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So in early August I pulled out my old corset. It had been slightly abused in my loose-waisted years. I had allowed a friend to borrow it twice; rather a mistake. But it was alright for the most part and I donned again. And again I felt my sides ache for a week or so and the ache subsided once more. I have been wearing it 23/7 since after the first week (well mostly.) I have taken to putting Thayers Medicated Superhazel on my skin after my shower and began using cornstarch. The witch hazel is wonderful. My skin loves it. It works far better for me than lotion. It conditions and soothes the skin. The cornstarch is crazy messy. I have been thinking of buying one of those little round pouffe boxes for the cornstarch as putting it on with my fingers is less than ideal (especially when I am wearing black.) I am currently at a comfortable 27" even for driving, sitting or working. My natural waist is now a whopping 30". Yeesh.
I ordered a new corset which came in the mail a few days ago at an abitious 22". (Pictured above right from the Meschantes eBay auction.) I think in retrospect this is amazingly small. Too darn small. But we'll see. I ordered from Meschantes again (same style as before but in black & w/closed busk,) but this time I was anxious. They have had a few bad reviews and this time I ordered it on eBay. I paid a little less, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the order. It came on time, but I never got an email from anyone there. I asked them to get back to me three times. Not enough to be harassing them but enough that they should have contacted me. Also, I don't really know if the corset was custom or off the peg. I sent them the detailed measurements they asked for during my initial corset order in 2004 and indeed the corset fits better than the old one (the busk on the old one sticks out a bit too far at the bottom) but the tag on the inside is marked 22" in sharpie which leads me to believe they are simply making them en masse and are being deliberately vague about the customization on eBay. As with the first corset by Meschantes the bones are both spring and spiral steel but they do not run the entire length of the casing/corset. There is a more than 1" gap with each bone to the top edge with both corsets. I am not entirely sure if this is desireable, but I'm guessing it is not. I may be wrong, but I believe the bones are too short.
The new corset fits well and is every bit as sturdy as the first with the exception of the busk. I ordered the new corset with a closed busk which is rather more flexible than the front clasping busk. Being a closed busk and so tiny it is a monster to get on. I have to loosen the laces (which are very short compared to my old corset and made of coarse nylon rather than the cotton of the original) all the way to slip it over my head. Lacing up is really hard, especially since my husband is not interested in learning to help me. But once it's on it is very comfortable and the lack of a claspable busk is nice under my clothes. I only wear the new one for a few hours a day, preferring to reduce my waist in my old corset until it is again too loose and continue reducing my waist with the new corset.
I have gone camping twice this month. Camping and tightlacing can be done. The drive is long, so I had to loosen my corset to sleeping girth or I would have never made it. I drive a sedan and am really considering a mini-van so I can sit more upright and get in and out without sounding like the last clown to squeeze into the clownmobile. There are a lack of adequate mirrors while camping and ensuring my laces were parallel was a challenge. And on both trips I took my corset off in my sleep! Both trips were two nighters and on the second night both trips I took my corset off in the middle of the night without even meaning to. I guess the blow up bed in the tent is less than ideal comfort-wise.
Well, I s'pose that's me all caught up. I do hope someone reads this blog.
Please feel free to comment.
-Crazy Kel
After much deliberation and obsessive reading I have decided to blog my experiences and thoughts on tightlacing. I am not an expert or very experienced tightlacer- but rather I am documenting my process as I embark on a solo mission of waist reduction. This blog is not tightlacing 101 as there are many, many sites on the Internet that cover that information far more eloquently than I could ever manage. I shan't even bother providing links. If one is indeed that interested one would have found them all by now anyway. This blog is not a fetish blog. There are plenty of those as well, and I do not tightlace for fetish related purposes.
My Journey from the beginning.
I first began tightlacing in 2004. I read everything I could get my hands on and obligingly the Internet provided me with a cornucopia of useful information posted by generous and knowledgeable people from around the globe. I ordered a custom made 'tightlacing' corset and wondered how on earth they could make a custom corset accurately without ever meeting me. Well....the measurements were many and extraordinarily fiddly. I went to a bridal shop and asked the kind women there to measure me as I was not confident I could make such measurements accurately. They were only too glad to help and did not accept my offers of payment. In fact, all they asked for was my return so they could see my corset when it arrived!
Then I waited. This is by far the most difficult stage of tightlacing I have yet to encounter. I spent the long weeks reading and re-reading the information on how to tightlace and looking at photos of tightlacers of every size, shape, and gender.
I am not a woman of means. I am at this point in my life reaching upper-poor status and border at times on lower-middle class. I am a college student at this point and hope to make a decent living post graduation, but as it is now a custom made corset is an extravagant expenditure. It is tempting to order a less expensive corset, not because one is cheap but because it puts tightlacing within the realms of possibility. At my income level a C&S or Sue Nice corset might as well be a million dollars. It is just impossible. Saving money is not an option, I'm poor- not broke middle-class. There is a difference. So...I ordered from Meschantes. At Meschantes one can procure a custom made corset with 28 spring and spiral steel bones and a reinforced steel busk for around or under $200. Perfect. That I can do. My hope was that what I had ordered did what they advertised it would- be a real tightlacing corset that I could wear on a daily basis. My fear was that what I had ordered would be a piece of crap. In that event, $200 flushed down the toilet was a massive set-back and a foolish loss of needed money for ever imposing living costs. But never mind that now....I waited and read and finally when I stopped running to the mailbox everyday only to face disappointment- it came. I let out an audible whoop and ran- nay, skipped girlishly into the house to rip open the box like it was my birthday and this was the biggest present.
So I pull out my new corset. My first. Wow. Am I finally going to do this? Oh yes. I look it over and the grommets are sturdy, the bones are all there and the busk is firm- even formidable. There is the waist tape, the tube and the modesty panel. OK. All there. It is natural un-dyed cotton coutil. Not especially pretty but it is not for wearing over a racy top at the club. This is for me. My natural waist is about 29" and I aim to whittle it down to 25" (at least at first.) But first, I take a deep breath and remind myself that this is a process. A journey. I resist the temptation to strap it on and pull it down as far as possible just to see what my figure will look like. Well, sort of. I put it on and slowly tighten it just as I have read and tighten just a bit more. Then my conscience reminds me to loosen a bit. It is surprisingly bulky beneath my clothes. My jeans fight for space around my hips and the protruding busk makes me look like I have a great pooch beneath my shirt. Oh well, the feeling of the corset about my waist is wonderful and eventually my waist will be enviably tiny, right?
I wear it for a few hours the first day and then a few more the next. For the first week or so I wear it for 12 hours per day. Then I wear it 23/7. It is comfortable, but the muscles in my sides resisted the corset. It ached a bit for the first week, but once they submit I was very comfortable. The next week I tried wearing it to bed. Evidently organs arrange themselves in our cavities according to our vertical or horizontal orientation. I figured out it needs to be loosened a bit for bed or it feels like I have an anoconda trying to kill me in my bed. I loosen it up about an inch and sleeping is a bit more comfortable. I found that the corset does not hamper my activity but gives one an enormous appriciation for why Victorian furniture is so straight backed. Modern squashy couches have become naught more than torture devices. My couch is now too low and sinking into a forced slouch by its squishy foam cushions is agonizing. So I learned to perch myself demurely (precariously) on the hardest edge or just sit on the coffee table to watch TV. I can lay on the couch provided I have firm pillows supporting the arch of my back and my legs to ensure my body stays relatively straight. But getting comfortable is a real bitch so once I'm there I am so not getting up for shit. Don't even ask. The phone or doorbell rings every time I get it just right. I don't answer. Too bad for them. As I mentioned earlier I am in college and the seats are usually hard enough in the majority of classrooms but they are almost always too low. And the minute attached "desks"- or rather the bits of wood just smaller than a notebook that stick out are almost always too close for someone incapable of hunching over. Also, long classes will be the death of me. Or my tightlacing.
I had been tightlacing for about four months. It was winter 2004...Bush had just stolen the election despite my canvassing for Kerry- stays and all. My waist was at 26" quite comfortably and then it happened. My corset closed. I felt it when I took my corset off- I mean really felt it. The air was cold and it felt as though I had removed my exosceleton. I noticed my walking gait had become dainty and uncontrollably, almost imperceptably wiggly. My waist was remarkably small, and I had amazing curves. I had been a rather slender woman most of my life. Marching into my 30's with a bum thyroid gave me an extra 20 plus pounds. With my corset I was curvy, not slim and shapeless or doughy and dumpy- my two figure extremes. It gave me a happy outlook on my weight and pride in my body. I managed a comfortable 25". Soon enough, however my corset became loose. I could in no way afford another. Not so soon. I backed off a bit for a week or so and stopped wearing it all the time.
Here is where things went wrong all around. Not wearing my corset 23/7 caused a lapse in my discipline. I had made my first goal but my long-term goal was to reach a much smaller proportion. My lack of discipline had made it easy to lose sight of this goal. I enjoyed slouching on the couch and not worrying about dressing to suit my corset. Also, I was thinking of becoming a police officer. This was the biggest snag yet. Policing and tightlacing just don't mix and I didn't know which I wanted more. Then the very police dept. I coveted began a hiring sweep. A really big one. One does not typically just apply for a policing position. You have to wait for a periodic (usually yearly) hiring. I jumped on it and began the application process. I started weight training in preparation for the inevitable physical test and stopped corsetting altogether. The application process for policing takes absolutely forever. It was a few months before I was disqualified, and subsequently emotionally crushed. I did not make it. My only consolation was that I was competing with thousands of other applicants, and Veterans have preference. Oh well.
So I was not a cop, nor was I tightlacing. My waist had gone right back to 29". I sat on this funk until last month. I have a year left of college and took a summer job in corrections at a work release center. After working there for a few weeks I deemed the job accomodating enough for tightlacing. The desire to tightlace burned once more. And so I began again.
