Pantyhose

Pantyhose is probably a term we are all familiar with. In our minds it simply means leg wear at large, but it’s important to know when you are selecting your hosiery that you are picking the right kind. Pantyhose technically refers to full length leg wear only, that sit on the hip or waist and go down to cover the toes. But it’s more specific than that, as pantyhose only refers to the sheerest full length hosiery.

What's the difference between pantyhose and tights?

Anything from 5 denier up to around 30 counts as pantyhose but nothing higher, the key being how sheer they are. These lighter deniers allow your skin to be seen through the material making them great if you want to wear them for an elegant evening occasion. Anything thicker than 30 denier is often too thick to wear in the summer or for more dressed up occasions. The thicker items of leg wear are often called tights instead, to denote their use and style. But wait, we have seen some uses of the word tights to mean both of this kind of leg wear, so what does this mean? It’s true, in the UK and non-American countries that speak English, the term tights simply means anything that goes from the hips to the toes and pantyhose is not a term that is used at all. In the US and Canada though, pantyhose does mean something, as we explained above.

Are we UK Pantyhose?

So when you are shopping for your leg wear, how do you know the difference and make sure you don’t get the wrong thing? Firstly, when you shop at UK Tights or should we say UK Pantyhose, we will still use the UK spelling and terms, so it’s always going to be tights with us. But you can also check the denier number on any product page for a better idea of how the design will look and fit. Pantyhose is rarely used on our site except as an explanatory term like right here. But of course there is one other big give away, which is that this page is a page for pantyhose!

We have collected all of the relevant items together and put them on this page for you. This is so that if you are used to using a different kind of terminology than we are in the UK, you won’t have to constantly remind yourself of what is the correct word to use. You can just bookmark this page for those times that you want a specific type of leg wear and you will never have to think about it again.