I'm not so much a shoe or handbag woman -

As much as I am lingerie. Specifically in sets. With lots of lace. And a touch of frou frou!

But a kick - because of this -
soft molded styrofoam looking cups

It's true! They look like those 1940's and 1950's bullet bras these days.

I would like to inform you that I walked by the underwear section.

Just as an experiment - I took one of those bras off of the rack and set it on the floor.

It stood upright.

That's just crazy.

my husband and I could leave our cereal bowls at home.

Can the xray machines at the airport see through these things? I once had a problem getting out of London Heathrow with two sports bras - and I'm supposed to take THESE things on a trip?

Her husband was head of police, she was in police department. Straight as an arrow (and a Democrat, I might add).

They kept making her go through the metal detector and wanding her. Searched her high and low.

They finally figured out it was the embroidery decorating the sides of her jeans. Must've had some metal in the thread.

I had a breast reduction and lift this year, and I finally got to look at the bras "normal" women wear...I always got minimizers. Well, I have been amazed to learn that almost all of them do have some sort of padding in there! Who decided that every single woman wants more? Geez, I'm THRILLED not to be immense any more! I've been using those super simple Fruit of the Loom types for every day (I'm now locked and loaded in place LOL).
My daughter just visited and insisted we go to Victoria's Secret and get me her idea of a good bra. I now have a push-up underwire with a small amount of that stuff in it. It does give me back some cleavage, should I ever decide I miss it. Honestly, it's a pleasure for me to not have the cleavage any time I wear a neckline that's more than one inch below my neck!

I laughed when I saw this one-

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/laf/4805815988.html
(edited to add: it was a fancy, lacy stiff-cupped bra, found by the wayside somewhere----craigslist ad expired)

Somehow those sort of stiff looking cups don't look very comfortable. Every woman who wears that kind of bra has that same shape on the outside of her clothes, but on the inside of those cups she could be like me, the bottom of that space is full but not the top!

I just need minimal lift/compression.

I go with Bali Double Support Cotton Bra (no underwire)

Buy direct from Hanes. You can bookmark the bras you want on their website and wait for Buy One Get One Half.

Wouldn't know what to do without these bras.

I go for the heather gray and the nude:


http://www.hanes.com/onehanesplace/bra/shop-by-brand/bali-bra/bali-double-support-bra-18150

I just magically turned into a senior citizen yesterday, and my "girls" are more like wobbly puddings, not cheesecake mounds.
My friend and I laughed one time when we heard a description of very old boobs as "tennis balls in a pair of socks".

I like bras made of (mostly) cotton knit fabric. I remember when I first started wearing bras there were cotton broadcloth ones with concentric circles stitched on the pointed "bullet" cups. They shrank, and got all puckery due to the stitching.

This is interesting, the history of bras- including the one I just mentioned-
http://www.andreaschewedesign.com/blog/the-history-of-bras

There's a Hanes/Bali outlet store near here, I'll have to look there and try on the kind you like.