HELP ASAP!

[Aniganatis]

Ok, I'm about to buy my latex, but the thing I cannot get answered is.... DOES Latex go bad and when???!!!! I don't want this stuff sitting in my house for a few weeks and end up horrible. Second, I bought Nylon Spandex for my tail, once finished I'll post a picture, yet I do believe it'll be to "weak" to hold up the latex, thus I MUST have neoprene. Am I correct on this?

[Kanti]

I had a gallon of latex lying around my house for about a year and it never went bad.
It started to darken in color and thicken, I assume it was beginning to cure and lose it's
ammonia, but I was able to use it entirely with no problem. The scales I made with are
also still stretchy and nice.
To be fair, I also CONSTANTLY left the top off of it when I was working, so it wasn't a
surprise to me at all. I also highly doubt it would have an expiration date since people
sell them in LARGE quantities. Monster makers has a 5 gallon bucket. Do they really
expect people to use it within a certain time frame?

And nonsense about the spandex! For some reason everyone says that but I think it'll be
fine. You'll have to make your tail a bit tighter so it'll keep itself on.
I was going to make a spandex tail with a latex topping and what I'm going to
do is end some latex scales off above the fabric so I can use them to anchor the tail to
my skin directly with spirit gum or liquid latex.

I had a dry costume in which I used this method and it stuck on completely fine.

[Mermaid Sirena]

One reason why neoprene is so popular with latex tails is because of how many people use latex that is not skin safe and thus need a bit of a substantial barrier between the latex and themselves as it would be constantly 'poisoning' the area around it. If you have skin safe latex then theoretically I don't see why you couldn't make it out of spandex, personally I would be worried about the derogation of the fabric due to it's nature and how it reacts to chlorine over an extended period of time.

[Kanti]

o.O I suppose it's not safe if you have allergies.
Are we talking about LATEX or Alex?

[Aniganatis]

Thanks sooo much, just ordered the latex now, and Latex, not Alex. Alex doesn't seem as safe as latex rubber.

[Ally]

So if you're using latex whats the ration of latex to thickener?