GB2041223A - Massage brassiere - Google Patents

Abstract

A bust massage brassiere comprises an outer portion (111) having substantially cupped contour, an inner portion (112) of flexible material substantially conforming in peripheral outline to said outer portion and having a cupped contour presenting a concave rear surface and providing a pocket for receiving the bust of the wearer, said outer and inner portions being joined at their peripheral portions to provide a containing space between said outer and inner portions, and vibration generating means (22) being housed in said containing space for producing vibration and being coupled to said inner portion (112) so that the vibration from the vibration generating means can be applied to the bust of the wearer via said inner portion for massage purpose. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Massage brassiere This invention relates to a bust massage apparatus and more particularly to a massage apparatus having a brassiere form so that which can be worn for constant application of massage and physical therapy to the bust of the wearer to stimulate the internal tissues of the bust and to properly promote the endocrine or pituitary gland and the blood circulation of the bust in orderto achieve the full natural developement of the bust. All women have by nature a strong love of beauty and especially they would be proud to possess a full bust. Thus, it makes those having hypoplastic or ptosed or atrophied bust to have an inferiority complex. For remedial purposes, various methods such as taking medicine, injection of medical compound, surgical operation, physical therapy and the like have been suggested.Although medicine, injection and surgical operation would be effective to swell up the bust for some women, there is a great possibility to cause physical injury or physiological disturbance and adversely affect one's health due to operator's negligence, and also, the medical compound remaining in human body tends to present a harmful aftereffect. For example, the foreign substances, injected or added into thetis- sues of the bust by improper surgical operation may bring about inflammation with the result of deformation of the bust and great pains for life. Moreover, these foreign substances may become the cause of breast cancer. Thus, it is costly and dangerous to take such methods.

Therefore, for the purpose of promoting the developement of the bust, it is preferred that the bust may receive an application of physical therapy in order to obtain natural swelling up without any aftereffect or sideffect. There have previously been various means for applying physical therapy to the bust. For instance, vacuum suction has been proposed. However, the vacuum suction apparatus, which is designed to swell up the bust by suction, may cause underised results such as edema and ecchymosis of the breast, in spite of its simple construction and fair convenience in use. An apparatus for producing a pulsating jet of water against the bust in order to stimulate the breast tissues has also been provided.However, due to the hydraulic requirements of the arrangement, such apparatus has various limitations in use, for example, it has to be used in a particular place and in a particular posture of the woman to be treated (i.e. the woman to be treated has to take her undergarment off). Accordingly, a handgrip-type (or portable) massage apparatus for applying massage to the bust, which can be used to obtain good results without side effect, would be most preferred. However, the conventional handgrip-type massage apparatus is just capable of application of massage to a very small area of the bust by local vibration, the user is required to hold the handgrip-type massage apparatus to her hands and change the position of application all the time in order to cause overall vibration of the breast.Further, with a handgrip-type massage apparatus the user can not accomplished the simultaneous application of massage to both breasts. That is to say, the breasts have to be massaged one after another, which is time-consuming.

Also, it is laborious to hand-hold such conventional handgrip-type massage apparatus, and the user cannot do other things she would like to do at the same time. Owing to these inconvience and disadvantages, the hand-held type of apparatus can hardly be used for constant practice of massage.

In view of the above-mentioned disadvantages, it is an object of this invention to provide a novel bust massage apparatus which is able to eliminate said advantages and to render improved massage result.

According to this invention, the bust massage apparatus is constructed as having a brassiere form.

The bust massage brassiere according to this invention comprises an outer portion having a substantially cupped contour, an inner portion of flexible material substantially conforming in peripheral outline to said outer portion and having a cupped contour presenting a concave rear surface and providing a pocket for receiving the bust of a wearer, said outer and inner portions being joined at their peripheral portions to provide a containing space between said outer and inner portions, and vibration generating means being housed in said containing space for producing vibration and being coupled to said inner portion so that the vibration from the vibration generating means can be applied to the bust of the wearer via said inner portion form massage purpose.

In a preferred embodiment of this invention, the bust massage brassiere includes a pair of said outer-inner portion assemblies connected together by a band portion, each of said outer portions being made to normally present a convex front surface simulating the contour of a bust of predetermined size and shape, and the vibration generating means in each of the said outer-inner portion assemblies includes a miniaturized DC motor, an eccentric wheel fixedly connected to the output shaft of the motor in a manner that the axial line of the eccentric wheel is parallelly deviated from that of the motor shaft, the eccentric wheel being coupled to the said inner portion by means of a ring attached to the front surface of the said inner portion in the containing space.The ring and the eccentric wheel are coaxially coupled in a manner that the eccentric is snugly fitted in the ring while free rotation of the ring relative to the eccentric wheel is permitted. With such arrangement, when the motor is in operation, the said inner portion will be caused to effect reciprocating motion whereby massage is applied to the bust of the wearer. In this embodiment, the motor are energized by a power supply which may be a dry cell or a rechargeable alkali battery such as Jungner cell, or an electronic device which may receive power from an available AC source and provide a suitable DC output for the motor. The power supply is made of small size and placed in a receptacle formed on the band portion which connects the pair of said outer-inner portion assemblies together.The outputs of the power supply are connected to the motors through a central control switching unit arranged on said band portion. The central control switching unit may include a first switch means for selectively switching on-off one of the motors or both of the motors such that this massage brassiere may selectively operates either in a mode of single side massage or in a mode of both side massage, and a second swith means for volume control of vibration.

The bust massage brassiere according to this invention can be used at any time and place without limitations. The bust massage brassiere of this invention can be worn in place for use by a woman even who wears clothes. It renders a great conventience to the user. For instance, the user can wear it without the need of taking her undergarment or even her thin clothes off. The user need not hold or support it by hand so that she is permitted to do household or other affairs during operation of this bust mass- age brassiere. Massage may be accomplished with outthe intervention of the user's hands, thus the user's hands would not feel tired during operation of this bust massage brassiere. Further, this bust massage brassiere can be used by a woman in any posture for example in sitting or lying posture.Therefore, this bust massage brassiere is comfortable and convenient to use and is welcome to women for constant application of massage. Thus, the massage brassiere of this invention may be used to stimulate the metabolism of the internal tissues of the bust, to promote the blood circulation of the bust and the endocrine secretion of the pituitary gland, so as to obtain the full developement of the bust, to cause the bust resilient and preclude bust ptosis and atrophy radically.

This invention will be readily understandable from the detailed description given hereinbelow with reference to the accompanying drawings by way of example, in which: Fig. lisa front elevation of an embodiment of the bust massage brassiere according to this invention; Fig. 2 is a horizontal sectional view taken along the line ll-ll of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a vertical sectional view taken along the line Ill-Ill of Fig. 2 and showing the vibration generating means incorporated in the embodiment of Fig. 1; and Fig. 4 is a sectional view on an enlarged scale, taken along the line IV-IV of Fig. 3 to illustrate the principle of the vibration generating means incorporated in the embodiment of Fig. 1.

Referring to Fig. 1-4, there is shown one embodiment of the bust massage brassiere according to this invention. As shown in the drawings, the bust massage brassiere, generally indicated at 1, comprises a pair of bust-receiving pockets 11 joined together by a band portion 12, the side edges of the bust pockets being connected by seams 13-13 to forward edges of the back strap sections 14-14, one of which is provided at its free end with hook fasteners 15, while the other is provided at its free end with a tab 16 having eye fasteners 17 for engagement by the hook fasteners 15 as in a conventional brassiere. Sholder straps 18-18 are connected between the upper edges of the bust pockets 11-11 and the back strap sections 14-14.

As apparent from Figs 2 and 3, the bust receiving pockets 11 each consist of an outer layer 111 and an inner fabric layer 112 joined together as will presently more fully appear. The outer layer 111 is fullfashioned into cup shape so as to present a convex front surface simulating the contour of a bust of predetermined size and shape, this full-fashioning being preferably carried out by suitably molding foamedplastic material to give it the desired shape as in manufacturing a conventional brassiere.The inner fabric layer 112 is also full-fashioned and substantially conforms to the outer layer at its peripheral edge and has a cupped contour presenting a concave rear surface of less rounded curvature than said outer layer 111, so as to provide a containing space between them in their assembled relation on one hand, this containing space converging at the margins where the edges of the layers are brought together, and to provide a pocket for receiving the bust of a wearer on the other hand.

Since the inner fabric layer 112 serves as a massaging fabric layer 112 should be properly selected in order to avoid injury of the bust skin during massage operation. The fabric of the inner layer 112 may be of any suitable porous material, as for instance, marquisette, nylon or the like, which material is relatively light weight and flexible, but is substantially non-stretchable or it may be of a porous flexible lining material especially suited for soft engagement with the skin.

In each of the containing spaces defined between the outer and inner layers 111 and 112, a vibration generating means 22 is provided. The vibration generating means 22 includes a miniaturized DC motor 221 being mounted onto the inner layer 112 through a mounting means 222, as shown in Fig. 3, with its output shaft 223 located in a suitable position outwardly of the surface of the inner layer, and an eccentric wheel 224 fixedly connected to the output shaft 223 in a manner that the axial line of the eccentric wheel 224 is parallelly deviated from that of the motor shaft 223. As shown in Figs 3 and 4, the eccentric wheel 224 is snugly encircled by a ring 225 which is connected onto the inner layer 112 through a mounting means 226. The mounting means 222 and 226 may be attached to the surface of the inner layer 112 by any conventional adhesion or locking means not shown.It is preferred that the motor 221 is located in a position adjacent to the central portion of the bust so that the output shaft 223 of the motor is located in a position substantially facing the center of the lower half portion of the bust when the bustreceiving pocket 11 formed by the inner and outer layers is put on. The eccentric wheel 224 and the ring 225 are coaxially arranged in a manner that the eccentric wheel is snugly fitted in the ring while free rotation of the ring with respect to the eccentric wheel is permitted. With such arrangement, when the motor 222 is in operation, due to the fact that the axial lines of the eccentric wheel and the ring are deviated from one another with a distance 1 (see Fig.

4), the revolution of the eccentric wheel 224 about the axis of the motor shaft 223 will cause the ring 225 and thus the inner layer 112 to effect reciprocating motion orvibration in a direction substantially as indicated by arrows shown in Figs. 3 and 4, whereby massage action is applied to the bust of the wearer.

Referring to Figs 1 and 2, the motor 221 of the vibration generating means 22 is energized by a power supply 19 which may be a dry cell or a rechargeable alkali battery such as Jungner cell, or an electronic device which may receive power from an available AC source and provide an output suitable for the motor. The power supply 19 is made of small size and placed in a receptacle 121 formed on the band portion 12 which connects the pair of bustreceiving pockets 11 formed by the outer-inner portion assemblies. The outputs of the power supply 19 are connected to the motors by lines 21 through a central control switching unit 20 arranged on the band portion 12.The central control switching unit include a first switch means 201 for selectively onoff one of the motors 221 or both of the motors 221 and a second switch means 202 for volume control of vibration, so that the bust massage brassiere 1 is permitted to selectively operate either in a mode of single side massage or in a mode of both side massage, and the volume of vibration force can be adjusted as desired. Since the reciprocating motion is mainly applied to the lower half portion of the bust, the motion thus produced will render the bust an upward push in addition to the overall vibration, thus effect to prevent breast ptosis.

While this invention has been described and illustrated by way of an embodiment as hereinabove, there are still many modifications within the scope of the spirit of the invention, for instance, the modification of the location and orientation of the motor, the modification of the construction of the vibration generating means, the modification of the shape of the outer layer 111, the addition of a gusset or diaphragm band secured along the lower edges of the bust-receiving pockets and having horizontal elastic inserts for firm engagement of the massage brassiere with the bust of the wearer, and the addition of a thin layer of fabric covering the front surface of the outer layer 111. All such modifications, additions and equivalent substitutions should be considered as falling within the scoper of this invention as described in the claims.

Claims (7)

1. A bust massage brassiere comprising an outer portion having a substantially cupped contour, an inner portion of flexible material substantially conforming in peripheral outline to said outer portion and having a cupped contour presenting a concave rear surface and providing a pocket for receiving the bust of a wearer, said outer and inner portions being joined at their peripheral portions to provide a containing space between said outer and inner portions, and vibration generating means housed in said containing space for producing vibration and coupled to said inner portion so that the vibration from the vibration generating means can be applied to the bust of the wearer via said inner portion of massage purposes.

2. A bust massage brassiere as claimed in claim 1, wherein said outer portion is full-fashioned to presetn a convex front surface simulating the contour of a bust of predetermined size and shape and said inner portion has a lesser projection than said outer portion.

3. A bust massage brassier as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the vibration generating means includes a DC motor, an eccentric wheel connected to the output shaft of the motor, and a ring attached to the front surface of the said inner portion, the ring and the wheel being coaxially coupled in a manner that the wheel is snugly fitted in the ring while free rotation of the ring relative to the wheel is permitted.

4. A bust brassiere as claimed in claim 3, wherein the motor is energized by a power placed in a receptacle formed in a band portion connecting the bustreceiving pockets formed by said outer-inner portion assemblies.

5. A bust massage brassiere as claimed in claim 4, wherein the power supply is coupled to the motor through a central control switching unit arranged on the band portion, the central control switching unit being adapted to control the operation of the motor.

6. A bust massage brassiere as claimed in any one of preceding claims, wherein the vibration generating means is located in a position such that the vibration force source is provided adjacent to the center of the lower half portion of the wearer's bust.

7. A bust massage brassiere substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.