Day 173 | Caring for your denim

It's getting close now to the day when I'll finally wash these jeans. I bought them on the 3rd of September 2008, so technically the 3rd of March would be the 6 month mark. I'm planning to wash them the following day on the 4th of March.

With that I found some more helpful tips on caring for your denim from a website called DressCodesAlt.com. The photograph of the four pairs of jeans is from their website. It's helpful to see the difference between the same pair of jeans over a period of time, as I do with my comparisons.

There's some really good tips from them, but the two I like the most is: "If you spill something on your Raw denim you can wipe it off, or wait for the spot to dry and it will usually fade on its own. Do not clean local spots with water or cleaning solution because it can remove the indigo and you may get a bleach spot."

And: "Do NOT hem your jeans before the first wash because your denim will naturally shorten with wear since the fabric around the knees and groin will bunch up on its own. In addition a small shrinkage in length may occur after the first wash."

This goes hand in hand with what I got from Alexander at Dr.Denim about the legs shortening during the wash because of the stitching. He recommended to grab the crotch area and one hem at a time, and then stretch the seams out very slowly as much as you can. This will help to get the seams back to their original length, because it's the denim that shrinks and not the stitching.