A baby in the tummy doesn’t stop one from trying to have a better shape through shapewear. Different kinds of maternity shapewear are available for pregnant women who may want to hide those lumps and muffin tops, maintaining those smooth curves in the torso.

Maternity shapewear may come in the form of maternity bras, which are specially designed for pregnant women and new moms. However, maternity shapewears may also come in the form of maternity support hose, also called maternity panty hose or maternity body shaper. Not only do they provide pregnant women with smooth curves and a tighter shape, they also have positive health implications on future mommies.

Maternity shapewear helps in improving blood circulation among pregnant women, especially in the legs. They minimize swelling in those parts and also reduce the risk of varicose veins, which usually develop or worsen during pregnancy. Varicose veins are bulging veins that go visible on the skin. They are often bluish or purplish, and are usually seen on the legs because the continued growth of the tummy puts added pressure on them. Wearing maternity shapewear minimizes the swelling of these veins on the legs.

Aside from varicose veins, added pressure on the legs due to extra weight during pregnancy may also cause other leg problems such as edema, leg pain, and cramps. Maternity shapewear adds support to the tummy, thus lessening the pressure on legs, and consequently, lessening the tendencies for these leg problems. Maternity support hose also aids in improving blood circulation, thus, reducing the risk of blood clot formation and vein inflammation. It also reduces pressure on the lower back, thus, reducing pains and cramps.

A maternity support pantyhose is usually twice as thick as an ordinary pantyhose. It uses a graduated compression system, thus, it does not put too much pressure on the tummy. Maternity shapewears are usually tighter at the lower parts and looser at the upper parts. They are usually made of breathable and soft fabrics, which are designed to fit and adjust well to a growing tummy. Wearing a maternity shapewear before getting up in the morning is advisable to make blood circulate well.

It pays to be fit. It pays to be healthy. And it does pay to look fit and healthy, even during pregnancy. Maternity shapewears not only make pregnant women look sexy in their pregnancy, they also help keep expectant moms away from health risks, particularly in relation to blood circulation and leg mobility.

Shapewear may not always be comfortable because they apply pressure on certain body parts, but choosing the right shapewear with the right fit patches up this fact.

Take note of these tips in choosing the right shapewear to buy:

Body measurements, such as waist line, hip size, bust line, and others, must first be taken before starting off. Taking body measurements will allow one to identify the parts that she intends to work on using shapewear. Also, it will help in identifying the right shapewear size.

Make sure to consider the following factors:

• the part of the body to be enhanced or corrected
• the preferred underwear fabric or material
• the clothes to be worn over the body shaper

Determine the preferred extent of change or the support level.

Shapewear comes in different support levels: light control, moderate control, firm control, and extra firm control. These levels vary in the firmness of hold, the tightness, and level of comfort that the wearer could feel.

Choose the shapewear with the right fit.

To be able to make sure that the shapewear fits well, the following measures may be done:

• Check the fit of the shapewear when seated. The shapewear must be comfortably snug around the legs and torso. Otherwise, get another size or make adjustments.
• Buy one with the right size. If a firmer support is needed, an item with a higher support level may be taken instead of one that is a notch smaller.
• Check if the garment stays in place in whatever movement.
• Check if the crotch is comfortable enough.
• There should be no visible bulge or wrinkle.
• The garment should be smooth.
• The ends should not roll up or roll down.
• It should allow for breathing comfortably.
• It should not cause pain whether immediately or upon wearing it for long hours.

Choose the shapewear that works directly on the part or parts that have to be enhanced or corrected.

• Waists may be slimmed down by using knickers, tops, camisoles, cinchers or high-cut panties that cover the tummies and hold the waist in.
• Flabby tummies and baby bellies may be tamed through control thongs, high-cut panties and nickers, briefs, body shaper tops or camisoles.
• Muffin tops and lumpy midriffs may be smoothened through body shaper slips, suits, tops, or camisoles.
• Flabby thighs may be reduced through control tights or panties that extend down to the mid-thigh.
• Buttocks may be enhanced with the use of padded briefs or panties, thigh body suits, or magic pants or tights.
• Breasts may be enhanced through push up bras, padded bras, or demi bras.

When thinking about “sexy” body parts, the following would probably be on a race to the top position: legs, bust, buttocks, waist, hips, and tummy. Of course, having a flat tummy is one of women’s primary concerns when it comes to vanity. Who wouldn’t want to look fabulous in tight-fitting dresses and tops?

Fat buildup in the tummy is common in both males and females, but females tend to buildup more fat than men do. Belly fat buildup may be brought about by the following factors: aging, menopause, slowing metabolism, lack of physical activity, heredity, hormonal changes, and others.

Bulging tummies not only limit the range of clothes one may be fit for wearing. In some cases, bulging tummies decrease one’s self-confidence. Frustration may rise because most of the factors affecting belly fat buildup are unavoidable. How could that “ideal” tummy be attainable then? And when achieved, how can it be maintained?

Belly-flattening exercises, diets, and treatments would work. But there are other ways to get that flat-looking belly, even if you need it automatically. There are tummy shaper undergarments specially designed to control tummy shape and size to make them still look fab.

Most tummy shaper undergarments work through compression. They are built with control panels that hold the belly into natural-looking curves. Tummy shapewears may come in forms of tops such as tanktops and camisoles, or bottoms such as panties and panty hoses. Tummy shaping panties come in different sizes. There are those which are of the standard panty size, while others are high cut, which may extend to cover the entire tummy are, or even up to the direct underside of the bust. Tummy shaping panties may also extend downwards up to the mid thigh, which look like cycling shorts.

Longer tummy shapewears such as tops and long tummy shaping panties eliminate bumps and bulges, giving a smooth, curvaceous look.

Control tummy shaping undergarments are usually made of stretch nylon fabrics, ensuring smoothness and firm shape control. They usually come unnoticeable even under thin clothes because they hug the body tightly. Continually wearing such tummy shaping undergarments could produce permanent reductions in unwanted tummy inches. These clothes work with the concept of human adaptation to changes. With constant pressure, the belly is forced to compress and look flatter.

Need to wear that dress tonight, but worried about how it would look on your belly? Control tummy shaping undergarments are ideal for emergencies such as these.

Tired of bra padding or stuffings to enhance your bust? There’s a more effective alternative: push up bra.

Push up bras are designed to provide additional support to the breasts to enhance their look. They work by combining the bust-enhancing powers of paddings and bra structure, making an effective way to make the breasts look fuller and “richer”.

Push up bras have paddings or inserts, which enlarge the bust line. Some push up bras use silicone paddings, while others use water-filled sac inserts. They are also constructed such that they lift the breasts to make them more pronounced, and push them inwards to enhance the cleavage. Push up bras usually use underwirings to give the breasts a lift.

Push up bras work well for any bust size and with almost any kind of clothing, be it a stylish dress, a sporty top, a girly blouse, or a plain t-shirt. There are push up bras that are designed to have detachable straps for tube tops, halter tops, dresses, and other similar outfits. Others have removable inserts or air pillows in the cup so one can opt to change their size. Demi-style push up bras are also available for those who may prefer it low-cut.

Tracing its roots

It was only in 1948 that push up bras were introduced to the market. However, bras had already been used hundreds of years before that. It is believed that in as early as 2500 B.C., garments similar to bras were used by Minoan women who lived in Crete, an island of Greece. They used them to lift their breasts. Roman women, on the other hand, used these garments years later to do the opposite: to reduce their bust size. Thus, in as early as the ancient times, garments were already used to enhance the bust.

However, the more pronounced use of garments in shaping certain body parts came in the time of Catherine de Médicis of France. She forbade women with thick waists from attending the court, thus, corsets were used, narrowing women’s waists and lifting their breasts.

In 1893, Marie Tucek gained a patent for the “breast supporter”, which is similar to the modern bra. The term “brassiere” was coined only 14 years later, and it got a place in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1912. In 1928, cup sizes were introduced by Ida Rosenthal. In the 1930s, strapless bras, underwired bras, padded bras, and the A-D bra sizing system were introduced. As years passed, bras began to have more varieties and features, all in the purpose of enhancing women’s assets, making them look and feel more fabulous.

Flaunt your assets, hide your flaws. Why go through expensive surgeries and medical body contouring methods when clothes and undergarments may be all it takes to get that fabulous body, clean and safe?

For a woman to be able to get her ideal body, she first has to determine her body shape, built or type. How far is she from being and looking fab? Does she need to gain inches, or cut down on them?

Determining the right kinds of clothes and avoiding the inappropriate ones is dependent on one’s body built. Here are tips on how to dress up and look your best:

• Petite women can do with belts, fitted lines, slight color contrast, and soft and flowing fabrics.
• Tall women must avoid tight clothes, tight belts, and too short or too long skirts. They will look good in wide belts.
• Rectangular type women can do with waist-hugging tops or jackets over bottoms, using patterns to add dimension to their curves.
• Full-figured or hip-heavy women can do with vertical lines, v-necks, skirts with slits, long tops, vertical and fluid patterns, lighter colors, and straight-cut below the knee skirts. They must avoid bulky fabrics, patterns, and dark stockings.
• Top heavy women must go for dark-colored tops, pleated pants or skirts, and cotton clothes. They must do away from shoulder pads and ruffles.

More tips in choosing clothes and accessories

• Wearing clothes that fit just right is still the best option.
• Wearing tops and bottoms of the same color, and clothes with thinner fabric makes one look slimmer.
• Some types of belts are only advisable for women with slim waists.
• Short necklaces and clothes with high collars make the neck look shorter.
• Wearing a scarf or belt that hangs down to the legs make the legs look longer.

Those tips and guidelines may seem good enough, but they can sometimes be limiting. Dying to get away from those do’s and don’ts? Wishing that you could just wear whatever you like without having to worry about how it would look on you? Get a grip. There’s a way.

There are body shaping undergarments that could enhance women’s features to let them wear clothes that initially do not fit them well. Problems with the breast size or form can now be solved automatically through push-up bras, demi bras, padded bras, body shaping tops, and camisoles. Problems with tummies, hips, buttocks, or waist can now be addressed through control panties, padded panties, support lingeries, and support panty hoses.

Getting a fantastic body no longer relies on surgical methods such as liposuction, plastic surgery, breast implants, and others. Why bother dealing with surgical threads and needles when there are fun and easy ways to look fab and feel good?

Since the 18th century, garments such as corsets have already been used to enhance a woman’s body shape. But forget those corsets and girdles. Such garments have already evolved into more comfortable varieties.

There’s a wide array of body shaping clothes and underwear pieces, also called “shapewears” that could flaunt a woman’s assets and hide her physical imperfections. These garments are designed to enhance a woman’s physical features through add-ons such as paddings, and carefully conceptualized designs that support a woman’s body to get that longed-for figure.

Bottom shapewears are usually used for enhancing the shape and size of the butt, hips, waist, belly, and sometimes, thighs. These include body shaping undergarments such as control or support panties, panty hose, tights, and lingeries. These underwear garments are specially designed to be able to hold the tummy, hips, waist, and bottom in a comfortable tightness to make a woman look slimmer and fitter. Not only do they provide a considerably sexier shape, they also take away the dreaded bra bulge and panty lines. And as if those weren’t enough, body shaping undergarments also soothe thighs and gradually decrease belly size and waist line.

There are also undergarments that use paddings to enhance the body’s features. The paddings in padded panties give the butt a lift to make it look bigger and fuller. Similarly, padded bras also give the breast a fuller look with the padding as an “added” bust size, and breast enhancer. Padded underwear pieces usually give automatic results.

Top shapewears, on the other hand, serve to enhance the bust size and shape. Some body shaping tops also serve to shape-up the torso. Camisoles are an excellent example. They are tight-fitting, sleeveless, and designed with small waistlines and breast push-ups.

Other top shapewears are breast-enhancing bras such as push-ups and demis. Push-up bras have paddings and wirings that push up the breasts to enhance the cleavage and make the breasts look fuller. Demi bras, on the other hand, enhance the cleavage through their low-cut style.

Aside from body shaping undergarments, there are also body shaping clothes that serve that same purpose: making a woman’s body look fit and fab. So who needs surgery when there are safer ways to cut down those unwanted inches? Go on living life normally. Dress up. Have fun. Do all those while your undergarments are silently working on your figure.

Surgical knives, surgical threads, surgical needles, maintenance, therapy, diet, bills… They may be tickets to enhancing the body’s assets and hiding its imperfections, but if you need to have a fabulous shape in an instant, then all those things are not an option. Surgical stitches and implants are not the only way to get that desirable body. There are other body-shaping techniques that could give temporary but automatic results, minus the trouble of having to go under the knives of surgeons and doctors. Corsets? Girdles? No. Those are things of the past, but the underlying concept remains: using garments to be able to get that fabulous shape for a fabulous you.

Body shaping undergarments have already been out on the market for years. These include tops and bras that enhance the breasts by giving them a lift, making them look fuller and enhancing the cleavage. Examples are push up bras, padded bras, demi bras, camisoles, and body shaping tops. There are also body shaping undergarments that are made for the tummy, waist, hips, and buttocks. These include control panties, control tights, support knickers, and padded panties.

Body shaping underwear reduces, if not eliminates, the disadvantages of plastic surgery. Two of which are the risks and the cost. Cosmetic or plastic surgery is more expensive than body shaping underwear, also called “shapewear”. Furthermore, it involves risks of having complications, as well as risks of having mistakes or “bad surgical work”. Shapewear takes those worries off a woman’s mind.

Shapewear provides instantaneous results. Upon wearing them, one would immediately notice a remarkable difference in the body part that she intended to enhance or shape. The tummy is immediately tamed. The buttocks and breasts are automatically enhanced. The shape simply improves in a snap. Though such shape only stays as long as the shapewear is worn, still, shapewears are still ideal for outfit emergencies.

Body shaping undergarments come in different sizes and styles to suit different needs. There are shapewear specifically made for breasts, for tummies, for bottoms, and others. There may also be different levels of wrap or hold tightness, depending on the desired result or tolerable fit.

Shapewear also leaves one free from the worries of complicated pre-surgery and post-surgery measures such as maintenance diets, regular check-ups, refraining from doing certain activities, and others.

Shapewears work through carefully-engineered structure and components that hold or support the body parts involved and effectively redistribute the fats and excess inches to get that desired fit. Continually wearing such garments eventually allow the body to adapt to the “change” that the shapewear introduced, thus the possibility for a permanent change in body shape.

There is more to body shaping than surgical cuts and slices. Whereas surgeries and other medical treatments for body shaping are gaining popularity, there always are alternatives: body shaping techniques that drag you away from surgical knives, needles, scalpels, and of course, bills.

In its most general sense, body shaping is basically altering the body or some of its parts to be able to attain a “goal” size or shape. It may involve actual or direct alteration such as surgery, or subtler ways to gradually control or affect the growth or appearance of the body. Examples of non-surgical body shaping techniques are exercise, diet, body-building, and corsetry.

The concept behind the use of corsets has already expanded over time. Corsets are tight-fitting clothes worn by women, which shape their torso in a way that conforms with the “ideal” or fashionable torso shape of the time. It was only in the 19th century that these garments were termed “corsets”, but such pieces of cloth had already been used long before that.

From the concept of controlling the growth or shape of the torso through corsets, other clothes and garments are now manufactured to control the growth or shape of women’s other body parts. These body-shaping clothes and undergarments now come in different varieties to help shape a woman’s body into an ideal fit. There are bras, panties, and other women’s underwear items that are designed to enhance butt shape, breast size and form, waist and hip proportion, and others.

Body shaping undergarments may be classified according to how they work or the part of the body for which they are used (top or bottom).

Classified according to how they work or the purpose that they serve, shape wears may either “give” the desired look, or support or hold the body to be able to have that desired look. Examples of shapewears intended to “give” the desired looks are padded underwear pieces such as padded panties and padded or silicone bras. These underwear pieces make the butt or the breast look bigger and fuller. On the other hand, examples of shapewears that force or support certain body parts to have that desired shape and form are:

• Control Panties
• Support Panty Hoses
• Support Tights
• Support Lingeries
• Push up Bras
• Demi or Shelf Bras

Control panties, support panty hoses, support tights, and support lingeries do not give shape to the butt like padded panties do. Rather, they are designed to support the belly, waist, and bottom into an “ideal” shape. Push-up bras enhance the cleavage and size of breasts by pushing them up with the use of wires and padding. Demi or shelf bras also enhance the cleavage through their low-cut design.