I follow the hand-washing method below, only omitting the detergent and agitation. I started soaking my jeans before I wear them years ago when I discovered that it helps make my jeans last longer. The reason I soak sanforized jeans before I start wearing them is to get most of the starch out, which is left from the production of the denim. So while I would consider a pre-wear soak optional for sanforized jeans, I think you more or less have to soak unsanforized jeans.
The only exception would be if you never ever plan to wash them. Jake hot soaks his unsanforized jeans for over an hour at least twice to shrink them down. You can listen to the episode with the player at the top of this blog post. If you like this episode, and the podcast in general, please leave a 5-star rating and a positive review on iTunes. This article was written by Thomas Stege Bojer, the founder and owner of Denimhunters.
Thomas launched the site in and built it into a voice for the denim industry and community. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sign me up for the newsletter! A perfect example of what happens when you never wash raw denim. Raw denim is stiff from a starch-like substance the denim mill applies. This stiffness helps create sharp creases in the raw jean when you sit or move.
The creases are where fades appear. When you wash the jean, the starch-like substance washes out, the denim softens, and the creases become less sharp. On those sharp creases, fading happens from abrasion during daily wear. The top blue yarns get worn down, allowing the bottom white yarns to show through. Each time a jean is washed, it loses a little color, and the contrast between dark non-faded areas and white faded areas lessens.
You can find deeper dives on these topics in our archives. The answer depends heavily on your lifestyle, the weight of the denim, and how often you wear them. One of the things that draws so many of us to raw denim is its ability to tell a visual story about us. Our lifestyle gets imprinted on what we wear.
All else being equal, the faster we live, the faster we fade. Want sick fades? With a vigorous lifestyle, you can expect to see fades emerging in three to four months. Expect to wait at least a year for impressive fades—longer if you live a life of leisure. There are plenty of faders who only wear their jeans part time and still manage to produce beautiful fades.
They make up for their time away from their denim by wrench monkeying in the garage or climbing mountains in every moment of their spare time. Remember, most dedicated faders wear the same pair every day without fail for months or even years on end. If you want fades and want them now, live loud and live in one pair.
You can go to town on your denim with a scouring pad, sandpaper, or chemical agents. Raw denim, as a culture, is a movement away from artificial, store-bought fades and towards authentic, personal ones. In this corner noses to the wall is where they belong. This is unconscionable. Standard practice for years was to wait six months to wash your raw denim jeans.
But the dissenting voices have grown louder and more insistent over the past few years. Pre-soaking and regular washing are now standard practice and we advocate both , but this will, we know, produce howls of outrage from the minority. We want to get out in front of this by washing away a few of the misconceptions surrounding washing or not washing raw denim:. First of all, it is highly unlikely that your raw denim is truly raw i. Second, beautiful fades are not the inevitable result when we hold off on washing our jeans for months and months.
What is the inevitable result of this practice is jeans that break down prematurely. At the end of the day, it comes down to your fade philosophy. If sharp high-contrast fades are your primary goal or your only goal , by all means keep your jeans dry. If you want to balance longevity and fades, a washing regimen will help you find that balance. Or you give them to Laundrapp instead and let us take care of them for you.
The reason denim aficionados prefer not to wash jeans is due to the way the fabric is dyed, which means the dye is easily faded by detergents. All you need to do is add one cup of distilled white vinegar — not the fish and chip shop variety — to the washing machine, then you can wash them as normal.
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