If every pretty bra in a size 18 to 24 cuts you in half, your body isn't the problem. The band is.

You know the moment. You take the bra off and there it is in the mirror: a deep red line under your bust, two shiny dents on your shoulders, and a groove straight across your back that you can still trace with your finger.

In between, it's spent the whole time riding up. You tug it down on the school run. You hitch the straps in the queue at Tesco. Your top clings to the roll the band has pushed up above it, so the cardigan goes back on, even when it's warm.

And slowly the story you tell yourself changes. Maybe bras just aren't meant for women my size. Maybe pretty is for other people now.

Every fix you tried makes sense on paper. Bigger band? The pressure goes, but now it floats up between your shoulder blades and your bust drops with it. Tighter band? It holds, and cuts in harder. Extenders give you a centimetre or two and nothing else.

Then there's the 'full support' bra from the high street. Thick, beige, four hooks down the back. It hurts less, but you catch sight of it and feel about seventy.

Here's what they all share. Every one of them hangs your entire bust off one thin strip of elastic and a row of hooks. Change the size, change the colour, add more hooks, and you've still got all that weight pulling on the same narrow line across your back. That line was never going to win.

Most pretty bras in plus sizes are a smaller design stretched up. The cups get bigger but the band stays a slim strip, held by hooks and an underwire. On a fuller figure, all that weight drags down on that strip, so it digs into the softest part of your back and squeezes a roll above and below it.

The wire does the same at the front, pressing into your ribs. The hooks pull hardest at one point. The straps are thin, so they saw into your shoulders.

It was never about your body being 'too much'. It's about too much weight on too little fabric. Spread that weight over a wide, smooth panel and wide straps, and the digging, rolling and riding up have nothing left to cause them.

The ShapeChic™ Original Bra throws out the thin strip completely. There are no hooks and no clasps. You pull it on over your head like a vest, ease the cups into place, and you're done.

At the back is one wide, smooth panel that lies flat against you instead of slicing across you. That's what flattens back rolls rather than creating them. Full sides gather the spill under your arms and tuck it forward into the cups. Wide cushioned straps share the load across your shoulders.

And the lift comes without a single wire. The front is pretty lace, the kind you thought you'd had to give up. It comes in S to 4XL and seven colours, so it's the bra you'd actually choose, not the one you settle for.

This is the test women do first, and it's the one that sells it. Pull on your most clingy top over your old bra and turn sideways to the mirror. You'll see the band line, the bulge above it and the bump of the hooks.

Now do it in ShapeChic. The back reads as one smooth curve from shoulder to waist because there's no strip pushing anything up and no hooks underneath. Your bust sits higher and forward, so your waist shows again. That's why so many women say they look two dress sizes smaller in the same top.

Take it off and check your skin. No trench. No shoulder dents. No wire mark under your bust. That's the wide panel doing exactly what it should.

The wrap dress has been hanging there for two years because it showed every lump the bra made. That's what changes first.

With your bust lifted and your back smooth, the wrap sits the way it did on the hanger. You stand taller because nothing is dragging your shoulders forward. You walk through the school gates, into a friend's birthday drinks, round the shops in town, and you're not tugging, hitching or folding your arms over yourself.

You stop thinking about your bra at all. You just feel like yourself again, the woman who used to enjoy getting dressed. That's what you were really missing, and it was never a smaller body. It was the right construction.

Go back to that changing room. Lace in one hand, beige in the other, and the feeling that a woman in a size 18 to 24 has to pick which kind of miserable she'd prefer.

You don't. The cause was a thin band carrying weight it was never built for. ShapeChic replaces it with a wide panel, full sides, wide straps and wire-free lift, under lace you'll actually want to show off.

Right now you can claim Buy 1, Get 2 FREE: three bras for the price of one, in any of the seven colours, with free delivery. Every day you wait is another day of grooves, rolls and cardigans in the sunshine. Try them for 30 days. If you don't love them, send them back.