Fun fact: It’s not the straps that do the hoisting—it’s the band. When the swath of elastic that runs around your torso is too roomy, it places more pressure on the straps to hold you up, which can cause those red indents on your shoulders. Most women could stand to go down a band size and up a cup size, like from a 34C to a 32D.

Negative Underwear balconette bra, $85, negativeunderwear.com.

If your boobs are like “Nah, not having this,” it could be that your bra’s the wrong size altogether *or* that you’re putting it on wrong. “Once you have your bra band on,” Vosper and Schwab say, “use your hands to literally scoop up and place yourself on top of the underwire and pull up the cups from there.” Another thing to think about as the Great Front-Back/Back-Front Debate of 2015 rages on.

The number one sign of a well-fitted bra? The piece of fabric connecting the cups—called a gore—lies flush against the sternum. A mal gore (don’t hurt me) probably means you’ve got the wrong size or style for your build, making the bra much more likely to shift or pinch.

In an ideal world, we’d all have lingerie drawers full of perfectly fitted bras (with matching bottoms!) we’d rotate to give the elastic a chance to retighten. In the real world, we wear black bras until they’re white and nude bras until they’re black, which is gross but also why we often don’t get the support we need. Give your trusty balconette a day off between wears and hand-wash with mild detergent.

The underwire should span the range of your breast tissue from below the underarm to below the sternum—too big or too narrow and it could cause hole-making friction. And remember what we said about hand-washing? Important here because machines = warped wire.