The Brassage Is A Scam

Melissa — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:45:16 -0400

As if us ladies don't have enough to worry about when we underwear shop, Intimate Health—a "health-inducing" underwear company—attempted to say all our favorite bras trap toxins in our breasts.

What???!?!

Yes, you read that correctly. Your favorite push-up may do wonders for a low-cut shirt, but did you know those constricting straps were secretly ushering in abnormal cells? According to the company's website, normal bras place too much pressure on your chest's lymph nodes, which "retard the body's natural ability to eliminate toxic substances that gather in the breast tissue."

Uh oh.

In response, the company—owned by Christina Erteszek—created a Brassage. A Brassage is a normal bra with "massaging" cushions on the sides, which they claim eliminate all the nasty toxins and reduce one's chances of tissue abnormality.

Whatever the hell that means.

But with all the hoopla over breast cancer awareness you best believe Intimate Health were praying on their "organic, antimicrobial cotton" that scared women everywhere would buy these $59 bras by the boatload.

If you're reading this and thinking it all sounds like a brilliant and sneaky money-making scam, you're right my dear Watson. It is!

ABC News decided to get to the bottom of all this lymphatic toxic bra strap madness and find out if this is something we should really be reconstructing our underwear drawer over.

"We really have no data that toxins are accumulating in the breast tissue every day, and that they are not being allowed to drain out because of people wearing bras," Dr. Susan Love, a professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Oh, and when the website says the bras are doctor-designed, ABC comes to find out this "doctor" is actually a chiropractor. And he earned his degree online.

No, no. We don't know that last bit for sure but it seems like a sufficient ending to the story.

"I would love to have a way to prevent breast cancer," Love said. "If it came from wearing a special bra, or standing on your head for 20 minutes a day, I would be the first one out there promoting it. But we need hard science to answer these questions, not just hypotheses, not just speculation, but real studies."

After ABC exposed the company, Gaiam, a major retailer discontinued selling the Brassage.

lymphatic nodes

The Brassage Is A Scam