As I prepared to write about the gorgeous lunar-print sports bra from Panache (affiliate link; this bra is gifted from the company and all opinions are my own), I realized I’ve never actually reviewed just their sports bra before, even though I previewed this bra’s first appearance at Curve in 2011 when it only went up to an H cup (and before any of the sales reps had even tried it!). Then in 2014 I wrote about the sports tank version that I loved and has since been discontinued.
This is my third Panache sports bra, and I keep them forever. I kept wearing my last one even when I gained weight and knew I should probably go up a cup, and it kept supporting me. Then I carelessly threw it in the washing machine after a workout a few months ago, and one of the underwires broke. I couldn’t blame it after all the work it had done!
I made do with a non-Panache sport bra for a while, but when this bra arrived in the mail, I realized how much I had missed it: I ran to catch the bus to my gym the next day and didn’t think about my chest at all.
As far as sizing goes, I was surprised to find that I literally went through the same sequence in 2019 as I did in 2014 of trying both the 32FF and 32G sports tank to find out which was right for me. This time, however, I didn’t trust myself because I wanted it to be the 32FF just because that was the one in the lunar print! So I took both sizes with me to BraTenders and asked owner Lori Kaplan what she thought. She confirmed: the 32G had too much space in the cups. The 32FF was the winner. Yay!
(It’s strange–in Panache swim and sports bras, I wear 32FF, but there’s a 32FF Panache non-sports bra sitting in my lingerie drawer that pillows every time I try it on, so either I’m a 32G in regular Panache bras, or it’s just that style. This is one of the reasons I currently refer to my size as a 32FF/G on this blog.)
For several weeks now, I’ve been wearing this bra 2X a week to Total Body Conditioning and Boot Camp classes. We do a lot of jumping jacks in both classes, and my bounce factor is identical to Leah’s slow motion demo in her review.
From the beginning, I felt like I could use a tighter band, but I thought, “This is a brand new bra–it should be on the loosest hook!” However, even though I’ve only been wearing it for almost two months, I fastened it on the middle hook last week and immediately I felt more supported.
Once again, the Panache sports bra is the building block of my workout clothes. This time around, I will not be throwing it into the washing machine!
