Breast size classification. How does it work?

[gaaxure]

I have literally 0 how the hell that shit works. 49 triple c... what? A cups are supposed to be small and they get bigger with every letter, I get that much, but why add the number to it if the letters are deciding the size? And what's with double and triple stuff? Why can't it be universal like shoe size?

And for the life of me I can't understand you people when you post here asking "My breast size is (insert arbitrary combination of letters and numbers here) is it normal?" and then don't post the picture. What the hell am I to make of that.

Updates

+1 y

So Why do you use the letter? Isn't it more convinient to use numbers? say 35X37 instead of coming up with unnecessarily elaborate letter system?

[fauchelevent]

Actually, some breasts can be small and still be an F cup :P Like this lady who is a 30 F but certainly doesn't look like it when you look at the G cup lady beside her:

lh5.googleusercontent.com/.../...age--37140991.jpg

Honestly, it's confusing for me too. What makes it even worse is every store sizes differently so you can be one size in one store and another in a different one. In one store, I can be a C cup in one style of bra and a D or DD in another and my breasts are not huge at all. They're pretty small. Then I go into another store and a C cup bra is gaping way too wide and doesn't fit.

So apparently the cup size is the size of your breast in relation to your rib cage. Your breasts could be quite a large cup and still be pretty small just based on the difference between your ribs and your breasts apparently which is confusing and I don't really get it, but here :P

https://bosomgalore.com/bra-sizing-explained/

[Anonymous]

The number is for chest size, the letter for boob size. The band around the chest also has a size, not just the cups. However, the two sizes influence each other. An 80C has about the same cup size as an 85B. But a different band size. The 80C will therefore feel tighter around the ribs.
The double or triple letters are just to make women feel less insecure about their size. DD actually just means E, but doesn't sound as enormous. AA is one size smaller than A, but they didn't have any letters that came before it so this was the solution.

[musicbrain5]

The number is the the band size - the number of inches around the chest just under the breasts. The cup size is determined by measuring around the bust directly over the nipple line and around the back, then subtracting the band size from that number.

Here's a good my take on bra sizes www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a8987-how-bra-sizing-works

[musicbrain5]

The letters only determine cup volume. The band size is the real size. A 30 D has a smaller cup volume than a 38 D, for example. And a 34 B has the same cup volume as a 30 D or a 28 DD.

[gaaxure]

OK correct me if I'm wrong, so the number is the circumference of your ribcage under your breasts and the letters are the size of your actual breasts right? The thing that's bothering me is this: WHY do you use the unnecessarily complicated letter system to convey the size of something that's measured in already existing units?

[musicbrain5]

I think because it keeps things simpler. Bra shopping is already a nightmare and having all those different number combinations would be so confusing.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

bruh, there's this thing called google!