Linda Takes the Plunge

What is this mystery box doing on Linda’s porch?

Recently a package arrived at our house. It had been an excruciating two week wait for the package to arrive. I have to go way back to my childhood to find a time when I waited for an order with such anticipation. It was a long two weeks. The good news is I had expected the wait to be longer. The vendor said to expect three weeks for the delivery of these specialized orders so at two weeks I guess I am a bit ahead of the game.

The object of my 11-year-old’s desire had been my first gear bike. Besides being cool looking, the JC Higgins three speed bike with 26-inch wheels and hand lever brakes would help me with the delivery of the newspapers on my new route. I had almost enough money saved and my parents agreed to loan me the rest. Buying a gear bike when I had a perfectly good hand-me-down bike was not something our family could afford. I understood that and the fact it was my own money going into it made the anticipation much greater. ‘Was it going to be as good as the catalogue showed?’ probably also played in my mind.

Did you ever have that feeling over something you had purchased? Your first car? Your first house? Your computer? Well for me none of those things quite measured up to the anticipation of that first bike and now for the package that had just been delivered to our front porch.

The package did not stay long on the porch. I tucked it away for a day as I had to devote my attention to our visitors due in minutes. That was tough. Can you imagine sitting there talking to in-laws while all the time your mind is fixated on opening the box? I so was tempted to blurt out, “Hey, let me show you what came today!” but I didn’t. The plain brown box remained unopened until the next morning.

Then it was like a mini-Christmas where the surprise was not going to be what it was–I knew that–but just how good it was and whether it would suit me. It was just like when that bike finally arrived. I knew the box contained a bike but would the bike measure up to my hopes? The bike did measure up but now to the present time.

Box two.

Opening the plain box shipped by UPS I found . . . another box, this one all wrapped in purple tissue paper with paper flower petals and a card with a note from the sender. “Hi Linda, let me know if you have any questions!” it read in part. “Stay safe and enjoy your time in Florida. Breast wishes, Eden and the BF Store”

‘Breast wishes’? That wasn’t a spelling mistake or a Freudian slip. If you have not guessed already the BF Store is The Breast Form Store, a major sponsor of this TGForum website. In the box, resting on its own plastic torso was a “Divine Collection Athena Breastplate, Medium, Size 4, Vanilla (CAN) Lola 50 Cinnamon”. WOW! It was gorgeous or should I say THEY were gorgeous.

What beauties they were lying there on top of their torso. I know it is only one form but I can’t help referring to the form in the plural in honor of those two protruding beauties, ‘my girls’ or ‘the girls’, I will call them. Best looking imitation of female breasts ever if I do say so myself.

I hope you don’t mind if I tell you about these girls and rave about them in doing so. I hope you are not saying, “Oh, no! Another TGForum article about breastplates!” This look will be different, I assure you. But thank you to my writer-colleague Estelle for her lovely account of ‘taking the plunge’ herself. She pulled me to action. Perhaps I can do the same for you.

This was not my first one-piece breast from. Some time ago I bought one of those cheapo high neck, full back, big boob products you can find all over the ‘net. They are designed for play/pretend/performance and not for being particularly convincing. Why did breastplate #1 not work out? The neck was very tight, maybe comfortable for someone with a 14” neck, not for a former wrestler/football player with a 16 ½” neck such as me. Also the tight and full back was tremendously difficult—almost impossible—to get rolled out into place. And the shade—a ghastly pale—was suitable for the Addams family but not for me!

I had some hesitancy about going for the Athena Breastplate. It is quite an investment; what if it also did not work out? My current set of breast forms have served me well for over 20 years with only a very slight nick in one that was patched with clear adhesive tape and very little leakage.

However, time goes by. Almost every week when I log onto TGForum I find myself looking at the ads from The Breast Form Store. The breastplates were looking better and better. That video of the girl twirling her boobs really hooked me. I knew it was going to be difficult to match the skin tone of the breast plate with my own. In the end I decided how it would feel would be more important than how it would look. I did not need to go out in public with low cut dresses and blouses. Anyone I would meet at a drag club would already know that what I had was illusion.

So, speaking of cleavage, I made the plunge.

Short version:

I am over-the-moon ecstatic about how my girls feel when I am wearing them. I am pleasantly surprised with how close the skin match comes.

Long version:

We 21^st Century consumers are a demanding lot. We expect not only a good product but also good service. So first, how did The Breast Form Store measure up for service? The Breast Form Store is an online and mail order business located in British Columbia, Canada with a shipping outlet in Washington State. That is brilliant as it must save them and their U.S. customers tons of headaches with customs declarations. Disclosure: I have visited The Breast Form Store and interviewed them for an article many years ago. The lady who picked me up from my hotel and showed me around was named Eden. That was almost 10 years ago, I think. I had a good impression of the ‘BF Store’ then and I am glad to say I still do. I will now tell you why.

When we order our Athena Breastplate we are asked to pick a size and a color. For size I went BIG. I have a large chest and I like my boobs to stick out. I went with the size 6. “I wear a 40 D bra’ I added to the order form.

What about the color? Athena offers three choices, vanilla, caramel and chocolate. That stumped me a bit. I know vanilla, caramel and chocolate as flavors, not colors. I also know vanilla products such as ice cream and yogurt to be pasty white. Caramel candies are a light brown and chocolates are a dark brown. I went with the caramel.

Here is where the BF Store service kicks into high gear. Eden, my old friend Eden, was still there. Before sending my order over to Athena to be filled she looked it over and saw some things that did not look quite right. Instead of just saying ‘give the customer what she wants’, ‘the customer is always right’, ‘caveat emptor’ Eden wrote back to me to tell me she would recommend a size 4 breastplate as that is what would fit my current bra size. And, you know, Eden was exactly right. The size 4 fits my bras, feels right and creates a great cleavage. But more on the cleavage later.

Eden was right on the color, too. Just like people are not really Blacks or Whites, we are all just varying shades of brown, so are the Athena breastplates. They are not vanilla white. The vanilla seem made to be close to the skin tones of those of us of northern European heritage, caramel the Mediterranean, Hispanic and Asian customers and chocolate for those of African background. Eden advised me to go with the vanilla. I was skeptical but glad I accepted her advice. I don’t have an exact match; that would be a miracle but I’m close and I can use a bit of makeup to get closer. I think using makeup to try to lighten a caramel breast form would end up not looking so good. I have also found good results using a necklace to cover the line where the breastplate edge meets my neck.

The message: when ordering add all the extra information you can. In reviewing your order, The Breast Form Store seems to also review that information, seek clarification, or even make an alternate recommendation for you to consider. At least they did so with me.

Let me ask you this: have you ever had that happen when you ordered through Amazon? I haven’t. eBay maybe but not Amazon.

Now before I tell you about my wonderful experiences wearing the girls let me tell you about Athena’s instructions about handling and care. The care instructions come glued to the inside of the lid of the Athena box. That is one set of instructions we are going to need some effort to lose!

What do the instructions cover? There is an interesting section about the designer, Terry, and how Terry lovingly created the breastplates for the ‘male form’. Proportional to the male form is good. I think that if I were to take a molded form of the typical female chest and apply to my chest it would look pretty hideous with the boobs nicely close together but nothing for an inch or two between the outside of a breast and an armpit.

How’s this for plunge?

The instructions cover how to store, how to put on, how to wear and how to clean the girls. Yes, cleaning is important. So is cleaning your own chest area before putting on the breastplate. Old sweat, skin hair and dirt will adversely affect the adhesive quality of the breastplate. After wear also cleanse the breastplate and—this I found great—a gentle washing with the provided cleaner diluted in lukewarm water is now actually restoring the adhesive quality of the breastplate. I am expecting that eventually I would have to apply a restorative adhesive but so far so good. However Eden says no, as long as I take care of the girls the adhesive will stay good to me.

The girls are holding. I’m always wearing a bra or dresses with built-in support, but at least I can attest the girls stay in place while I dress. (Hey, I’m a crossdresser. Why would I want to go braless, anyway?)

My Athena breastplate came with a 2.5 oz bottle of ‘Divine COLLECTION Breast Form Wash’ that ‘Cleans and Refreshes Breast Forms’. It does that, for sure.

It also came with a 2.5 oz bottle of ‘Divine COLLECTION Stay Dry’ which they say is a ‘Sweat barrier spray for breast forms’. I haven’t used that yet but I can certainly remember situations where I was playing golf, bike riding and dancing with my other girls and I could have used something to minimize the sweat in the boob area, under the wigs, too! (Yes, I am the one that told you about once playing golf and placing paper towels under my wig and breast forms.)

What is it like wearing the one-piece breast forms? I cannot wait to tell you but my gosh ladies; look at the time. We all have other things to do. Four weeks from now I will tell you my experiences including the Sleep Test, the ‘pencil test’ (Remember that?) and the Wow-factor test, the first time when I wear the girls to a party. I will tell you the secret I leaned about the women’s ‘crossover tug’ and I will compare my new girls to some of the best breasts I have ever felt.

See you in four weeks. And who knows? Perhaps in four weeks (or less) we can both be wearing our new breast forms.

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Tags: breastplate, breasts, crossdressing, featured

Category: crossdressing, Product Review