Wash and Care

There are many schools of thought when it comes to washing and caring for your jeans. It seems like every denim retailer has their own guide to breaking in denim and how to wash and wear them, and there are a multitude of online videos and guides on how to best keep your jeans looking fresh. While there is technically no one correct way to wash and care for them, we like to follow the "less is more" method, especially when it comes to our selection of raw denim.

The great thing about raw denim is that it allows you to break them in to your own body and create your own distressing and fading over time. In order to create those coveted faded lines you see on pre-distressed denim, it is important to minimize how much you wash your jeans. Some purists will recommend to not wash your jeans for at least 3-6 months from when you first buy them, while others will keep them unwashed for upwards to a year. As long as they don't stink, sure, go ahead! However, if you wash your jeans with detergent too prematurely, the dye may fade too much and you might not be able to form the custom fading as much.

When you first wear your raw denim, they may be prone to bleeding dye onto your lighter color fabrics. In order to set the dye to minimize your bleed, you can soak your jeans inside out in a bath tub filled with cold water with one cup of white vinegar and one tablespoon of salt.

If during the initial break-in period your jeans start to give off too much funk, you can try putting them in the freezer overnight to kill the odor-causing bacteria. If you spill something on your jeans or it has stains, you can try to dab it out with cold water.

When washing your jeans, we do recommend washing your jeans inside-out by hand to minimize shrinkage and loss of dye. Try not to use too much soap or detergent and if you must, we recommend Woolite Dark. Flip them back right-side-out and hang them up to dry. You may want to stretch out your inseam a bit while they're still damp. If you feel more comfortable using a washer to wash your jeans, skip the usage of any harsh detergents and try not to overload the washer as it may lead to unwanted creases in your jeans. Even if you choose to machine-wash your jeans, you'll achieve best results by air drying, as using a commercial dryer will shrink your jeans.

For all of our other non-denim apparel, we still recommend washing them inside-out in cold water and air-drying.