'What's the difference between spiral steel boning and flat steel boning?' It had obviously been sent back by a previous mail order customer and then sent out to me.A question that we address frequently here at Atomic Jane, we thought it would be super beneficial for us to tackle this topic head-on and clear everything up once and for all! Not only had plastic boning been used throughout (including either side of the lacing eyelets at the back) but the boning at the waist had actually broken into several pieces. Many years ago I bought a waspie waist cincher from a designer lingerie brand which was hugely reduced on sale. If you buy a ‘corset’ or ‘waist cincher’ from a fashion lingerie company that doesn’t specialise in corsets or shapewear then the use of spiral steel boning is not guaranteed. Spring steel boning does increase the life of a corset, in particular the busk, but it you are only wearing a corset on a special occasion it is not a deal breaker.

The better corset companies (including What Katie Did and the company mentioned in Reddit) use Spring steel which, as the name suggests, springs back into shape. If you want to double check the easiest way is to use a magnet. If a company has been around for a while and describes it’s corsets as steel boned then you can be pretty sure that metal boning is actually used. The company has been around for many years and really wouldn’t be where it is today if it didn’t use metal boning, especially as it states it uses metal boning in all the product descriptions! The question brought up on Reddit was about an affordable corset brand where the writer thought the boning felt too flexible to be metal. To put your mind at rest, if you purchase a corset from a reputable corset company - by which I mean a company that specialises in corsets to shape, not an add on to their lingerie collection steel boning will be used.

Flat steel boning