Crossdressing Tips for Preserving and Replacing Your Hosiery

Tights, pantyhose, and fishnet stockings are a part of many crossdressers’’ lives. They help us to outline our legs, make them look smoother, and overall more feminine. But sometimes, it may not be easy to keep them intact. We use them quite often, and they wear out sometimes. It would be best if you learned how to preserve them so they can last longer. But you must also know when your hosiery needs to be replaced so you can have the best effects possible.

Storing them properly, keeping them clean, and handling them with care may help to preserve your hosiery.

This prevents them from becoming worn out too soon and saves you some money.

But if you do need to replace them, you should know when and how.

Here, I’ll give you some tips to achieve both goals.

You’ll learn how to preserve and how to replace your hosiery, keeping your legs smooth.

1. Store them with caution

Properly storing your hosiery is required if you want to make sure it lasts for a while.

However, for crossdressers, it may be a challenge. It’s hard to keep something hidden if it requires constant care and proper storage.

But fear not, as it’s possible to store your hosiery efficiently, that will keep them hidden and safe at the same time.

● Roll them before storing

If you throw your hosiery in drawers with regular socks or fold them before storage, you’re making a mistake.

Most hosiery items unfold easily, and the smallest movement in your drawers may cause them to entangle.

Entangled hosiery requires you to apply some force to untangle them, which may cause them to lose elasticity, and you don’t want that to happen.

A useful tip here is to gently roll them before storing them on drawers.

To do that, fold them in half by aligning both leg parts until you have a straight line.

After that, you may roll it as tight as possible.

To make sure it doesn’t fall apart and unfold, you may do a knot on its opening or use an elastic to help it hold its shape.

Besides all of that, rolled-up stockings occupy very little space, making it easy to hide, even if you have many of them.

● Keep the original package

The original package of your shapewear, depending on the brand, may offer quite a protection from harm to your hosiery.

It’s a cheap way of storing them, with no additional expense at all.

The problem is that it’s not so easy to hide in drawers or your closet.

But, if, as a crossdresser, you want to hide them, try using a backpack or a big cardboard box.

The package should help it to keep its shape and prevent any entanglement.

2. Handle them with care

Moisturize your hand and polish your nails before handling your hosiery.

They are made of very fine fabric and thus are very delicate and somewhat fragile.

Pay extra attention to this tip if you’re into sheer pantyhose, as they are more likely to be damaged than the thicker, more opaque ones.

This kind of fine fabric is quite easy to tear apart, and if your nails are not polished, they may rip it accidentally.

The same is true for dry skin, as the rough particles in it may pull small strands of fabric as well.

By polishing your nails and keeping your skin moist, you avoid this problem, but you must still be careful while wearing it.

Body hair present in your legs may also damage your stockings, and men tend to have way more leg hair than women.

So, for crossdressers, it’s interesting to keep your legs well-shaven and moisturized.

A good routine would be to shave them twice a month, always applying a moisturizing cream afterward.

It helps you to avoid allergies and skin roughness.

With that in mind, make sure that you pull your stockings up very carefully.

If you want to take extra care, you may also buy a pair of hosiery gloves to aid you in handling it.

3. Handwash them

Putting your stockings in a laundry machine is a bad idea.

You don’t have much control over which substances will enter into contact with the hosiery there.

It may result in stains appearing or the color becoming dull.

Besides that, if the force is too strong, it may entangle the hosiery or even rip it, depending on your machine.

The solution is to handwash your stockings in warm water with delicate soap by soaking them for about half an hour.

After that, you may rinse them with room-temperature water until all the soap comes off.

But avoid wringing, as it may ruin the fabric.

Instead, dry them by delicately pressing them against the sink or another clean, smooth surface, removing excess water.

Or, if you have enough time, leave it to dry in the sun naturally.

4. Keep an eye on the size

Making sure your hosiery fits your size is essential to guarantee it will have long usability.

Hosiery that doesn’t fit you may rip apart during use, rendering it useless.

Or, in some cases, it may look too tight, failing to smoothen the surface of your legs.

However, as these items are marketed for cisgender women, it may be hard to find an appropriate size for you.

That’s because the average male body is bigger than the idealized female body standards.

Said standards are used as a parameter for marketing purposes.

I know that both men and women exist in a variety of shapes and sizes, but statistically, this size difference is rather common.

Most male-to-female crossdressers will find the larger sizes more suitable for their needs.

In female sizing, that would be “Queen size” or “Plus size” in most brands, but manufacturer-specific size charts exist.

The problem is that most of them are limited to using only “Height” and “Weight” as parameters.

By not considering a few other aspects, this “One size fits all” policy may reduce your options even further.

In that case, the solution may be seeking specific manufacturers.

Those that supply hosiery and stockings directly to crossdressers.

It’s a way of finding more suitable sizes and products that work better with masculine legs.

Don’t worry, though, as they will still be able to feminize your legs and make you more passable.

You may, however, be required to take a few more measurements to make sure it fits, including hip and tights circumferences.

It’s nice to make the effort, as you’ll end up with something that is both more efficient and lasts longer.

5. Replacing your hosiery

Hosiery has a sort of lifespan. We can use them for quite a long time, but they will someday wear out.

When that happens, we lose many of the benefits we get from it.

A worn-out pantyhose won’t do much to outline our legs, and ripped ones will not make them look smooth.

If you feel like they aren’t working as intended anymore, it may be time to replace them. Here’s how you know:

● They don’t fit anymore

Pantyhose loses elasticity with time, which may cause them to feel smaller with time.

Add that to your natural growth, and someday, your hosiery will stop fitting your size.

You’ll notice that if you feel like they are starting to stretch or that they are becoming more difficult to wear.

It’s better to replace them as soon as you perceive it happening, or else they may rip while you’re wearing them.

And that would not be very comfortable if you were going out or dressing up with someone else.

● They feel loose

The loss of elasticity may have the opposite effect sometimes.

If you over-stretch your hosiery, it may no longer shrink back, losing its shape and becoming loose.

Loose pantyhose looks awful and does the opposite of outlining your leg.

They start to wrinkle, which ruins your silhouette and makes your legs look weird.

So, if you want to look as feminine as possible, loose pantyhose should be replaced.

● They are ripped or showing marks

Old pantyhose tend to rip off or start showing stretch marks.

In both cases, it’s better to buy new ones. I know, some people use them and consider them to be fashionable.

But as crossdressers, we’re trying to make our legs look as smooth as possible, and ripped hosiery has the opposite effect.

If you notice that some stretch marks or rips are visible through your stockings while wearing them, you’ll see that they make your legs look rough.

Hosiery helps us a lot by feminizing our legs. But to keep them doing so, we must preserve them and their elasticity.

Crossdressers may have a hard time finding the perfect hosiery, so keeping them for longer may compensate for that.

But despite our efforts, sooner or later, our stockings may become worn out.

So, if you notice that they are no longer serving their purposes, it’s time to replace your hosiery.

You can buy any hosiery you like, but those that are designed for crossdressers will do a better job.

How do you preserve your hosiery? Tell us and share your experience in the comments below!