Haddenham Veini - like Goldilocks but not finding the "just right"

Great customer service.  Haddenham were the best firm I have dealt with so far with a faulty item.  My tights had a small hole in the heel when they arrived and Haddenham sent another pair straight away and told me I could mend and keep the first pair.  Fabulous super fast response within hours of my email.  I really want to love their tights as I loved their service. 

 The Haddenham Veni tights come in a range of colours. I was able to have a chocolate brown on NHS prescription which is a very welcome change from black and beige.  You can see the shade better in the pictures below. 

The colour made me very happy as I felt I could pass for someone wearing a pair of ordinary brown opaque tights.  These would be a good choice if you want to avoid black and "granny beige". 

 My skin against the tights to show that they are a nice deep, rich brown shade, and how dense the colour/texture is as it is hard to see that in the full leg images above.  








Why would you spoil this nice colour by sewing the seams in black thread?  Not what I want my husband to see, big black seams :(  This was not a sexy look.  

They also have the waistband style which is a turned over fabric to form a channel through which a piece of elastic is threaded (unsurprisingly it is black elastic).  I found the elastic would do the usual turning over and folding in the wash trick so I needed to fiddle around getting it flat before wearing.   


In the photo you can see that I am wearing under shorts and they are creased on my left leg and riding up. You can also see on my left leg that, despite wearing shorts, the tights were giving me a terrible little bulge right in my inner thighs below the groin.  Not a nice look, nor what you want after liposuction on that area.  Without the shorts the bulge was really obvious and I had a terrible under bum shelf.  I've never seen a pair of tights give me that almost sharp line where the compression stopped.  

I would say the panty section on these tights had no compression.  On me the size I was measured to fit was too baggy (the legs fitted but even without undershorts the top was loose over my tummy) and had no compression to my hips and stomach.  That might be great if you hate the feeling of compression on your abdomen (so great for eating out!) but my thighs want strong compression for support so these tights looked bad and felt bad on me.  On the left you can see the first size I was given - if you enlarge the photo you can see it was wrinkling around my ankle and how there was no stretch in the panty area. 


I rang the clinic and explained they felt really loose at the top and unsupportive on my thighs, so she arranged for me to be sent the next size down.  Yellow top is the smaller size and red top was me in the larger size.  The "knickers" you can see are my knickers, the tights are that more transparent shade all the way up.  So good if you don't like a very dark panty section.

As you can see the under bum crease was terrible in the smaller size.  I have never seen anything like it and I blame it on the lack of any compression in the panty area.    
 

 Here you can see that the problem I had was not the seam of the panty section starting; the tights were cutting in about 1cm below that, forming that crease under my bum.  You can see the effect happened on the front too, but not as badly.







Overall, I really wanted to like these tights as they were not beige and the customer service was really good.  However, I don't think I am a good match for their sizing charts as it was like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears' beds, going from too big to too small, but in my case with nothing "just right".  

Personally I want tights that make my thighs feel supported when I run up stairs or take any exercise - these gave me nothing.  No support, just aching thighs.  

If you like the texture options and colours that their website has, and would like a loose and comfortable panty section then these may be your ideal tights.  Sadly I had to give in and buy alternatives to wear as even with added shorts they would give me the funny little creases and I was concerned that this was not good for me.