FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do I contact you?

If you have any questions or comments regarding this web site or any ACTIVSKIN product, please contact us:

How are your products packaged for shipment?

We send our orders in plain envelopes that don't advertise anything about the contents. Even though we're proud of our products, we recognise that some people might be sensitive about others knowing what they wear, so we try to be as discreet as we can.

How durable is ACTIVSKIN Performance Wear?

We know that men don’t have the word “disposable” in their wardrobe vocabulary, so we can’t make our products just like the industry generally does for women’s legwear. Instead we use the best quality and most durable nylon and spandex yarns we can buy for ACTIVSKIN (read “more expensive”), but it pays off. Our legwear lasts substantially longer than similar items made for women, and the cost per wearing (the economic life cycle cost) is usually much lower. With proper care, you can expect to wear our legwear dozens of times. Of course, wearing them under trousers protects them quite a bit; and the heavier weight opaque tights for men usually last longer than lighter weight sheer pantyhose for men. Care must also be exercised in washing and putting on ACTIVSKIN (see below).

One word of caution: Men's shoes are generally not made to be "hosiery friendly" and you might find that certain shoes consistently cause holes in the toe or heel. The culprit may be sharp pieces of leather or paper, thread knots, or nails sticking up through the sole. Nylon is strong in tensile (pulling) but weak in abrasion (rubbing), and minor flaws which wouldn't cause a problem with heavier socks can easily damage finer hosiery. If you can't fix the problem, don't wear thin legwear with those shoes. Today's athletic footwear almost never causes problems, but dress and casual shoes can. One alternative that many men have discovered is to wear some of the many masculine style women's shoes, like loafers and clogs, that are made to be worn with fragile hose. Some of the styles are indistinguishable from men's shoes, and if they fit your foot, no one will ever know but you.

How do I wash ACTIVSKIN?

For longer life, use a mild detergent and hand wash, or machine wash ACTIVSKIN Performance Wear in a mesh bag. Wash light colours and dark colours separately to avoid staining the light colours. Hang ACTIVSKIN to dry. The high heat of dryers can cause the spandex to degrade. Do not use bleach or harsh detergents, and do not iron.

We recommend washing ACTIVSKIN before wearing them the first time. Washing is a chemical and mechanical action that will remove any residue left in the fabric from the dyeing and finishing process. The residue tends to “glue” the individual filaments and fibres together, giving the fabric an overall stiff and coarse feel to it. With washing and wearing the fabric will soften as the fibres in the yarns move independently.

How do I put on ACTIVSKIN?

For waist high legwear, the best way to put it on is to sit down and hold the garment up by the waistband with both hands so that it faces the same way you are. In many styles there is a male comfort front panel that indicates which side is front. Now gather the fabric of the right leg in both hands so that your thumbs are in the toe of the garment, and put your foot directly into the toe area of the garment. Pull the fabric over your foot and up your leg over your knee, using your fingertips, but NOT your fingernails. Do the same thing with your left leg. Now stand up and alternately pull the fabric up over your hips and waist, adjusting for a smooth and comfortable fit as you go.

For the thigh high legwear, sit down and gather the fabric of one leg in both hands so that your thumbs are in the toe of the garment. The seam of the top elastic band normally goes in back. Put your foot directly into the toe area of the garment. Pull the fabric over your foot and up your leg over the knee, using your fingertips, but NOT your fingernails. Stand up and continue pulling the fabric up to the top of your thigh, adjusting for a smooth and comfortable fit as you go. Do the same with the other leg.

Can I purchase ACTIVSKIN Performance Wear locally in stores?

We are not in retail stores. We will be evaluating retail distribution as demand for our performance wear products grows. Right now our products are only available online.

Do you have a printed catalogue?

No. We are an e-commerce company, and our web site is our catalogue. We can change and update it frequently, avoiding the printing and mailing costs associated with conventional mail-order companies. In this way, we keep our costs down and pass the savings on to our customers. If you want a printed catalogue, click on any pages here, and print them on your printer for future reference. Be sure to check back occasionally, because the web site changes frequently.

European hose often lists denier or decitex. What is that, a measure of sheerness? Why don’t you list the denier or decitex of your products?

Denier and decitex are product specifications that are used mostly in Europe and the UK. American manufacturers don't use them much, at least not in their advertising or on their packaging. They are NOT a measure of sheerness. They are a measure of the weight of the yarn used in the fabric. Denier is defined as the weight, in grams, of 9000 meters of yarn. Decitex is the weight, in grams, of 10,000 meters of yarn. The heavier the yarn, the bigger the denier and decitex. The terms say nothing about how the yarns are put together in the finished knit fabric, how close the knit loops are, the sheerness or opacity, or the strength and durability of the fabric. For example, in two products we sell, Style A569 is sheer and Style A869 is opaque. The first has 70 denier yarns and the second has 60 denier yarns. How is this possible? Because the opaque style has MORE yarns to make a heavier fabric. So we caution you not to get hung up with the terms denier or decitex. They really apply to yarn, not to finished fabric. We do not list  them because (1) it is really meaningless unless you’re trying to engineer the fabric and (2) most fabrics use yarns of several different deniers or decitexes. For example a fabric might consist of two yarns in alternate courses: one course might be a 70 denier spandex yarn with a covering of consisting of a single 20 denier nylon yarn containing 7 filaments and the second course might be a 20 denier nylon yarn consisting of 7 filaments. How do you apply a single denier number to that combination? It really makes no sense.

Your products are more expensive than women’s hosiery from the department store. Why is that?

We think ActivSkin® legwear is priced fairly, but it IS more expensive than the women's hosiery commonly found in grocery and discount stores. There are good reasons:

1. ActivSkin is made from the highest quality Lycra® spandex and nylon yarns available, and they do cost more than cheaper yarns used in cheaper hosiery. A better comparison would be to equate ActivSkin with higher quality women’s hose found in upscale department stores.

2. Bigger sizes for men require more raw materials.

3. ActivSkin legwear is all made in the USA, not in Mexico or the China, where labour rates are much cheaper.

4. Some styles of ActivSkin legwear have a front panel for male comfort and some styles have a fly opening, so there is extra manual labour involved in sewing.

5. The more complicated design means that production yields (percent of perfect products) is lower than for most women’s hose which is simpler in design and sewn by automatic machines which require no skilled labour.

6. The men's market is small, so we manufacture in small batches and cannot benefit from economies of scale like big retail chains can.

All these factors make ActivSkin legwear more expensive to make than what you pay retail for the cheap women's hose. But, instead of comparing just the initial cost, consider the cost per wearing (economic life-cycle cost). Our product is designed to be more durable than your average women's hose, which is typically designed to last for three 8-hour wearings. Hosiery companies know that if a woman gets that kind of wear, she’s likely to buy that brand again. Our products cost more, but are more durable, and so on a cost per wearing basis they are quite comparable. However, because our products are all designed for men and male anatomy, they are much more comfortable. We don’t know how to quantify that benefit economically.

We will continue to develop products for men that are unique and provide comfort that women's hosiery cannot match. As the market grows, the prices will come down, but our prices will never be competitive with the cheapest women's hosiery.