Pretty and Plugged In
There’s more than one way to recharge your batteries—or those of your most necessary gadgets—during a long workday. This snazzy Glam Personal Media Case from Kangaroom nestles all of your electronics in separate cushy sections as they charge, keeping cords neat and out of sight. $10 at greatusefulstuff.com.
Three Squares in One
While spending months in the hospital with her ailing daughter, an entrepreneurial mom noticed nurses’ lunchboxes bulging with breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s when she created the 12-Hour Shift Bag, a dual-compartment tote that handles hot and cold foods with ample space for multiple meals, snacks, cutlery, even ice! $27 at balanceddaylunchkit.com.
Hold Everything!
The hippest way to ensure you have essential supplies at your fingertips? The Med Pack, a belt pack with 17 pockets and pouches in varying shapes and sizes, including one with a Velcro closure for valuables. Just grab, snap on the adjustable belt and go. $21 at nursepropack.com.
Bag the Handbag
Bypass heavy totes—and shoulder soreness—with this lightweight stand-in from Travelon. One side of the Travel Wallet offers a tidy compartment for storing makeup, phone, keys and more; the other boasts built-in credit card and money slots. You may be able to do away with your bulky wallet! $17 at amazon.com.
At Your Fingertips
Keys, lipstick, hand sanitizer, cell phone…is your purse a black hole of necessities? Purseket Purse Organizer to the rescue! This multi-pocketed liner slips easily into any handbag, compartmentalizing items and making them easy to retrieve. Changing purses becomes a cinch, too. Available in several sizes, colors and patterns. $18 to $24 at purseket.com.

Think of it this way: Animal prints may go in and out of fashion, but they never fail to make a statement.

A stylish zebra pattern can say “I’m not afraid to stand out from the herd.”

A leopard pattern may send a message like “Don’t mess with me today—I’m feeling fierce!” It all depends on your attitude. One thing that animal prints never say is “Pay no attention, nothing to see here.”

So, only venture into world of exotic animal print scrubs if you enjoy getting noticed.

Here are four prints to consider adding to your work wardrobe for those days when you feel a little wild.

Spots and Stripes Forever
You may have heard that you have to be careful mixing patterns (like plaid and polka dots). This top from the new Graphic Remix collection throws caution to the wind with an amalgamation of zebra stripes and leopard spots. The neon pink is just a bonus. Keep your accessories to a minimum with this busy scrubs piece. A pair of pink stud earrings would be a nice touch that’s not too much. If you’re feeling adventurous, go for an ear cuff.

Graphic Remix

Next: Animalia →

Hemera | Thinkstock + Scrubs

Why is it that off-the-rack-clothing so often fits strangely? Who is the so-called “average” woman these designs are made for?

When we look around at work, we see women of all sizes and shapes. Surely one scrubs design doesn’t really fit everyone. In fact, scrubs fashion goes in cycles and not every new style is going to meet your needs.

There will be times when fit and fashion are going to be mutually exclusive (that’s when you want to learn how to make scrubs your own). Below are several scrubs tops and bottoms that address specific fit issues. You may find yourself relying on these year after year regardless of the latest changes in scrubs fashion.

Unleash Your Thighs with Generous Pant Legs
Have you noticed that scrubs bottoms can bind around your thigh and knee when you squat or sit? This is a common problem with scrubs pants that are designed to “slim” your legs. There’s not enough fabric around the circumference of the legs to accommodate much movement. Straight-leg, flared-leg and legging-style scrub pants can all have this problem of being too narrow. Cargo pants are a better style if you want to prevent binding at the knee.

Cargo Pocket Pant

Next: Raid the Men’s Section for Tall Sizes →

Image: Jen Bennett

Let’s face it: if you want to be taken seriously, you have to look the part! But sometimes it can get a bit messy out there in a nurse’s world.

Heck, we’ve been known to safety-pin the waistband of our scrubs when we’ve worn the elastic past it’s due date, so we’re certainly not pointing fingers.

What we ARE doing to heal your fashion woes is prescribing an examination with our style doctor. Some easy style fixes may help you get more respect from your patients and coworkers.

Here are 15 tips (with visuals…ahem!) to help you be mindful of fashion blunders!

(1) Watch the cleavage
(2) Steer clear of stains
(3) Too tight ain’t right
(4) No peek-a-boo, please
(5) High waters = low marks
(6) Cleanliness is next to nurse-iness
(7) Hair-y issue
(8) More hair-y issues
(9) Tattoo snafu
(10) Makeup mania
(11) Bling
(12) Old school
(13) Goth nurse
(14) Optical illusion
(15) Skin tones, please

First, watch the cleavage…

Image: Babyphatscrubs.com

But the rest of our respondents, those who can wear whatever scrubs they like, had a variety of answers about their choices.

We found nine categories of scrubs styles. Take a look through your work wardrobe and see what category most of your scrubs fall into, then match it with our personality assessment. It could help you uncover what others assume about you when they see you walk down the hall!

1. Monochrome Scrubs

What these scrubs say about you: I pick one color that looks good on me and then run with it. All my scrubs are the same color so they always match. There’s no sorting lights from darks when I do my scrubs laundry. That’s how I like things at home and at work — nice and simple. Don’t complicate my day with incompetence or complaining!

2. Pocket Extravaganza

What these scrubs say about you: My main goal when I get dressed in the morning is making sure I have enough space in my scrubs pockets to carry everything I need. You might think I’m a bit weighed down by my workload, but I’m the nurse everyone yells for when they need an extra pair of scissors—stat! I just like to be prepared.

3. Fitted and Flared

What these scrubs say about you: My scrubs tend to follow the fashion for street clothes. I keep in shape to set a good example for my patients—and you can tell by the way my scrubs follow the lines of my body (without clinging too tightly). I show everyone that it’s possible to be professional and stylish at the same time. I take pride in my work and in my appearance.

Next: Unisex Uniform, Contrasting Solids, Hearts and Flowers →

Everyone knows that scrubs are the official “uniform” of nurses. But many healthcare organizations also have their own rules about who gets to wear which hue. These color-coding standards vary from hospital to hospital. Some employers have more than half a dozen different colors in their coding system. Fortunately, most of the typically assigned shades are readily available. For example, ceil blue unisex tops and drawstring pants are a very common choice for hospital dress codes. Navy, white, burgundy and black are other typical options that you’ll never have trouble finding in stock.

Ocean Photography | Veer

“Help! My hospital cranks the air conditioning way too high!” writes one nurse from Florida, while another Minnesota-based nurse emails, “There are corridors in my office where I swear there is no heat at all. I freeze from October until May!”

Whatever the climate outside, sometimes scrubs alone just won’t cut it – we need ways to stay warmer at work. This usually means adding a layer on top of or underneath scrubs. This may seem simple, but layering incorrectly could mean:

• Running afoul of your employer’s dress code
• Looking like a fashion disaster
• Turning a practical outfit into one that makes work more difficult.

Here are some wardrobe dos and don’ts to guide you through the winter months.

DON’T Confuse Patients About Your Profession
Wearing a regular sweater over your scrubs top can be a problem for a couple of reasons. First, it completely covers up your uniform top. This makes it impossible for patients to tell that you’re a nurse if you’re seated behind a desk or standing behind a nurse’s station. They may assume you’re part of the administrative office staff since you appear to be wearing business apparel.

Second, sweaters typically aren’t something you want to launder every day—especially in hot water. Many sweater textiles require special handling so they don’t shrink or become misshapen. Others can be machine washed and dried, but they will quickly develop pills. If you don’t want your sweaters to meet an untimely end, don’t wear them over scrubs!

What about the sweater’s comfy cousin—the sweatshirt? Unfortunately, sweatshirts are never appropriate work attire unless you’re a fitness trainer running an outdoor boot camp on a chilly day. These tops also don’t provide the many pockets you’ll need to hold all your accessories during a normal shift. You don’t want to put everything in your scrubs pockets under the sweatshirt and keep hiking up the hem to get at what you need. That just looks weird.

Next: DO Add Warmth with Nursing Outerwear →

Upper Abdomen
That rich Thanksgiving dinner can leave you looking pretty bloated in the upper abdomen. To avoid awkward questions about a nonexistent due date for your gas baby, choose a top that is gathered at neckline. A round-neck top with smocking will do the trick nicely. Avoid wrap tops and empire-waist tops since these styles just accentuate a bulge in this area.

Round Neck Top

Next: Lower Abdomen →

Hemera | Ablestock.com | Getty Images + Scrubs

Do you like to use your ‘sleeved’ arm as an ice breaker with patients?

Or do you just happen to work for a facility with an impossibly strict dress code?

In any case, we want to know:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. ]]> http://scrubsmag.com/poll-how-often-do-you-knowingly-break-the-dress-code/feed/ 0 http://scrubsmag.com/7-scrubs-wardrobe-malfunctions-you-can-fix-today/ http://scrubsmag.com/7-scrubs-wardrobe-malfunctions-you-can-fix-today/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:19:45 +0000 Scrubs http://scrubsmag.com/?p=41097 ]]>

Hemera | Thinkstock + Scrubs

It’s easy to get used to wearing the same thing to work over and over again. This approach to workwear is cheap and requires little effort. But at some point, it really is time to cast a critical eye on your scrubs wardrobe and clear out the pieces that just aren’t cutting it anymore. Here are seven items you might find in your closet that mean you’ve put off this task for too long.

1. Prints That Match Your MC Hammer Pants
Do you own scrubs tops in bright sherbet colors covered with geometric designs? Do they date back to the Reagan era? With so many trendy, modern prints to choose from today, there’s no excuse for wearing outdated designs. By the way, if you sewed shoulder pads into your scrubs tops back in the day, we can’t be friends anymore.

Next: Stains That Would Shame Lady Macbeth →