Annoyingly, I often wake up around 4:30, needing to pee. This is somewhat okay on a normal weekday, because I need to get up between 5:00 and 5:30 anyway and it helps me not be so resentful about needing to get out of bed; I can doze a bit until right before the alarm. But on a weekend, I want to get up and go to the bathroom, but then be able to go back to sleep; sometimes this works and sometimes not. This morning, however, there was a spider on the toilet paper roll, and I didn’t see her at first, so I’m up, I’m up.
I finally swim-tested the swim leggings, and they are up there on the list of the best things I have ever owned. I’d worried the high-waisted bikini bottoms I wore under them would make me feel swathed in layers, but they did not: instead I felt snug and comfy and all held together. I didn’t worry about my tankini top rising up and exposing a circle of midsection, because the high-waisted bikini bottom went up to my ribcage (and I am long-torsoed—on a shorter-torsoed person, you might get coverage all the way to the bikini-top region). It was the first time in my post-adolescent life that I have walked in a swimsuit (the walk where you can’t have your towel around you anymore but you’re not in the water yet) without INTERNALLY DYING OF HORRIFIED SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
Some people asked last time about the length. For scale, I am between 5’8″ and 5’9″ but, as I mentioned, long-torsoed, which is the nice way to say short-legged; and I wear plus sizes. On me, the swim leggings fully covered my knees and went just a little bit below them—basically knee-breech length. I did go back and order the smaller size (my size is right between two sizes, so I ordered the larger ones first because it’s better for morale to try something on and have it too big rather than too small), and they’re exactly right; I’m keeping the larger size because people tend to put on weight with age, so one day I will likely put on the ones that fit now, be dismayed, and be glad to have the larger size all set to go. What I’m wondering now is if I should order MULTIPLE ADDITIONAL PAIRS. What if they don’t sell them anymore after this year? Then I need to buy a lifetime supply NOW.
This comment is more for readers than for you as you’ve found something that works for you (and hooray for that!). Junonia makes high quality plus-size swimwear. It’s pricy but durable and I like the fact that their catalog and website use models wearing the sizes they sell so you have a good idea of how it might actually look on a plump person. My suit is a 2-piece with bottoms that go to just above the knee and a tankini style top, and I like it a lot. I’ve had a few of these over the past fifteen years or so and I’ve always been satisfied.
Glad you are happy with your purchase!
I’m not sure about buying now for several years in the future, though – doesn’t the material deteriorate over time? Become less elastic and prone to tearing?
Maybe someone more knowledgeable about swim suit fabric can weigh in?
I was going to say the same. I would think the elastic/spandex would dry out over time and then you will have spent that money for nothing!
I think the suit has to be used to get all brittle and gross. Maybe it’s the exposure to the chlorine that kills elastics so quickly in swimsuits?
We have a pool and I’d see a good deal on a size my daughter would be the next year, but she can’t resist wearing the new thing, even if it’s too big for her to try it out, then it would get put away once even she saw it wasn’t the right size yet… only to find it all crunchy and unusable the next year. Now I remind her of this when I get swimsuits that I know don’t fit yet and they get packed away right away in her “too big” box.
Glad you like the leggings! I hate waking up a few mins before my alarm to use the bathroom. Why do you need to get up at 5?
I too have to get up to pee every night. It annoys me when that situation leads to a no-more-sleep situation. We just dropped our oldest off at college in New York. Coach and I took all 6 kids to Boston first for a bit of a family vacation. Sleeping 8 of us in one room is no where near a vacation though. I struggled to sleep after my jarring attempt to find my way to the bathroom without stumbling on a kid. In one cramped hotel room the pull out was flanked on either side by an air mattress, so I had to step on each air mattress to make it to the bathroom. It was like being in a bouncy house in the pitch black room while having to pee. Oh, and the AC broke in that hotel one of the nights to add to the jolly good times.
Glad you like your swim leggings. I wouldn’t buy extra now – chances are if you like them, so will other shoppers and they will be offered for awhile.
Hurray team swim leggings! I also wouldn’t buy more now, swim material tends to get weird after a few years, even in the best of storage. I doubt that they’ll stop selling them entirely as I’ve seen them in quite a few places. And also, they. are. awesome.
Hooray for swim leggings! I am so glad they are a success!
Boo for early morning spiders. And for early morning peeing, with which I am exasperatingly familiar.
Hooray for swim leggings, and I have questions! Did you use them in a pool type situation, or lake or sandy beach? I almost ordered a pair but I typically end up sitting and getting buried in very fine sand on vacation and the lands end bottoms I have trap and keep the sand inside (all suits have at this beach) and I am leery of having sand all up and down my legs. And did you wear the bikini bottoms for personal comfort or because the swim leggings need that extra bit? (Like I have to wear a bikini top under a rash guard to hold down the chest area).
Thanks for the update!
I have not tried them with sand. I think the leggings could go with or without the bikini bottoms, but I’m not sure; I wore them for a little extra comfort. But the little attached skirt covers that region, so I’d think they’d be fine without.
Thank you!
The most coverage I can stand is a one-piece swimsuit, and I almost always wear bikinis, so I never even considered that swim leggings might exist, but everyone seems to be all about the swim leggings in the comments, yet I’ve never even seen them on a stranger at a public swimming place. Is this maybe a regional thing? Or maybe it’s just that the odds of being a swim-legging-wearing-person is somehow correlated with being a Swistle reader?
I am the only one wearing them in the two swim environments I use (most women are wearing swim dresses), but I am hoping to spark a revolution!
I think they might be newer? I bought a pair last year, from Prana, and alternate them with shorts and bikini bottoms, depending on the activity and the level of coverage i’m into. When mucking about in lakes with slimy rocks, it’s nice to feel like I’m not just…exposed everywhere. I always wear a bikini top with any of the options.
I think the new awareness of the damage long-term exposure to the sun is making them more popular. Australians have been using them for years.
I usually wear a long sleeved rashies but with board shorts. I just googled swim leggings and then went ooooooh those like what surfers wear. I didn’t realise you could wear them while swimming, I thought they were just for sporty active types on the beach. Awesome!