[mochaccino]

Busty, all the genuine, serious tightlacers seem to agree that visible waist change is not permanent. In other words, there may be some permanent internal changes, especially if you're very young, but the actual waist measurement and the appearance of the waist will still eventually go back to normal. How long it takes for this to happen, and the degree of reduction that's retained during that time, has everything to do with how long and how severely a person has tightlaced. There are a surprising number of very serious tightlacers that have stopped tightlacing for long periods time. Some of them stop during pregnancy, or they take a break when they're not in a relationship with a partner that strongly "encourages" constant tightlacing *cough*. They all say that there waist went completely back to normal.

There are some people who say that the most extreme tightlacers of all (waaay more extreme than Sylphide) retain a small amount of reduction permanently. Other people are quick to point out that tightlacers who are obsessed enough to reach those levels of reduction, never ever stop tightlacing for more than a few months. They're just far too obsessed with wearing corsets.

Even if it's never permanent, doing maintenance tightlacing 3 times a week doesn't seem so bad.