[AnnieBL]

I have never been able to find a solution to this problem. Your own technique presupposes that you already have a relatively comfortable bra to wear, and enough boobage for the second stage to be meaningful (though if one doesn't the whole exercise is a bit futile). The basic problem, as Pansy-Mae has said in Diva's thread, is the shape of the rib cage. While the female rib cage is normally substantially tapered downwardly, the male rib cage is typically much less tapered and may even be tapered upwardly, in my case by a substantial amount (underbust 42", overbust 39.5"). Pansy-Mae's photographs and measurements show a nice (enviable) downward taper but clearly even this is not enough to make any sense of the traditional measurement technique. What seems to be needed is a factor that assesses and allows for rib cage taper. In the case of your own method, perhaps this factor would be applied to the band size to boob size ratio? Or maybe the calculations should be somehow based on an average of the under and overbust measurements, subtracted from the actual bust measurement? Just my thoughts.