Product: "Burqini" in a Modest Fit
From: Ahiida - www.ahiida.com
Price: $126.00
Pros
It's very comfortable, the material is 100% Polyester so it's very light to wear! My favourite part of the swimsuit is the ties that are located at mid-calf length - they tie onto the separate shirt which means the shirt doesn't lift up when you're swimming. There are also ties at your feet which means that the pants don't flap around at the end when they're wet. I also love the colour, the photo above makes it look almost black but mine is a dark blue. Here is a pic of the ties on the shirt:
And at the feet...
Another thing that I love is the fit of the top. There are a few cons which I'll address but on the whole, it just drops down from the chest so it doesn't cling to your body. However, you would need to get a Modest Fit as I did, a slim-fit suit would cling a bit more I think. I also found that while swimming, I could simply tug on the bottom of the suit and it would become baggy again which was great when getting out of the water! You can see here that it just goes straight down, the only bump there is the ties sticking out after doing them up.
The instructions included were also great, it was a really professional bundle! I would be disappointed if it wasn't though tbh.
Cons
I obviously don't have the photos of the cons, but my main thing is that the chest area doesn't really give much to women that have regular or larger busts. But I think this is due to the design of the shirt - the hijab itself is attached, meaning that it just falls straight from the neck to below the knee (on me, anyway). It felt really weird to walk around with it at a deserted beach at first - no one was there but I didn't feel adequately covered at the chest area so wore a pashmina over it. That's the biggest con for me and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I am the type of person to wear jeans and a knee length jacket w/ hijab so it was a bit different at first.
The cap itself also took a bit of getting used to, in the beginning I felt like I wasn't wearing a hijab because of how light it is lol! The design is great though and it was hilarious hearing water slosh around in it when I was swimming in really strong waves.
I also think that the sleeves are a bit tight. I would've preferred the design of the shirt to be baggy at the shoulders, to imitate the look of having a big shirt & smaller undershirt because that would just let everything fall a bit better.
The thigh areas were also a bit too tight/revealing BUT this doesn't actually matter because the top is below the knee for a Modest fit on my frame, 163cms. The good thing about that is that it makes sure that the pants don't slip AT ALL :)
Overall
Price: $126 is a fair price for the swimsuit, considering that good swimmers here in Australia (1 piece or 2 pieces) are often $80 and up.
Comfort: 9/10! Great for swimming, only drawback being the ties on the feet need to be adjusted every now and again which is normal.
Coverage: 6/10 - I won't be wearing this at very public beaches, that's for sure, but it does the best it can for quiet areas with non-mahrams not present.
The swimsuit itself is amazing. It's such a great innovation and I'm really happy that it's available. In saying that, I don't plan to wear it in really public places as I'm still not 100% comfortable with the fit at the chest and don't believe a larger size would fix that. I think I will just continue with what I've been doing, which is swimming at very quiet beaches (not recommended if you are in a rough area though, remember the flags Aussies lol) and private pools in gym complexes that are almost deserted during the day. A great fix for someone conscious would be to simply wear a longer Al-Amira over the cap, something that I do want to do but I only have a black one which would look quite funny on my blue suit lol. I would recommend it to others but only as long as they were OK with either wearing an al-amira or the way the fabric falls naturally.
Have you ever worn a "burqini" or similar?
