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"The 2013 bathing suit season is here and if a few extra pounds are keeping you from treating yourself to a new swimsuit, you&amp;#039;re in luck. Together with our Good Housekeeping fashion colleagues, our GHRI Textiles Lab just completed a review of this season&amp;#039;s crop of slimming swimsuits to help you select a great looking, figure-flattering suit that will also hold up to a summer&amp;#039;s worth of sun, saltwater, chlorine, laundering, and more.   First, we screened hundreds of suits for style, choosing only those that passed the critical eye of our Fashion Director, Jasmine Chang. Then, Jasmine sent GHRI her top 22 picks to put through the wringer. In addition to conducting colorfastness and durability tests, we asked 270 brave testers to try on and rate the suits to help us whittle them down to the top ten winners featured in our June issue. All this work taught us a few things about what makes a great slimming swimsuit. So, when you&amp;#039;re shopping this summer, keep these 4C&amp;#039;s in mind: 1. Construction We were very happy to see that you don&amp;#039;t have to sacrifice comfort to look good. In today&amp;#039;s suits you&amp;#039;ll find lightweight panels for subtle shaping, power knits for more control and everything in between. For a lift up top, look for wide, adjustable straps and a built-in underwire bra. One suit that has all this is MiracleSuit&amp;#039;s Purple Sanibel suit ($152; above).  2. Cut Sometimes, all you need to look slimmer is to fool the eye. Our testers raved about suits that had side gathers and   draping to create tummy-camouflaging folds. This year, several suits, like Penbrooke&amp;#039;s Gray Studio-art Glam Sheath Swimsuit ($88, right), have designs that cover the top of the leg openings for a smoother, sleeker, elongated look. A wide halter strap also draws the eye upward.   3. Color One of the things that surprised our testers the most was that they could wear a colorful suit and still look slim. So don&amp;#039;t automatically make a beeline for the solid black or brown suits on the rack. Solid light and bright colors are the least forgiving, but patterns can camouflage figure flaws and fun details catch and distract the eye. The suit our testers rated &amp;quot;cutest&amp;quot; was Tommy Bahama&amp;#039;s Dots-and-Stripes Shirred Halter Swimsuit ($142, left).  4. Cost You don&amp;#039;t have to pay a bundle to get a suit that will hold up well and flatter your figure. Our top suit overall was the Red-and-Orchid Spliced Swimsuit from Aquabelle (on the three models, below) costing only $59.  To keep any new swimsuit looking good follow these easy care tips:  Rinse off under an outdoor shower after a dip in the ocean or pool to minimize the color changing effects of salt water and chlorine  After each wearing, soak your suit in a mixture of one quart cool water and four tablespoons of baking soda to help neutralize chlorine and   perspiration odors Hand wash a suit according to care label directions or to machine wash it, place it in a mesh bag and select your washer&amp;#039;s most delicate cycle Always line dry a swimsuit away from heat and the sun   To see which other figure flattering suits made our cut, check out our complete online swimsuit review. For a firsthand look at how we test swimsuits and all the products we recommend, sign up for a Good Housekeeping Research Institute tour. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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