[Update as of October 1, 2020] I wrote this review back when I first purchased my Sheertex at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 so I have updated the information to reflect their current product offerings but am leaving also my original thoughts for the sake of clarity. Updated thoughts will be prominently called out with this pink background and the update date in preceding brackets.

Instagram knew I wanted Sheertex before I even knew what Sheertex was. One day I was going about my life, and then for the next few months I was seeing sponsored ads on the daily for these Internet-famous tights.

What is Sheertex? What are these tights even and how do they differ from regular tights? They bill themselves as “The World’s Toughest Pantyhose” and their claim to fame is that these tights are supposedly unbreakable.

If you’ve purchased and worn tights before (and presumably you have if you’re reading this post), then I’m sure you’re familiar with the fact that tights are notorious for snagging and ripping seemingly with every wear. I’m gun-shy about buying tights that are more than $10 because in my head tights are a one-time use product and any uses beyond one is a bonus, not a given.

So how did I get from “$15 for a pair of sheers? I’m not made of money???” to “Sure I’ll spend $100 USD for two pairs of pantyhose!”? A healthy combination of ad exposure, a recommendation from a coworker who loves hers, and a Black Friday sale.

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT

SIZE

I bought the Classic Sheers in black and light in the short + small size. This is the first thing I liked about Sheertex – that they provided a bit more flexibility in the sizing based on both height and weight.

[October 2020 addition]: What I bought as the Classic Sheer is now the Classic “Unbreakable” Sheer Tights and are only available in black. Nude shades can be purchased through a different product, the Nude Classic Sheer Tights. The sizing has also been updated to include x-small (which is what I would buy today) and no more short/regular/tall for the Classic tights, but they are still an option with the Nude tights.

PRICE

The Classic Sheers are normally $59 USD each and during Black Friday went down to $44.25 USD each. After tax, we’re sitting pretty at a flat $100 USD.

[October 2020 addition]: Today the Classic Sheers will run you $59 for 1 pair, $106 for 2 pairs – a 10% discount, or $150 for 3 pairs – a 15% discount. This discounted pack bundling is great if you want to have a number of sheers to cycle through.

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT

COLOUR

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I guess it’s not really about the colour of the black tights but when I first put them on I noticed that the lines of the knit fabric were very obvious in certain places. This mostly went away after I started moving around in them throughout the day so I think that the fabric just needs some time to settle after you put them on. I noticed that the weird lines were especially noticeable in areas where I was holding the tights to pull them on.

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Other than the line thing, the black tights were about what you’d expect, but the light pair was … interesting. By that I mean it was not the colour of my skin. In the picture above you can see what it looks like compared to my actual skin colour (both my legs and my arm). The Sheertex were kind of more pink and Barbie-doll like which would be great if I ever want to cosplay Barbie. Once I put them on fully and put on a dress the colour discrepancy is much less noticeable.

I wish there were more variations on the skin tones because the next colour option was a medium and it definitely wouldn’t have looked right on me. Or maybe it would’ve! Since Sheertex already sends you a sample of the material to show off to your family/friends/inquiring co-workers, I think it would be pretty neat if they could include a sample of each colour so people can see for themselves.

[October 2020 addition]: Even after separating out the nude shades into their own product/SKU, Sheertex still only has the same 3 variants in skin tones. They have noted that they are working on expanding these options.

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT

WEAR

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First thing to note is that the tights will look extremely short compared to your leg when you first unroll them. The material is of medium-thickness so I guess this was to be expected. The second picture is a week after I got them and put them through the washer. Yes, they look like weird little shrunken alien leg skins.

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Overall the tights fit well, once I got past the initial concern about the length. The waistband is much more like the top of some yoga pants than the squeezing fit that you might be expecting from pantyhose. Which was great, but only at first. I wore the tights with dresses a few times around town for errands (and kept forgetting to take photos like an idiot) and also to the company holiday party. In each instance, by noon I could tell that the yoga-top of my Sheertex was just not doing it for me.

I wasn’t concerned about the horrific pantyhose lines on my stomach because I knew they wouldn’t leave them, but I did spend a lot of time feeling a bit like someone had pulled my tights down a bit. And also a lot of time wondering if anyone could tell. There just wasn’t enough hold at the top and the tights tried to shrink back to their original state but my legs were still in them??

Okay this is a pretty dramatic way of saying that they were not 100% comfy when I wore them for hours on end because I had to keep going to the bathroom to hike them back up. For shorter wears it wasn’t that big of a problem.

[October 2020 addition]: I think my concerns about the waistband could be solved today with the smaller size available for the Classic pair but I would probably opt for the Nude Shaping Sheer Tights if I were to buy another pair because the compression shorts top style seems like a better fit for me.

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT

TRYING TO BREAK THEM

If you’ve seen the Sheertex ads then you know there’s a lot of tug-of-war and kettlebells being dropped into the tights to illustrate their magical/scientific strength that other tights can’t compete with. Other reviews of Sheertex that came up on the front page of Google talked a lot about how they needed to hack at the tights with kitchen scissors in order to make a hole. While visually interesting, these are not the use cases I am interested in when it comes to tights. What about coat zippers, broken fingernails, and sharp little cat claws as they escape your desperate cuddles?? That’s the life I live.

There’s a wood bench in our office kitchen that should really come with a sign that says “Beware all tights that touch this surface, and also fuck you if you think jeans are safe from our wrath.” I won’t get into it but the story ends with me having to hobble to the bathroom at work to pluck out a huge splinter from my ass. Okay, well that was pretty much the story.

So obviously the first test I did was to aggressively rub the sample fabric on a raw wood stump.

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The fabric was definitely damaged by this — it kind of pilled and one thread even pulled out. Interestingly, when I pulled at the fabric to try and “fix” it, it worked? Most of the pilling smoothed out with the pulling and while it was definitely visible where the thread had been pulled, unlike other pantyhose it didn’t complete unravel or shred apart in my hands. The way Sheertex has managed to knit these tights results in runs not going very far and not spreading. I was impressed by this and felt pretty confident in being around a jumpy small dog during the holidays and not worrying about damaging my tights.

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT

THE VERDICT

What I liked about Sheertex/Classic Sheers:

• good sizing options
• fast shipping and neat unboxing
• ability to “heal” damage to the fabric
• survived small dog repeatedly jumping on me as soon as I entered the door

What I didn’t like:

• the visible knit lines when I first put on the black tights
• the waist not staying where I wanted it to through extended wear
• lack of more specific colour options if you want to match your skin tone

Should you get them? If you aren’t going through a bunch of pantyhose in your regular life I suspect that you’ll balk at the price. My advice? Do a cost-benefit analysis. In the last year how much do you think you spent on regular sheer pantyhose that ripped? Is it more than the price of the Sheertex you want? Then it may very well be worth it!

[October 2020 addition]: It’s been 9 months since I first got my Sheertex tights and from what I’ve tracked in my outfit log, I’ve worn the black pair 10 times and the nude pair 4 times. While these numbers seem low, I think they should also be taken with a grain of salt as I only owned my tights for 4.5 months before COVID quarantine followed by summer.

Even so, this means that the cost per wear for the black pair is $6.50 CAD and for the nude it’s $16.25 CAD.

Almost all my wears were prior to March 2020 so I have rarely worn them since, again due to permanently wearing sweats and then the heat of a Canadian summer and not because I didn’t like them.

I usually wrecked a cheaper pair of tights that might’ve cost $10-$15 CAD in a single wear, so by that standard the black sheers have proven to be a worthwhile purchase and the nudes are getting there as well.

TL;DR – I think my Sheertex were a worthwhile purchase despite some of the original concerns I had.

There’s lots I like about the brand! It’s a Canadian company! They’re trying to solve the problem of dumb stupid waste-of-money tights! But I personally want more of a control top in my tights, if only to prevent the dreaded crotch-drop problem, so I would probably not get the Classic Sheers again. The Shaping Sheer Tights is what I think I’d be looking to get instead. And if you have been influenced by this post to buy your own you can use my referral code to get $20 off your purchase!

November 30, 2021 update: I have had a few people use the referral code in this post to purchase their sheers and I in turn have gotten some promo codes which I don’t plan on using in the near future because I just bought the Shaping Sheers in Black and am pretty pleased with its performance. I will include the $20 off codes I was sent here for other people to use but I’m not going to monitor the use:

advrg76dk	adv779525
advvcg86m	adv2v93fk
adv9gpvjp	advcs873w
adv9j2k89

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SIZE | PRICE | COLOUR | WEAR
TRYING TO BREAK THEM | THE VERDICT