We couldn’t find a bra size calculator plugin, so we made one ourselves

Size matters. Seriously. When it comes to your bra size, getting fitted can make a huge difference. And yet, many women do not know their correct bra size. And far too many still use an outdated method to measure up their cups (something something subtract something but only if you were born on a gibbous moon on a Tuesday during a leap year) or just go with ‘whatever feels like it kinda fits’.

But that’s a terrible idea.

As our very own Kelly Blake explains:

The correct fit doesn’t just help your breast look better in the bra, and the clothing you wear, but proper fit will literally change your posture, and can even help the way you breathe. This is especially true for women who have larger breasts.

Naturally, then, a brand that caters for inclusive sizes would need a bra size calculator. Surely, you’d think, there would be a plugin for that? That’s wishful thinking, as it turns out.

While there are calculators available and online communities like the subreddit abrathatfits has done some great work to get the message of getting your measurements out there, we could not find  a simple plugin – or even an iframe – to add to our site for our clients and readers to use.

Obviously there was only one solution: to build one ourselves. Thanks to the generous help of Jonathan Bossenger from the WordPress Cape Town community and the stubbornness of Antoinette Muller, our website Jill of many trades, we’ve launched this super simple tool to help you figure out your perfect bra fit. We’ll be adding this to the WordPress repository at some point in the near future, too – we just wanted you, our lovely customers, to give it a whirl first.

There is one caveat with this tool, though. This is the first release and while we have done our best to ensure accuracy, other factors like breast shape can also impact your perfect size. It is always best to get properly measured and fitted.

And not to be too self-promotional or anything, but we do offer exactly that – and it is all done online. For August, we’re also donating half of the consultation fee to one of our charity partners. So if you’d like a personal measurement, book yourself in via the link below.

Knowing where to start with finding the right bra size can be very overwhelming and, in some cases, can be a bit of a shock. As HOV’s Kelly Blake explains:

Most clients are overwhelmed even if they’ve heard about the right places to start measuring. They tend to doubt what they see on the measuring tape. Often, it’s so different to what they’ve been led to believe their size is their entire life.

Things have started changing in recent years, though, and with this little calculator, we hope to make a small and meaningful contribution to those changes.

 How to use our HOV Bra Size calculator

If you just want to use our bra size calculator, that’s totally fine too.

To get started, you need to take your bust and rib measurements in inches. For best results, you should take your measurements when you are completely topless. 

This image shows where to measure your rib and bust, you can use any measuring tape, so long as your input into the calculator is in inches.

Take your measurement loosely, do not try and turn yourself into a tape-measure sausage by pulling  the tape tight.

Rounding off your measurements

When you take your bust measurements, round off to the nearest inch. If, for example, your measurement is 35.5 inches, round it up to 36 inches.

Rib measurements should be rounded up to the nearest even number – so 33 inches will be 34, for example.

International bra size charts

Some countries use different size charts. If you need to convert sizes, you can use the chart below to do so using the rib size chart and the cup size chart.

Rib size bra chart for international conversions

Cup size bra chart for international conversions