Day 100 | Who would have thought?

I still can't believe I made it to one hundred days. I don't really think about what I am doing with the jeans when I put them on in the mornings anymore. It's only at night when I blog about it, that I can see the days counting up.

It's been interesting to see where most of my visitors have been coming from. 44% of traffic to this blog come via search engines. The ten most popular searches, after removing general words like Dr.Denim Jeans, are "denim washes", "www.care-labelling.co.uk", "about raw denim 6 months", "cleaning denim jeans", "dry clean jeans", "dry cleaning jeans", "superfuture supertalk", "washing instruction", "will dry cleaning shrink jeans", "a good pair of jeans is like a member of the family" and "black raw". Most visitors seem to be interested in finding out how to clean their jeans. No wonder the most popular post by far is Day 35, which is about dry cleaning your jeans. It is still the most visited page, even 65 days after writing it.

Perhaps it's a good idea to find out a little bit more about all the ways you can clean your jeans. There's so many styles, colours and types of denim, surely there must be different ways to clean them all when they get dirty?

Day 85 | Wax, oil and dye combination stains

I've been covering stains on clothing for the past 2 days, covering oil, protein and dye stains. It's been really interesting for me as to how many possibilities there are for removing stains, but that not all methods work for all stains. A lot of the methods are the same in principle, with a slight variation in the theme. The most important thing to remember is that bleach and denim don't mix well, so it's better not to get a stain in the first place.

As I wrote on Day 84 and Day 83, to remove stains from clothing, you have to first determine what created the stain. Fortunately we usually know what we have spilled, dripped or dumped on our clothes, but it's the times when you get home with something on your clothing, that it gets a little more difficult. Reading the label of the product that created the stain, should help in narrowing down your cleaning methods. Below is a list of some common stains and general removal tips.

Wax/Oil/Dye Combination Stains

• Ball-point ink
• Candle wax
• Carbon paper
• Carbon typewriter ribbon
• Crayon
• Eye make-up (mascara, pencil, liner, shadow)
• Floor wax
• Furniture polish
• Lipstick
• Livestock paint
• Pine resin
• Shoe polish
• Tar

"Firstly, spray or sponge with dry cleaning solvent like perchloroethylene or trichloroethylene, then rub a heavy-duty liquid detergent into the stained fabric area and rinse thoroughly. Secondly, soak the stained garment in a dilute solution of all-fabric powdered bleach."

"If the above steps do not remove the stain you can try soaking the garment in a dilute solution of liquid chlorine bleach and water if the clothing is white or light coloured. Warning - bleach damage to coloured garments is irreversible. Since bleaching can alter the colour of the garment, bleach the whole garment and not just a spot. If the stain is not gone in 15 minutes, it cannot be removed by bleaching. More bleaching will only weaken the fabric."

Other common combination stains

• Barbecue sauce
• Calamine lotion
• Ketchup or tomato sauce
• Cocoa or chocolate
• Face make-up (powder, rouge, foundation)
• Gravy
• Hair spray

"First, rub a heavy-duty liquid detergent into the stain then rinse thoroughly. Second, soak the stained garment in a dilute solution of all-fabric powdered bleach."

"If the above steps do not remove the stain you can try soaking the garment in a dilute solution of liquid chlorine bleach and water if the clothing is white or light coloured. Warning - bleach damage to coloured garments is irreversible. Since bleaching can alter the colour of the garment, bleach the whole garment and not just a spot. If the stain is not gone in 15 minutes, it cannot be removed by bleaching. More bleaching will only weaken the fabric."

"Before any spot removal process you should test the product on a non-visible corner of the garment. No method is always one hundred percent successful. Success can be thwarted by length of time the stain has set, the material and dyes that make up the fabric and the make up of the stain itself."

Hope this has helped a little with regards to removing stains. It's sure given me some food for thought next time I grab the general "all purpose" stain remover.

Day 82 | How to wash "dry clean only" clothes at home

I found this interesting comment on how to wash your "dry clean only" clothes at home. There are a couple of warnings, but other than that, I think it's worth a try.

"In general you can successfully hand wash most dry clean only garments. The success will depend on the type of fabric, how the garment is put together, the dyes used, and the printing process used on the fabric. Also your hand laundering success is dependent on the amount of dirt and stains on the fabric. For best results always use cold water and a gentle cleanser - some gentle liquid face soaps work well. Hand wash by dipping the fabric in and out of the sudsy water. Gently scrub with your finger tips areas of heavy soil. Never use bleaches, regular laundry cleansers, fabric softeners, or rinse additives."

"After you have hand washed your dry clean only garment, roll them tightly in an absorbent
towel. Unroll the towel and move the garment to a dry part of the towel and roll again. Continue until garment no longer feels drippy. It may take 2-5 rollings. Never wring or twist your dry clean only garment, even when they are in the towel."

"If the garment is stretchy like a sweater you will want to re-shape and dry flat on top of your
clothes drying rack . If it is made of real silk, wool or other natural animal fibers you should
place your rack out of the direct sun light. Give your dry clean only garments a gentle shake, as this separates the front from the back of the material for faster drying time as well as removing any wrinkles caused by the rolling process. Tops and dresses should be hung by the shoulders. Be sure to straighten the collars into position you want them to dry in."

"Clothing items that are NOT safe to hand wash and are best taken to the dry cleaners: The garment is made from acetate fibres. It is a rayon garment (Rayon often shrinks – however it usually only shrinks once. So if that dress is too big or long you could try hand washing it. Once its shrunk it is unlikely to shrink again). There is a special finish on the garment, such as fabrics that are stiff. These may have a stabilizing finish to maintain the stiffness. The garment is leather or suede. The garment is very special to you - and you would be sad if washing by hand changed the garment in anyway."

Tomorrow I'll try and cover some more on stain removal, as I did on Day 41, where I wrote about trying to remove paint from denim.

Day 79 | Three Cleaning suggestions

I was on Superfuture Supertalk again today to check up on something and found a post where someone asked the standard question about washing their jeans. It wasn't the question so much, but the answer that I thought was really well put. Here goes: "How can I wash my jeans so that they don't become faded and won't lose colour and will still look new?" The question isn't really well put, because what they want is to wear their jeans, but it should never get old. But be that as it may, here's the answer.

"Personally I would suggest the following:
"1. Dry Cleaning - The only caveat would be to be very wary of this cleaning method if your jeans have leather labels." (Have a look at day 35 and day 36 where there's more on dry cleaning)

"2. Cold water soak - Good for just getting rid of dust and non-greasy dirt. You'll lose a little indigo, and may get a bit of shrinkage (depends if your jeans have been preshrunk) , and lose the shine that characterise many dry jeans."

"3. Cold-to-tepid soapy water soak - If you have greasy stains (e.g. food), this may work for you. It's like washing delicate items, like handmade quilts & cashmere knits - use a simple soap (e.g. pure vegetable soap, no enzymes, no phosphates, no bleach). Soak and rinse in clean water until satisfied."

"Turn inside out before washing, and hang dry." "Wet washing will remove the shine, but you'll get some of that back with wear - as the natural compression and friction will recreate a calendering effect. (Like when you iron a black cotton shirt and create unwanted shine)."

Day 49 | Superfuture Supertalk

While I was looking around the internet for interesting websites on jeans, denim and how to clean them, I stumbled upon a website called Superfuture Supertalk, which according to them, contain "discussions for superbored global shopping experts". Having trudged through their site, I stumbled upon a page about all things denim, or as they called it the "Super Denim Encyclopedia".

It's a discussion board where members post threads (Questions or topics), and it gets answered by other members or "experts". They cover subjects like how to get rid of wine stains, chewing gum and blood. There's also subjects like how to store your jeans, and then all the others like different kinds of stitching, types of raw denim, shrinking as well as making your own jeans. I haven't gone through everything, but will be looking a little deeper over the next couple of days. Looks like a lot I still have to learn.