Thursday, October 10, 2013

How To Take Care of Your Jeans


Everyone thinks they are supposed to wash their jeans how you would normally wash your other clothes, but what people don’t know is that there is a whole procedure and many different methods on how to keep them clean and make sure they last. If you wash your jeans after every wear, this stretches out the cotton and breaks down the fabric faster, causing things such as fading, holes and rips.
When spending $150-$250 for jeans the last thing you want is for them to rip after a couple months of wear. To ensure the longevity of your new high end jeans, try to not wash them after your first wear, try holding off as long as possible before giving them their first wash. Of course if they get a stain or smell you can always throw them in the wash, there is no law saying you can’t, but when washing make sure to wash with like colours or with other similar coloured jeans, as the indigo dye will bleed and come off. Flipping the jeans inside out always helps and don’t forget to wash in cold water. Now a lot of women like their jeans to fit tight or back to how they originally fit, so with that being said if there is a 2-3% elastane in the fabric content you can throw them in the dryer and they will go back to size, they might feel like they have shrunk, but your jeans only shrink a ¼” in length the first time you wash them, otherwise if you don’t care about them fitting tight again, you can just hang them to dry. Keeping your jeans out of the dryer will ensure that the material doesn’t thin out to fast and that your jeans will have a long life.
 An odd, but effective way of cleaning your jeans, throwing them in a freezer bag and putting them in the freezer. Although it’s a weird concept, by putting them in the freezer it  kills the bacteria and scent without actually breaking down the material. Now I wouldn’t suggest doing this every time you want to wash your jeans, but it’s definitely a good method to throw in the mix once in a while. Raw denim which means has 0% elastane in it is a whole different cleaning method. With raw denim you want to refrain from washing them for a minimum of 6 months. Raw denim is super stiff and not as common for women as it is for men, but the denim only gets better with age and for the best fades and to preserve the dye you are not supposed to wash your jeans for months. In that case that’s where the freezer trick comes in handy a lot. 
  No one wants to spend $250 on a pair of jeans and have them rip, fade or tear shortly after purchasing them. I know that with following these simple, but effective washing techniques, you will stretch the lifespan of those favourite you are not yet ready to part with.

 

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