Right, most important things first: the giant fake boobs.

While it would be possible to shove a pair (or twelve) of socks down a bra to give a reasonable impression of a rack for the audience’s sake, as a light entertainer I know full well my fake jubblies are going to be groped. Therefore I feel I would be doing my fellow entertainers a disservice if my fake jugs were not at equal or greater levels of gropability than the real thing.

My work so far:

The original pair of USLES melons was a sizable bra stuffed with half a plastic bottle and socks wrapped up with duct tape. It felt exactly like you would expect half a plastic bottle to feel and the duct tape was hardly the most comfortable material so I set out to create the best fake assets possible for the next show. The next thing I know it’s three hours until the show and I’m in need of a new pair of hooters; I shoved a couple of cups of birdseed into a pair of tights and called it a day. My creations were more comfortable and felt better than a plastic bottle but were closer to executive stress ball than realistic knockers. The birdseed Mk2s, made for a dame double act, were a slight improvement as I didn’t pack the seed in as much but still had some stress ball qualities.

Current research:

My first attempt at improving the feel was getting a better fitting bra. The largest Primark had to offer was a paltry 36C; it had a hard time containing both my manly, 40” chest and D cup sweater kittens. I upgraded to a slightly better 38DD from Tesco but the birdseed bangers are still unnaturally mouldable.

Searching through cross dresser forums has given me a number of possible solutions to attempt. The most widely suggested artificial bosoms were silicon breast forms. Undoubtedly the connoisseur’s choice but a little outside my price range with most costing hundreds of pounds. Anything I was going to make would have to be in the form of balloons filled with a variety of fun liquids.

As you would expect, balloons filled with air is a poor substitute. I used them for one scene in a panto and not only are they a terrible imitation of real airbags but, having no weight, they slowly rose during the scene until they ended up just below my chin when I came to pop them.

Balloons filled with water gave a better show; they have weight, bounce and jiggle although to get them to an acceptable size the balloons looked pretty stretched. They passed the stress tests (dropped three times from a height of 6’) but if I wear them I know I’ll constantly be worrying about a catastrophic boobsplosion while on stage. Also the water bongos can’t be shaped easily.

Two of the more interesting fillers were gelatine and water retaining gel crystals (used in gardening). Gelatine has good elasticity and firmness but tests have shown it to return to a liquid at body temperature. It also can go off, so if gelatine does make the cut I’ll have to whip up a fresh batch of baps just before the shows. The gel was disappointing – while it has a decent consistency, there’s no firmness to it. Being the mad scientist that I am, I then combined the gelatine and the gel crystals in an attempt to merge the best qualities of both substances. The result is simply too firm, with a lumpy consistency; definitely not the properties I want for my improvised chesticles.

Future work:

Experiments continue in searching for the ultimate fake sin cushions. Research is now turning to getting the right shape, possibly by creatively shaping Ziploc sandwich bags or using 3’ latex balloons – also less chance of rupturing my twin peaks. Blind grope tests shall have to be conducted in Oxford for the final product; would any girls mind acting as a control? Purely for science, you understand.