CH Cherry is a brand new bra for Ewa Michalak and the first CH cut she has released in a long time. This cut is slightly narrower and more projected than the CHP and while both work on me, I prefer the CH. It’s a cut that’s in hot demand and for whatever reason, Ewa rarely/if ever makes them anymore. Even by special request, she’s more apt to custom make a bra as a CHP than a CH. While the differences are subtle in my size range, they’re enough to make me wish the CH style was in regular production.

I’ve somewhat struggled with sitting down and writing this review, because while this bra is great on paper and I will be keeping it for reasons I’ll explain in a bit, I’m a bit underwhelmed by it. I think I had Cherry all hyped up in my head and certain aspects of it simply failed to deliver. Just in case you don’t know, CH is a padded half cup with 2 vertical seams that comes with cookie pockets and removable pads. I prefer not to use them as they take away a bit of immediate projection so for this review, all pictures were taken without the removable pads. First, let’s take a look:

Oh myyyy. So Cherry has all the things that would make up a damn sexy bra. It’s red. It’s black. It’s red and black. It has black seaming. It plays to the new-ish “cage bra” trend with extra spaghetti straps attached to the regular shoulder straps. Seriously, what’s not to love? And from the front, it looks pretty good. At first glance, nothing really seems amiss, although from the stock photos on Ewa’s website I expected the color to be a more vibrant red. In person, it’s kind of a muted maroon. Also – the extra straps are great in theory, but they’re almost impossible to adjust. They are wider than the adjustment sliders and practically take pliers to apply the force needed to make them shorter or longer. Once you get them the right length, the part of the strap that’s doubled up after adjustment likes to twist around and not lie flat.

Fit problem #1 – it’s huge. The cups are taller than other CH models and very open on top, therefore they swallow up my short roots. If I add the pad, some of that extra space goes away on my left side but there’s still noticeable gaping on my right. The gapping is enhanced by the typically Ewa-wide placement of the shoulder straps. Also worthy of noting: the shoulder straps are the most uncomfortable straps I’ve ever met. They’re very narrow (only 0.4″ wide) and very very thin and unpadded. They feel plasticky and cheap and I’m not impressed at all. They’re painful and dig into my shoulders, and the attachment point to the spaghetti straps feels rough and scratchy. I know Ewa can do better than this.

I believe this bra was designed with cakes-on-a-plate cleavage in mind, but I get absolutely zero cleavage. With an almost complete lack of upper fullness, the spaghetti straps sit on my muscle above my upper root and feel pretty oddly placed, to be honest. They also stick out of shirt necklines. I think this was Ewa’s intention, but I’m not an overtly sexy person. I like the extra straps for the bedroom, but not for taking the girls out on the town. And since nobody’s breasts are perfectly symmetrical, each spaghetti strap winds up adjusted to a different length and the obvious sliders that scream “bra strap!!” stand out from above your tee shirt and look kind of awkward.

From the side profile you can see where the extra straps sit well above where my upper root is. You can also see this bra’s MAJOR selling point. Projection. All the projection, ever. This bra needs a therapist. Not only are the wires nice and narrow, these cups basically go straight out from the wire, and my boobs do a little happy-boobie dance while eating up all that space. I loooooove the amount of room in the bottom of the cup, however I’m not really a fan of how much bigger I feel it makes me look. I’m already petite and somewhat disproportionate. While this bra doesn’t actually add a size, it does definitely present what’s already there for all the world to see. The gore is wider than other EM bras, which could be problematic for some, but the cups are also very projected at the center.

Fit problem #2 – the band. It’s giant. Actually, it’s not far off from its tagged size. It’s a 65/30 band, but a lot of EM’s bands run tight, and 60 bands are custom order. I hoped I could get away with a 65 band here, but I cannot. It stretches easily to 30″ and probably easily to 31.” Coupled with my recent drop in weight, it’s just not working for me. I’ve got it closed on the tightest hooks here and obviously, there’s room to spare.

To sum up – I could have ordered a 60FF and been fine. So with all of this in mind, one might ask why I’m keeping CH Cherry. Well, I could exchange it, but return shipping to Poland is cost prohibitive. Instead of pay to send it back, I decided to make it my project bra. Basically, I kept it because it’s a CH. I can’t give up something that is so totally accommodating to my shape and provides the amount of room at the wire I need. However, it needs several alterations to really make it wearable for me. I wanted to review the bra as it was made so the baseline was out there and my readers know what to expect if they ordered one. Now that I’ve done that, I’m making myself a Cherry Frankenbra. I’m altering the band shorter, completely replacing the shoulder straps with something more comfortable and moving the placement of them in roughly a centimeter, lowering the extra spaghetti straps, and making them removable by using a black slip ring instead of a solid black ring. This way I can undo them from the main shoulder straps and tuck them down into the bra cup if I’m not feeling the extra straps that day. I might also take the annoying sliders off and make them non-adjustable, although I’m undecided on that since my size can fluctuate slightly and I don’t want them to dig in on a day I’m running particularly swollen.

I’ve gotten to work on these alterations the last few days and while the cups themselves will still be too big, the new placement of the straps helps minimize the gapping. I do believe this bra is projected enough to allow me to wear the pads, so I’m going to do that if I need to. I have nothing else like Cherry in my closet and I’m very happy to have another projected half cup in my rotation. I just feel like this bra had a lot of potential it didn’t quite live up to.

I’ll be back to post a before and after comparison once I’m done with the adjustments. Thanks for stopping by!