’s at the age where she’s not all that big on broadcasting to the entirety of the seventh grade that she’s wearing a bra. I’m very amped. Very amped indeed. 

And so was girlpie, who got to sample a bra and panty set from the Girl Lux line. She reported that the bras, seamless and shaped sort of like a sports bra, and the panties, fashioned after “boy shorts” and standard briefs, were both comfortable and held up through school, flute lessons and soccer practice without cutting into her skin or rubbing and chaffing her skin. Score!

Even cooler, Girl Lux founder  Melissa Ovard is about to  launch a second line called the Pocket Pantie™—a panty that has a small, interior pocket just big enough to hold a wrapped panty liner or thin maxi pad. The pocket, on the right backside of the panty, is sewn just below the waistband and is discreet enough not to show through clothes or bother wearers when sitting. Sure, it sounds weird: why would a girl want to “wear” a maxi pad in her panties? Well, think about it: tweens usually don’t carry around purses or small bags that allow them to discreetly go into the school restroom and change their pads, and any girl carrying a humongous book bag into the restroom might as well scrawl, “I have my period!” across her forehead with bright red lipstick. The Pocket Pantie™ makes it so that our girls can go into the bathroom and handle their business, without feeling embarrassed about it.

Melissa has a Kickstarter program she hopes will help her raise the cash she needs to make the Pocket Pantie™ line a reality. The awesome part: donate and she’ll send you products from the line, including the bras, panties, yoga head bands and laundry bags for your daughter’s new delicates. What a great way to donate to a good cause AND try out the products!

In the meantime, you can find the miracles that are the seamless, comfortable, brown bras in several shades at GirlLux.com. #winning

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This post was made possible by Girl Lux. Join their Pocket Pantie Kickstarter to help girls feel confident and prepared no matter what! You can follow their progress on Instagram and Facebook and share with your favorite teen and tween girls.