apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I know what kinds of dirty things get on my jeans, and I always have mud stains from the dogs jumping up on me...I'll keep washing mine. Granted, here lately I haven't been buying expensive jeans. Still, I'll keep washing.

My husband does this. It makes me crazy when I reach into the freezer for something, only to find jeans in there.

But what about how jeans kind of stretch out and then washing them makes them get smaller again? I know it's definitely time to wash jeans when they are sagging too much. (Plus, I'm messy!)

i hate washing my jeans too because i love my denim dark dark dark! but like percent, they also tend to get a bit baggy after a while and i eventually reluctantly put them in the wash... my sister's trick is to buy jeans that are one waist size smaller and next to impossible to button on the first day, but they then look great for weeks after. i have not tried this but will the next time i purchase. and then i'll try this freezer trick or wait for the next winter!

by the way, i don't think germs are killed at freezer temperatures, they just stop multiplying. they will probably happily grow again after thawing! heck, the E.Coli i use in the lab are kept in -80C come to think of it!!

Yeah, this only applies to unwashed, nice jeans. This is not meant for your normal everyday jeans. But you will need to wash them eventually. Inside out, cold water short cycle, and absolutely no dryer. They should be line/air dried. Really nice jeans are not meant to be worn every day. They should be viewed like a tuxedo. You don't wash a tuxedo after every time you use it. Its a special occasion item that only gets washed a couple times a year with great care.

This article should specify that these instructions are for raw denim. Regular jeans won't really see a lot of benefit in this.

Cool hack thanks for sharing...

Raw denim? What's that?

yes what is raw denim?

From Wikipedia:

Raw or dry denim, as opposed to washed denim, is denim that hasn't been washed or dried during production. Most denim is washed after being crafted into an article of clothing in order to make it softer and to eliminate any shrinkage which could cause an item to not fit after the owner washes it. In addition to being washed, non-dry denim is sometimes artificially "distressed" to achieve a worn-in look.

Much of the appeal of raw denim lies in the fact that with time the fabric will fade in a manner similar to factory distressed denim. With raw denim, however, such fading is affected by the body of the person who wears the jeans and the activities of his or her daily life. This creates what many enthusiasts feel to be a more natural, unique look than pre-distressed denim.

To facilitate the natural distressing process, some wearers of dry denim will often abstain from washing their jeans for more than six months,[4] though it is not a necessity for fading. Often, enthusiasts will just hang their unwashed denim to help get rid of the smell. Another tip which denim enthusiasts tend to opt for, is to place their jeans in the freezer as this draws the odors out of the denim.

I think this all depends on how much you wear your jeans and the purpose. I only get to wear jeans on the weekend. So I probably only wash my jeans once every 1-2 months. Maybe more in the summer (I live in a very hot and humid place).

May I suggest woolite dark? I wash all of my darks in it and think it does a great job to help prevent fading.

This is a great suggestion. I have had a pair of raw denim for several years and i finally gave into washing them, this strips the color out of them. you can set the "wash" and fade looks to your own person. aka, every time you bend your body will make the jeans crease in a certain way creating "whiskerys" up towards the front pockets or wallet fades in the back pocket.

The biggest reason i like this technique is to get rid of the funk! kill the germs and your jeans don't stink anymore. hang them to air out every night, keep a fabric softener sheet in the pockets, spray them with febreeze,... all different techniques.

enjoy your cool new raw denim, its a fun nerdy world!

i second the idea that freezing does not kill beasties. i also work in a lab, and not only do we freeze E. coli at -80 degrees celsius (-112 F) for later use, we also freeze yeast. one kind of yeast, S. cerevisiae, is what is used in bread and beer. you definitely encounter it, but it is non-pathogenic. another kind, Candida albicans, is the variety that causes yeast infections. it is part of a woman's usual flora, but shifting the balance down there leads to bad things. wash your clothes!

al24lola: note, though, that when you freeze lab coli or yeast you have to resuspend it in a ~25% v/v or greater glycerol solution, otherwise you get pretty terrible viability (i.e., a lot of them die... which means that freezing should actually have the desired effect here).

(also, freeze-thawing unprotected cells is a great way to bust them open)

oh man, i am constantly shocked and amazed how people can spend so much money on over glorified processes and treatments.

my boyfriend had a pair of levis that were a bright blue color, he thought they looked too much like, "i work at apple technologies in the 90's", so i mixed a little dark grey dye with a dark navy blue dye and darkened them. the color turned out really lovely and unique, and i wanted to distress them a little to look broken in, so i put them on, sat in a chair and (lightly) took a piece of rough sand paper to the lap creases, the knees and to the hem of the jeans. then, i boiled some black tea in a large pot and soaked the jeans to give a brown tinge to the sanded parts.

he has washed them a number of times since i dyed them, they've faded a bit and they look so dang cool. they're his favorite jeans now, and i fixed them up for under $15.

wash them inside out in cold water WITHOUT detergent

oh...and air dry them only...

I went to fashion school and in my advanced textiles class we actually went into discussion about NOT washing jeans. But, I have never heard of the freezer method, I'm going to have to try it!

I never wash my jeans. Ok, never is a stretch but when they get too loose I just stick them in the drier inside-out and dry for about 10-15 minutes. They are a little tighter without having to re-break them in...plus you don't lose any of the color!

I have to admit that I don't really wash my jeans very often. I hardly ever really stain my clothes so I can get away with not washing them too often. However, when I do wash them, I use Indian soap nuts to do my laundry and the color of my jeans (or my other clothes, for that matter, and I wear mostly black) don't budge!

This is all new to me (I do not own raw denim), but I bought some organic cotton jeans, and the instructions say to wash them by wearing them in the shower. That is way too fussy for me, so I've just been machine-washing them--but maybe shower-washing is a slightly gentler alternative to machine-washing.

I can't imagine not washing my jeans on a regular basis... I have a 4 month old who pukes a lot, and it never fails to land on my jeans...I can't see how putting them in the freezer would get the puke stains out!

It wont really. You can do some spot cleaning though. The point is not to wash them because if you do, they fade before the wear brakes in. You can do various things to distress them outside of wearing them, but it doesn't look as good.

Also freezing works on just about anything. It is useful to know on those day where you realize you should have dry cleaned something because there is a touch of funk but you couldn't/didn't and you need to wear it the next day.

Hmmm, wonder if this would work on my every day trousers, given that they could dowith freshening up and it is too late to wash anything without waking the neighbours.... unfortunately I only have a tiny freezer compartment and, while it is big enough to hold a pair of trousers, I would have to eat my way through the contents already in it first!

This could be worth trying with other items though and, if you have space to fill in your freezer, it would also cut down on the amount of energy used! So, zero detergents used, and with no need to use a washing machine, zero water and energy plus reducing energy use by filling the freezer - you could be green, clean and smug as hell about it! ;)

This doesn't work as well if you're worried about color bleaching, but a great way to refresh clothes without washing them is to hang them out in bright sunlight. Kills germs and circulates nice air through the fabric.

I wouldn't recommend this for clothes you reaaaally care about, since of course, over time it does bleach them. But for cutting down your laundry load it does wonders.

If it is cold outside where you live, instead of the freezer you can hang your jeans, shirt, etc. outside for a few hours or overnight. I have done this with my winter coats and jeans to get the smoky smell out of them after being somewhere smoky. It works so well! They smell so fresh and so clean:)

^ yes!

Love sticking clothing, coats, bedding, pillows, etc outside for fresh air. Winter and summer have their own smells here, and I love sticking bedding on the deck on a crisp, newly snowy day.

The point of this is getting to your first wash without fading the colors in the mean time.

Raw denim before:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pBdLYpC6ZYA/Scw8vJhrJnI/AAAAAAAAKDk/3-yiFa1RUto/s1600-h/1.jpg

First wash after 14 months:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pBdLYpC6ZYA/Scw8mZyzn_I/AAAAAAAAKDM/fwwIlcNZOEc/s1600-h/4.jpg

This isn't wear marks that came from the factory folks, these are your creases, your butt marks, your fading.

I don't care how delicate an item of clothing is - if I wear it, its eventually going to need to be cleaned.

Clothes are meant to be worn, not framed.

this comment stream has a high unintentional comedy quotient. however, i will probably try this. :)

Do you mean, you'e going to try freezing your jeans or unintentional comedy? ;)

OK, I'm going to say it:
How did we get so dumb as to somehow get fooled into not only paying a whole lot of money for a pair of denim pants but also believe that we aren't supposed to wash them?
The end of day are 'nigh...

@saltwater - I don't think this trend indicates degeneration any more than it indicates progress. People have always searched for esoteric ways to set themselves above the common herd. This is certainly not more inconvenient than lead face paint or whale-bone corsets.

Um. No. I wear my jeans multiple times without washing, but they do nee to be washed eventually.

The title is misleading--you are not "cleaning" your jeans by freezing them. The dirt and grime and whatever yuck has accumulated from sitting, standing, and walking in a city are still there. The whole freezing method strikes me as kind of gross, actually. Just wash your jeans in a washing machine, with water and detergent, please. If you want your jeans to last as long as possible (and this is cloth, not platinum so you shouldn't expect them to last forever in spite of cost), use cold water, a tiny bit of soap, wash them inside out, on delicate cycle, and hang dry.

@JoseA: This reminds me of the salesguy at John Varvatos. My boyfriend was planning on buying a pair of Chukka boots, but was concerned about the thinness of the sole (apparently, they were made of tire treads) and how they would stand up to everyday wear. The salesguy rolled his eyes and said that you should never wear the same shoes everyday (and yes, I understand that leather shoes need a rest period so that they don't misshapen) and that he personally never wore the same shoes twice in a row.

Clothes are meant to be worn! They're jeans, not a couture gown. Seriously, people. Keep your denim out of your freezer.

I think we should start freezing our underwear and socks too. And to hell with personal hygiene. All that soap and water causes premature aging. I have really expensive sheets too. Maybe I should just stick them in the freezer. Good Lord! When your jeans start to look old buy new ones. I don't care how much they cost.

The stink of dirty jeans as a status symbol makes me think of the Semmelweis time, when it was a sign of a high status doctor, to wear a jacket covered with old, encrusted blood and other bodily fluids for new childbirth/deliveries. It took a lot to teach people that cleanliness was a good step to preventing puerperal fever in new mothers.

As for coliform and yeast problems in jeans, I, for one, always wear underpants, and change them daily. Of course, I also wash my jeans AND I even bathe myself.

Eeeeeeew! Dirty jeans on the kitchen table! You walk around in the streets in those jeans, ride on the subway, go into toilets wearing them and you've put them on the KITCHEN TABLE to fold them up??? And you're talking "green"? Wake up! fold them somewhere else at least!

Marilyn Monroe to Richard Sherman in The Seven Year Itch:

Hey, do you know what I do when it gets hot like this? I keep my undies in the icebox!

So the laundry room will have one more appliance: the clothes freezer ???

I have spent some time researching the raw denim "movement." I've browsed internet forums dedicated solely to the proper maintenance (or lack of) of raw denim jeans. People take photos of their jeans as they age, photos of their jeans in the bath, the bathwater after washing a pair of year-old jeans for the first time, and then the freshly washed jeans. They document the process as if the jeans are newborn children. I was fascinated.

Perhaps I would have gotten suckered into buying a pair. But...

The fact is, four years ago I bought a pair of dark wash jeans for $40 at American Eagle. I wore and washed them regularly, along with all my other everyday clothes. I did take care to turn them inside out and use cold water, but I used regular detergent in a regular quantity and frequently put them in the drier as well. They now look almost the same as fujii13's jeans and still fit like a glove. So I'm really not that impressed by the "results" gotten with $300 raw denim jeans.

Then my boyfriend, who is often sweaty, came home with a pair of raw denim jeans. My god...

Turns out he thought they were regular dark jeans. He wanted them to stay dark and I was concerned that the raw denim would bleed a lot more dye than regular denim, so I told him to try holding off on washing them as long as possible. After a month we caved in. It was just too gross. His jeans are still dark. They look fine.

Signed,

Not a believer

So... "raw" denim just means unwashed (before selling)? Isn't that exactly what Levi's has been doing for over 150 years? It used to be these types of jeans were just called "shrink to fit" (and still are, actually, when you're paying less than $50 for them).

http://www.amazon.com/Levis%C2%AE-Strauss-Button-Original-Shrink/dp/B000NPO13O

I wonder what cowboys would have to say about this topic.

OMG. i can NOT believe you put your jeans on your kitchen counter.
EW. this is why i'm so hesitant about having people come over to my home. you're going to come sit on my couch wearing jeans you've never washed. disgusting.
if you knew the kind of microscopic crap we get on our clothes (especially near the hem of our pants) you would disrobe outside before setting foot in your home.

It took a while before people figured out that "muffin-tops" weren't really all that great; One can only hope that this too will pass.

viva la 501s!

I don't get it. But then again I have sworn off ever buying a pair of jeans over $100. The one time I did, I almost immediately lost 20 pounds and now it looks like I'm wearing boyfriend jeans.
I don't wash my jeans every wear, but do probably every 5 times. I sometimes remember to turn them inside out. If they are super baggy I'll put them in the drier. if they're already near a good fit when I wash them, they get hung to dry.
I don't own clothes that I'm afraid to wear, and so by extension, I don't own clothes that I'm afraid to wash.
Besides, my jeans tend to get holes in inappropriate places long before the color has become unattractive.

Actually, the shrinkage happens more in the dryer then in the washer. If your jeans get too baggy you can steam them with your iron and they will shrink back to their original size.

As for the washing... I'm an artist and get dirty pretty often. Denim was made to be a heavy duty work cloth. I think that I have to clean mine because there are obvious stains. haha Also, I don't buy luxury jeans... I don't believe in them.

Ugh. That definitely wouldn't work here. First, I live in a tropical country. Ergo, heat humidity = sweating, and lots of it. Also, lots and lots of rain = mud. Secondly... putting dirty jeans in a compartment where there's also food? Yuck! :S

@laurenlosefast "I have sworn off ever buying a pair of jeans over $100. The one time I did, I almost immediately lost 20 pounds"

If that worked for me, I'd buy nothing but expensive jeans. ;)