Pear Breasts: The Teardrop Shape and How to Fit It

Pear-shaped breasts, often called teardrop, are narrower at the top and fuller at the bottom, with a gentle slope above the nipple and a rounded curve below it. The nipple usually points slightly down or out. It is one of the most common shapes described in any language, and it fits a wide range of bras beautifully once the cup is built for fullness in the right place.

What do pear-shaped breasts look like?

From the side, a pear is a slope and then a curve: the upper part runs gently down from the chest, and the fullness gathers in the lower half, like a drop of water about to fall. From the front, the base is usually of average width, and the two sides can be close or a little apart.

Size does not decide the shape. A small pear and a very full pear share the same profile; only the scale changes.

How do I know if my breasts are pear-shaped?

Side-on to a mirror, compare above and below the nipple. A gentle slope above and a fuller curve below, with the nipple pointing slightly down, is the pear signature.

Its neighbours are bananas, which also carry fullness low but curve upward at the end, and bottles, which are narrower where they start and sit lower on the chest. Apples are the opposite: full above and below. Plenty of women are a pear on one side and something else on the other; see One Breast Is Bigger Than the Other: The Honest Answer.

Which bras suit pear-shaped breasts?

Pears are the shape balconettes were practically designed for, and the reason is simple: the cup is deep at the bottom and low at the top, which is exactly where a pear keeps its volume.

Balconettes and demi cups hold the lower fullness and lift it forward, and the low top edge sits flat because there is less above to push against it.

Seamed cups, especially three-part cups with a vertical seam, are built to support and shape the lower breast. They are the choice for a full pear that wants support without foam.

Plunges work if you are close-set.

Full cups can gape at the top, because they are built for fullness a pear keeps lower down. That gap is not a flaw in you. It is a cup shaped for somebody else.

Moulded push-up cups move lower fullness upward, if that is a look you want for a particular outfit. Nobody needs one.

Sports bras: the lower fullness moves most, so look for encapsulated cups with a firm band.

For the cuts, see Every Bra Type Explained. For the numbers, the bra size calculator and the fitting guide.

Do pear breasts change over time?

Yes, like every shape. A study of women who had come for breast surgery found that age, body mass index, the number of pregnancies, pre-pregnancy bra size and smoking were each associated with breasts sitting lower, and that breastfeeding was not. A larger follow-up by the same team added significant weight loss to that list and found that a lack of upper-body exercise was not a factor. Both groups were surgical patients, not women in general. Pears are often where other shapes settle, which is one reason so many women recognise themselves in this one.

What does the folklore say about women with pear breasts?

What the folklore says. The Russian breast-shape lists that have circulated online since at least 2007, and that this chart is drawn from, give every shape a character. Here is what they say about this one, with the unkind parts left out.

The pear woman is independent, strong-willed and impossible to lead. Life with her is fireworks: passion, big feelings and nothing done by halves. She reaches her goals quickly and has plenty of admirers.

The lists do not agree even on that. A German blog repeating a supposedly Italian system calls pear women shy and fond of tenderness, and another Russian source calls them simple and open. Fireworks or shyness: take your pick, which is rather the point.

Is any of that true?

No. None of it comes from a study, and no study we could find has ever tested whether breast shape and character are connected. The lists name authorities that do not hold up. The "Italian sexologist" is a real author of popular books on the history of erotica, not shown to be a sexologist, and the system credited to him changes from one outlet to the next. The "Japanese doctor" cannot be found at all. The "eighteenth-century Spanish" origin has no source behind it. Where the lists disagree, and they often do, they disagree completely. Read the box above the way you would read a horoscope: for fun, and about nobody in particular.

The short version

A gentle slope on top, fullness below, nipple slightly down. Balconettes and seamed cups hold it; full cups often gape. It is where many shapes settle with time, and there is nothing to fix about that.

Sources

Read as abstracts on PubMed.

• Rinker et al. 2008, The effect of breastfeeding on breast aesthetics - factors associated with breasts sitting lower after pregnancy.
• Rinker et al. 2010, Breast ptosis: causes and cure - the same question in a larger group.