How to wear a sticky bra

Most people who say a sticky bra did not work for them put it on the way you put on a plaster: flat, from the top, in a hurry. Done properly it takes five minutes the first time and thirty seconds after that.

Before you start

Clean, dry skin. That means no moisturiser, no body oil, no fake tan still developing, and no talc. Adhesive silicone grips skin, not the film sitting on top of it, and a single layer of lotion is enough to cost you the evening.

If you have just showered, give it ten minutes. Towel-dry is not dry. And if you are wearing scent, spray it after everything is on, on your wrists and neck.

Step by step

1. Peel from the corner. Never from the middle — pulling from the centre stretches the adhesive and leaves a dull patch that never grips as well again. Keep the storage film; it is where the piece lives between wears.
2. Lean forward. Bending at the waist lets the tissue fall into the cup instead of you having to push it there. This one habit changes the result more than anything else on this page.
3. Bottom edge first. Set the lower rim against the underside of the breast, then roll the cup upward onto the skin. Started at the bottom you get lift; pressed on from the top you get coverage and a gap underneath that peels open within the hour.
4. Press upward and inward. Not straight down. Inward pressure is what creates the centre line.
5. Hold ten seconds a side. Body heat is what sets the grip, and ten seconds feels much longer than you expect when you are already late.
6. Clasp last. Both sides on and set before you join the front. Clasping first pulls the cups out of position and lifts the lower edges away from the skin.
7. Check the mirror. Both sides even, standing and then sitting, before you get dressed.

Where people go wrong

• Applying it standing upright. The tissue never gets into the cup, so the top edge gapes.
• Clasping before both sides are set — the single most common cause of a piece letting go mid-evening.
• Re-positioning four or five times. Every lift and re-place picks up dust and takes a little adhesion away. Two goes, then leave it.
• Putting it on over yesterday's body lotion because "it is mostly absorbed". It is not.

Making it last the night

If a corner lifts, press it back with the flat of your hand and hold — do not peel it off and start again. On a hot night, a minute in a cool bathroom with the piece pressed firmly does more than anything else.

Taking it off

Peel slowly from the outer edge inward, supporting the skin with your other hand. Never pull it straight off the front. Then wash it before you go to bed rather than in the morning — adhesive left overnight with makeup and sweat on it is what turns a fifty-wear piece into a ten-wear one.

If it stops sticking

Nine times out of ten it is not worn out, it is contaminated. Warm water, a drop of mild soap, fingertips only, air dry face up, back on the film. The full method is in how to clean a sticky bra.