In the name of all that is pink and frilly--I will punish you!

My favorite online sex shop recently added a few shiny new corsets to their product line-up, including this one:

Holy ribbons and lace galore, Sailor Moon!

I wanted to get it, but I kept going back and forth on it. Would it be practical? Where would I wear it to, besides in the transition between blogging diligently (cough cough) in a corset to being ravished on a cat hair-covered bed by an enthusiastic boyfriend? I showed my roommate, who is surprisingly tolerant and supportive of my Eden Fantasys habit. She communicated to me through a series of squeals and pointing that I should definitely get this corset and then wear it for her.

I love my roommate.

A few days later, my Stretch lace corset, by Coquette, arrived. Like all other lingerie items I have received from Eden Fantasys, this cute corset came neatly wrapped in pink tissue paper. I tried to save the tissue paper as much as I could while removing the scotch tape (frugal family habit?) but I was a little too excited about the corset itself really make too much of a salvation effort.

The corset comes "fully assembled"--the two shoulder straps and four garter straps are attached. All six of these straps are removable if you like the strapless look better, or if you want to wear your corset with jeans or a skirt and the garter straps are just getting in the way. The product care tag is also easily removable since it is attached to a golden safety pin through which a tiny loop of ribbon on the inside of the corset is threaded. This is a huge improvement over previous Coquette care tags that I have seen, which were simply attached to plastic loops punched through the piece itself. I think I would have cried if they had used that same method on all that pretty lace.

As you can see, three very pretty solid pink bows decorate the front of the corset. One lies right in the middle of the chest, ala Sailor Moon, while the other two share the spotlight right above the three inches (rough guestimate) of black ruffles. Some others have complained that three bows is two too many. I beg to differ. If you take away those two cute bows on the bottom, the whole corset becomes very plain. If you want to be cute, you've gotta go all the way!

There is no underwire in the cups, which actually makes it much more comfortable for me to wear while still providing me with a bit of support. As you can see, however, my boobage is pretty tiny, requiring minimal support. If your boobies are larger than mine, you may actually get some decent cleavage going on with this corset, but I'm not sure if you'll get enough support out of it.

There are nine plastic bones in all, five in the front and four in the back. Each bone is covered with black lace through which a thin pink ribbon is threaded. The same design lines the top of the bust. It's the perfect way to draw the eye to the slimming contours created by the lines. I was a little worried because one of the ribbons seemed a little too long or too loose for the lace it was threaded through. It "bagged out" a little at the bottom. I fixed the problem by gently tugging on sections of it throughout the length of the bone so that the extra length was less obvious.

And of course--the lace! Jeezus H Christopher Columbus! THE LACE. It's pink floral lace overlaid on a black background and it's just--GUH. I thank my lucky stars that it wasn't sparkly lace, or my head might have exploded. I can't say anything about it that can't be said by the photos. It's very pretty and it's well executed. No unevenness that I could tell. A small black ruffle decorates the top of the bust, but doesn't go all the way around the back. The thicker ruffles that line the bottom do.

I regret that the garter straps and shoulder straps are not pictured fully here. I'll have that fixed next week. As mentioned before, all six are removable by simply unhooking them from the fabric loop they are attached to, the same way you might remove the straps from a convertible bra. All six straps are adjustable to a sufficient enough degree that if you can fit into the corset, you should be able to find the strap length that suits your body type. The garter clips were of the slide-the-nub-into-the-metal-catch variety, rather than the possibly simpler clamp-style clips. I've never used these contraptions before, so I was pretty confused about how to attach them to my thigh highs. The boyfriend insisted that I needed special thigh highs with special loops for garter straps, but after watching a Youtube video, I understood that you just slide the stocking between the nub and the catch and slide the nub into place. The only reason it didn't work for me that evening is that the only stocking I have are elastic top, which is a mite too thick for the garter clips to work. From what I could experiment with, the clips themselves were sturdy enough, and are covered from plain view by an extension of black ribbon.

Ah, the back. The one and only thing I didn't like about this corset. Hence the black and white. To signify troubling times ahead.

If the universe were perfect, this corset would have had a lovely lace-up back. However, the folks at Coquette probably decided that it already had too much ribbon (psh! no such thing!) and so went with a hook-and-eye closure instead. Unfortunately, this means that the corset is much less adjustable size-wise than if it had, say, a ribbon lace-up back.

The hook and eye closures run the length of the back with two sets of hooks. I ordered a size small, so according to the size chart, the smaller setting will most likely fit those with band size 34 and waist size 26" and the larger should be squeeze-innable for band size 36 and waist size 28". Unfortunately, I am just a teeny tiny inch larger than the advised size range for waist.

So why didn't I ask for a medium? Because I have two other pieces of lingerie by Coquette, and while mediums fit my waist and hips a little better, medium pieces with defined busts tend to look goofy on me, as if they're designed for my size torso plus larger breasts. So it was either look ridiculous but feel comfortable or look attractive but feel like the stuffing was being squeezed out of me. Lesser of two evils?

Being nearly too large for the corset meant that doing up the hook and eye clasps by myself was a near-impossible feat. I had to go through a full set of yoga stretches (mild exaggeration) just to warm up my arms to the point where they were flexible enough to get all of the clasps done. It took me about twenty minutes and a lot of pain. The next time I put it on, I had the boyfriend to help me and it only took two minutes. The lesson here? I've totally been taking my boyfriend for granted.

Once on, the corset isn't exactly something so comfortable you would want to lounge around in it all day. I wouldn't want to be wearing it for more than an hour, tops. And eating in it? Forget it! I'd be way too worried about getting food on it, never mind how impossible it would be to put any food in my stomach with that amount of cute wrapped around me. If you do get it dirty, however, I would recommend gently hand-washing it in cold water and laying flat to dry. No bleach!

Despite the mild discomfort that comes with wearing this corset for longer periods of time, I still absolutely love it. It's ridiculously pretty and cute and I'm a fan of how I look in it. I'll probably wear it this Halloween paired with my home-made pink kitty ears.

                       

$72.99Stretch lace corset Corset by Coquette Material: Lace / Mesh / Satin Buy from EdenFantasys

This product was provided free of charge to the reviewer.