Sequin tails and marine life health

[Mermaid Momo]

Hi all! I recently saw a thread in one of the facebook groups about sequin tails shedding like no tomorrow. I knew they shed but I was expecting at most 10 scales a swim but some people have said that the amount of shedding is a lot greater. This brought up concerns about the safety of using a sequin tail around sea life. Since I sold my desert flower partial silicone tail a few months ago I was planning on creating a silicone x sequin tail. I mostly swim in pools but I do one day hope to travel to prime photo locations like the springs in Florida or the ocean in the bahamas and mexico. These places both have marine life in those areas that dropped sequins can impact

I'm wondering if I should just give up on the partial sequin tail idea even though I'll only encounter waters with marine life maybe every blue moon (hey travel is expensive) because of the impacts it might have on marine life or should I go ahead and just make it and hope the scales don't shed as much? (It should be noted I will be using 20mm scales not the 12 mm most people use. I'm not sure if these have a lower shed and breakage rate but being larger I may notice one drifting off on the waves)

[Mermaid Jaffa]

I think if you make it with big scales it should be fine. Its the little sequins 2mm size or smaller, that may cause problems because small fish and baby fish can eat it. I used to go fishing when I was younger and I've seen people make lures out of the smaller size sequins.

[AniaR]

It depends on the scales.

The old school hand made tails don't shed as much I find if you're really securing them. The issue is more they break or the color comes off in a film. I know there are some big name mers who haven't been invited back to aquariums tho after their handmade tails have shed sequins and fish have eaten them.

I tried a mythic once in a pool for a photo shoot and lost quite a few scales.

I find they're all fine for land based stuff or pools, but not out in the ocean or lakes or rivers etc

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Maybe sew each scale individually with really strong thread and several passes with the needle. So if one falls off, they don't all go.

[ChelseaSelkie]

I would just give up on it. That, or encase the sequins in silicone so they simply CAN'T fall off. It is not worth risking. There isn't much difference between a baby fish or an adult sea turtle eating a sequin of any size. They are all dangerous, IMO.

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[Mermaid Fenicia]

@ChelseaSelkie: you can't encase sequins in to silicone as they have sharp edges and will cut trough it.

[ChelseaSelkie]

@ChelseaSelkie: you can't encase sequins in to silicone as they have sharp edges and will cut trough it.That just gave me a really bad visual of what they do to fish. :(

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[Mermaid Kane]

Not sure bigger sequins will help that much. It'll just be bigger animals eating them.

I think maybe if you take extra time to tightly and securely see each scale on, you should lose less.

Or maybe we should keep sequin tails away from wildlife...

[AniaR]

Or maybe we should keep sequin tails away from wildlife...

https://media.giphy.com/media/prGwyBLmDzeJa/giphy.gif

[Mermaid Momo]

This is such a hard choice! On one hand I love the sparkle and shine a sequin tail will get and I know deep down I won't be traveling to swim outside of a pool anytime soon, but also In case I do happen to just afford to travel soon I don't want to have to leave my tail behind so I don't impact the wildlife with the shed sequins. But also I want other tails than partial silicone tails. Maybe I'll make an interchangeable body? one body from silicone one from sequin?

Or if I find the right pigments I'll just make another partial silicone tail and try to make it as sparkly as possible.

[ChelseaSelkie]

Why not incorporate pearl powder into the silicone? It could get really shimmery. :)

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[Mermaid Jaffa]

Paint it up with 3D fabric paint? There is a texture medium for fabric paints. I forgot what its called. Maybe you could build up the scale texture using this medium.