This might belong in the whine cellar!
It's that time of year - time to look for a bathing suit. I notice that all the stores have suits out now - when I'm stark white and fat. Come July when I look more like someone who could wear a bathing suit they've got the winter coats out and no swimwear.
I never know how much to spend - it seems like bathing suits can be had for $15 or for $115. Or where to go looking, for that matter. I look online, but it seems like a risky purchase without trying it on...
Any tales of successful bathing suit shopping?
Read the comic strip Cathy. Do the opposite.
Sorry I don't have anything better to tell you.
I prefer one-piece, so I go to the local sporting shop. They have good quality material (which is really the key, unless you need to spend extra for unusually good support) and nice designs.
I tend to swim any time of the year, when I'm always pasty white!
If it covers my private areas and stays on, that's good enough. I swim year-round, too. If people don't like what they see, they can look somewhere else. BJ picked up four new suits for us in the horrible big box store last week. I'm sure she didn't spend much.
Article in new Woman's Day this week has bathing suits covered (pun!). Land's end and l.l. bean both have good deals as does Old Navy. On-line is best and apparently at Victoria Secret site you can order diff. sized tops and bottoms!
Well I got so huge I just went on line to shop for one. No way am I going to try one on in any store.
And I as long as I know my size (which was easy to do) I avoid the looks & glares from other woman.
I found this beautiful swimsuit a black & white floral print at Romans
http://www.roamans.com/clothing/Floral-S...0&pref=pvp
I know it is shown in Pink but if you put your cursor on the B&W Print & click on it. It will show you what it looks like in B&W
Anyway, I fell in love with it. And it was in stock. And I am going to have some fun in the pool this summer. Plus maybe do some laps too. I love to swim.
OT: If anyone wants to shop Here and do what I did please PM me. I can get us both a $25 coupon if I refer a friend
I have always liked shopping at California Sunshine, if you have any near you. I believe you can also buy from them online. What I like is that they have bathing suits for every size, you can buy tops and bottoms separate..... I've always had a hard time fitting my body because I have a small bottom and very large top.
You can also check out
UJENA Swimwear. I've bought bathing suits from them and really like them... some are a little more pricey, but I usually start out looking in the "sale" section and go from there. They also have mix and match and very accurate size charts!!! Everything there is also high quality.
Good luck...I know the feeling...I hate shopping for swimsuits. Luckily I've amassed a little collection now so I'm not shopping at ALL this year. lol
PK -Thank you for the recommendation. I bought a suit at a store exclusively for bathing suits in Florida once - over $100 but I ADORED that suit. The only California Sunshines are down in the city but maybe I can find something similar in MA or nearby...
I wear a SCUBA diving shorty like surfers wear. I can't swim and I don't like being exposed in public, but when I'm forced to put on something like swimwear when I'm near water for a pool party or similar, the shorty is the best thing for me.
Never heard of California Sunshine PK. So I doubt we have any in our area. I am happy with the suit I purchased. I just hope I got the right size, lol. I am sure I did, but I know ordering on line is risky stuff. But it is WORTH the hassle, to avoid the looks.
anastasia - It's never too late to learn to swim - there are adult classes at most Y's. Swimming can be really joyful.
I hate shopping for swimsuits. I'm overweight, and designers think that if you are overweight, you are also tall (I'm 5'3") and have big boobs (I'm a large A/small B).
Sharon, I think Wal-Mart has that figured out. $25 a pop, roughly.
(05-13-2010 09:58 AM)catsnotkids Wrote: [ -> ]anastasia - It's never too late to learn to swim - there are adult classes at most Y's. Swimming can be really joyful.
When I was 8 years old I had swim lessons, but it didn't work, I learned nothing and still couldn't swim at all. Then when I was 10 a friend taught me to swim and I was like a fish for that summer. I could do anything but dive. I could turn somersaults under water backwards and forwards, I could jump in feet first from the edge, I could swim close to the bottom with eyes wide open and see everything. I thought it would be like that forever. But the next summer, for no reason I could figure out, I tried to swim and I suddenly couldn't open my eyes under water, it burned and I couldn't see anything at all. I got goggles. But then the water went up into my sinuses every time I put my face under. I got a mask that covered my nose. Then I had to get ear plugs because the water would shoot into my ears and stay there for days causing pain. It wasn't like that the summer before, it was like something happened to me over the 9-month period between summers when the public pool was closed.
The summer after that, I couldn't swim at all. It's like it just went away. I sink like a stone because my body is so dense, and my face/head can't go under at all due to all the discomfort and pain it causes in my ears and sinuses. I never swam again after the age of 12. I've been in pools but I hate the way it feels on my skin to be submerged in water, it's extremely uncomfortable and irritating. I refuse to go into natural bodies of water because they are full of garbage and pollution.
So no swimming for me. I sink, water forces its way into my head very painfully, I feel panic if I'm not near a wall to grab onto, and it's irritating to my skin to be submerged in water. No adult class at the Y will be fixing any of that, unfortunately.
Sorry to hear all that, anastasia. The place where our camp is has pristine water. No garbage and pollution. I can't really explain it - if you've never been to the Adirondacks you can't really imagine what it's like. It's the largest park in the lower 48 - 6 million acres, of which 3+ million are owned by the state. Our lake is miles from any highway and only has a few camps on it. Swimming is the only thing that comes close to skiing for me, but I grew up in the water so that explains it I'm sure.
Lucky for you that you didn't go to Cornell - you have to pass a swim test to graduate!
(05-13-2010 08:16 PM)catsnotkids Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry to hear all that, anastasia. The place where our camp is has pristine water. No garbage and pollution. I can't really explain it - if you've never been to the Adirondacks you can't really imagine what it's like. It's the largest park in the lower 48 - 6 million acres, of which 3+ million are owned by the state. Our lake is miles from any highway and only has a few camps on it. Swimming is the only thing that comes close to skiing for me, but I grew up in the water so that explains it I'm sure.
Lucky for you that you didn't go to Cornell - you have to pass a swim test to graduate!
The Adirondacks sounds really nice. I've never seen pristine natural water, most of the bodies of water in the US are so nasty. The ocean and beaches down here in SoCal are full of garbage. I'd love to see a clean body of water someday.
I've never, ever heard of having to pass a swim test in order to obtain any degree from a university. That's the craziest and most fucked up thing I've ever heard and I've heard a lot of shit. My uni at the time I was there fell under the federal law for public state universities saying that students had to have two phys ed classes as part of their non-major classes requirements, but there was no swimming involved at all. I had to have one of the classes tailored to my physical limitations. In those days no one was talking about fibromyalgia, but my doc did write a note saying I couldn't do too much due to my chronic pain issues and they'd have to work something else out. So they did, it wasn't a problem.
ETA: I did some googling about the swimming requirement. Wow. Apparently several private universities do require this, but I still think it's wacked.
I used to lifeguard the swim test and I often saw the classes for people who couldn't pass. It may have actually been ultimately liberating for some people - lots of inner city kids never had an opportunity to learn to swim but this forced them to do it. Hopefully for at least some of them they ended up enjoying swimming.
It's not that uncommon - several Ivies require it. The Cornell test isn't easy. You have to jump into deep water and swim three lengths of the pool. One has to be on your back. There is absolutely no way around it. We had to check IDs so no one could pay someone else to pass it for them. Here's the history of it:
http://swimtest.cornell.edu/history.html
ETA - the ocean is nothing like a mountain lake. The ocean is filthy!
YIPPEEEE My new suit arrived in the mail today.
I tried it on and it fits perfectly!
Now I just got to get the gumption enough to drive over to the REC center and buy a years membership so I can use their indoor pool. I cannot swim in any outdoor pool or lake or ocean or anything outdoors. As my skin is very delicate and I fry to a golden crisp, lol. Seriously I get real bad sunburns. My skin gets redder then a stop light. And it does not matter what kind of sun screen lotion I use, I have tried them all, none of it works for me.
So, I gave up and swim indoors only
(05-11-2010 10:48 AM)catsnotkids Wrote: [ -> ]This might belong in the whine cellar!
It's that time of year - time to look for a bathing suit. I notice that all the stores have suits out now - when I'm stark white and fat. Come July when I look more like someone who could wear a bathing suit they've got the winter coats out and no swimwear.
I never know how much to spend - it seems like bathing suits can be had for $15 or for $115. Or where to go looking, for that matter. I look online, but it seems like a risky purchase without trying it on...
Any tales of successful bathing suit shopping?
Since you thought that it is a risky purchase on line, i am afraid that you just buy the
bathing suits on local store. But dear friend, most of the
bathing suits are elastic, you would buy XL swimsuit to have a try.
Hope you would buy a suitable
bathing suits online.
Good luck