In 2555, a classified NanoTrasen transport shuttle heads out from a classified mining location to a classified research outpost, carrying a valuable cargo of natural liquid plasma, full of peculiar microbes being carried to xenobiological research labs.
Due to reasons still unclear, the shuttle managed to crash right into a warehouse of discontinued cloning equipment, pending disassembly. Nanotrasen, still puzzled at the record-breaking incompetence of the pilots, soon found themselves with a disproportionately large amount of volatile potential employees.
Although the beings had been previously observed and were being actively studied (that was, in fact, the purpose of the shuttle's cargo), Nanotrasen was hoping to keep their population (and overall knowledge of their existence) as contained as possible.
As this had become clearly no longer the case, NT thought to take advantage of the occasion despite it interfering with their plans, and effectively staff their establishments with this new flammable workforce.
But to make the plasmamen not combust on the spot, they first needed a new model of airtight, though not necessarily spacefaring, pierce-resistant and mass-produceable suit.
The previous solution of the aliens routinely wearing costly and bulky EVA suits when entering human-habitable areas was going to quickly become unsustainable, and a ragtag team of top scientists, stylists, and clothing manufacturer representatives (who in hindsight had some unusual fuzz around their necks) was assembled.
The plasma envirosuit we know and love(?) today is an elegant blend of cost-effectiveness and ease of use (especially in the venue of neutralizing rowdy skeletons via helmet removal).
Aside from this emergency use case, releasing burning plasma out (and burning oxygen in) at every little scratch is not ideal, thus the fabric of the envirosuit is made of two layers of heavily coated and tightly woven synthetic threads, with a layer of an extremely sticky and hard to wash glue-like substance sandwitched in the middle (the formula, though protected by corporate secret, is known to include tritium hydrocarbons less common than plasma).
Thanks to this design, in case of a slash or rip in the fabric of the suit it can easily be mended through the simple application of pressure, and the built-in extinguisher charge does the rest.
Said extinguisher charge is little more than a manually-toggled water dispenser located behind the vertebrae, which effectively reduces the plasma colonids' typical dryness (the leading hypothesis for the cause of such a low humidity is their tendency to rapidly absorb liquid water for hydrogen, an element which the organisms are always quite eager to consume).
Plasmaman gloves are, contrary to popular belief, integral for the envirosuit to work.
They're internally coated with thick memory foam to adapt to the sometimes lumpy boney fingers, and externally coated with thin but resilient rubber to maintain sensitivity and control in the hands. The hands on the envirosuit itself are one of the weakest spots on it due to these reasons.
You might be thinking to yourself: this is all well and good, but, say, if a plasmaman has to, for example, put on glasses, are they screwed? The answer is, kind of! While the helmet is easy to quickly unscrew and equip again, such an operation can only be conducted under a shower or in the dangerous vacuum of space, unless the user is brave (or stupid) enough and quick with their reflexes.
The crew of the stations to which plasmamen were tentatively introduced to didn't react all too poorly to the new colleagues. In the very words of station 8 captain Lucio Spurgis "I've been through so much shit lately I barely noticed the purple guys coming out of arrivals."
Station 5 chief engineer Ruth Blarbo instead remarks "They're cool I guess, they mostly spend their time tanning at the supermatter. It's a step up from the human staff who actively delaminate it just for kicks."
It seems though that the Animal Rights Consortium and other ethics organizations have taken the news of a new species made of human corpses and alien goop being introduced to Nanotrasen stations, and especially the horror stories about envirosuit testing (how many had to burn before the product reached the market?) not too well, and have been steadily extending their Nanotrasen Book Of Grudges, motivating the rest of the Syndicate ever more for the next attack.