Potato and Apricot Breasts: The East-West Shape

Potato and apricot breasts are medium in size, slightly oval and often a little irregular in outline, set apart on the chest, with nipples that point outward to the sides rather than straight ahead. Fitters call this east-west, after the compass directions the nipples face. The chart's two names capture both halves of it: the slightly uneven outline of a potato, and the soft, modest size of an apricot.

What do potato and apricot breasts look like?

From the front, the two sides sit with a clear gap between them, and each one angles slightly away from the centre, so the nipples face outward. The outline is oval rather than perfectly round, and one side may be a little flatter or longer than the other.

Side-on, the fullness tends to be even or slightly lower, and projection is moderate: neither the shallow spread of a saucer nor the length of a bottle.

How do I know if my breasts are potato or apricot shaped?

Stand facing a mirror without a bra and look at which way your nipples point. If they angle outward, towards your arms, and there is a clear gap between the breasts, this is your shape or close to it.

Its neighbours are peaches, which are also set apart but rounder and with nipples facing forward, and oars and lemons, which share the width but are shallower and sit lower. Some women are east-west on one side only, which is ordinary; see One Breast Is Bigger Than the Other: The Honest Answer.

Which bras suit potato and apricot breasts?

Two things matter: the gap in the middle and the outward angle.

A wider centre panel. Fitters call it the gore. It should lie flat on your breastbone. Wide-set breasts in a bra with a narrow gore end up with the wire resting on breast tissue at the inner edge, which digs.

Side support. Cups with an extra panel or sling at the outer side gently bring the breast forward instead of letting it sit out towards the arm. This is the single most useful feature for this shape.

Angled or side-seamed moulded cups follow the outward direction. A cup that points straight ahead can look slightly empty at the centre.

Balconettes often work, because they are cut wider and sit further apart.

Deep, narrow plunges are the style most likely to argue. Their centre is narrow and their cups are angled inward, the opposite of this shape. A plunge with a wider gore can work.

Push-up and gel-lined cups bring the sides closer together, if you ever want that look. You do not need to.

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

Is it normal for breasts to point outward?

Yes. Nipples point in all sorts of directions, forward, up, down and out, and the two sides often differ. A study of routine breast screening in the UK measured a typical volume difference between one woman's two breasts of about 2 per cent, in women with no cancer, and direction differs just as freely as size. What the NHS does ask you to notice is a change in the shape or look of your nipple that is new for you. A direction you have always had is simply your shape.

What does the folklore say about women with potato and apricot 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 potato woman has a particular charm that draws admirers without her trying. She is at her happiest loved steadily and for a long time, and the lists describe her as looking for the one person rather than the many: warm, even-tempered, clever, with family close to the centre of her life.

The apricot half has no character anywhere we looked. It appears on a single Russian-captioned chart of shapes, as a name and nothing more.

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

Medium, oval, set apart, nipples pointing outward. Look for a wider centre and side support, try angled moulded cups, and be wary of narrow plunges. The direction is a shape, not a symptom, unless it is new.

Sources

• Hudson et al. 2020, Ethnic and age differences in right-left breast asymmetry - asymmetry in routine screening, read as an abstract.
• NHS, Symptoms of breast cancer in women - the changes worth checking.