Washing Raw Denim Without Ruining It

The bathtub in my house turns the color of fountain-pen ink about twice a year. I fill it with four inches of cold water, turn a pair of jeans inside out, lay them flat, and push them under with both hands until the air bubbles stop. Within a minute the water goes faintly blue. By the time I drain it, it looks like a swimming pool at dusk.

That’s most of what you need to know about how to wash raw denim. Turn the jeans inside out, soak them flat in cold water, 60°F to 70°F, with a tablespoon of mild detergent for 30 to 45 minutes, rinse, and hang them to dry. Never use hot water or a dryer. For most raw jeans the first wash should come after three to six months of regular wear, or sooner if they smell or look dirty.

The rest is about timing and shrinkage, and about ignoring a few pieces of advice that have hung around denim circles far too long.

Washing removes indigo, and dirt removes cotton

Raw denim is dyed with indigo in a way that leaves the color sitting mostly on the outside of each cotton yarn, with a pale core underneath. Every time you sit down or bend over, the creases rub and a little indigo wears off, exposing the white. Those are your fades: the whiskers across the lap, the honeycombs behind the knees, the outline of your wallet.

Water takes indigo off too, but evenly, all over. So the longer you go before the first wash, the more contrast the creases build up before the whole pair lightens a shade. That’s the reasoning behind the old advice to go six months without washing.

What that advice leaves out is that dirt and sweat do their own damage. Grit works into the weave and cuts the cotton fibers from the inside every time you move. Skin oil and sweat break down the yarn at the crotch and the back pockets. I’ve seen plenty of jeans on a tailor’s table that blew out at the inner thigh at month eight, unwashed and proud of it, with fades that looked great right up to the tear.

A pair that smells is a pair that’s quietly coming apart.

So I’m in the middle on this. Three months of steady wear is enough to set the creases you’ll keep, and if you want the long version of how that plays out, there’s a good account of what the first year does to a pair. After that, wash whenever they’re dirty or smell, and don’t feel you’ve failed.

There are other signs it’s time. Cotton relaxes as you wear it, so raw jeans stretch out at the knees and seat. After a few months the waistband might sit a full inch looser than it did in the fitting room, and the knees hold a bag even when you stand up straight. A wash tightens the cotton back up. If you’ve been hitching your jeans up every hour, the tub will fix that faster than a tighter belt.

How to wash raw denim in a bathtub

The machine can work, and I’ll come to it. But the tub is gentler, and you can see what’s happening. This is the routine.

1. Empty every pocket, button the fly, and turn the jeans inside out.
2. Run four to six inches of cold water into a clean tub, 60°F to 70°F.
3. Stir in a tablespoon of mild detergent with no bleach and no optical brighteners.
4. Lay the jeans flat, push them under, and soak 30 to 45 minutes, flipping once.
5. Drain, refill with clean cold water, and swish them through to rinse.
6. Press the water out by hand, then hang them by the belt loops to dry.

Turning them inside out protects the face of the denim, where the fades live, from rubbing against itself and the tub. Cold water matters for two reasons. It strips less indigo, and it keeps shrinkage down. The detergent matters less than people think. Anything gentle without brighteners will do, and brighteners are the thing to avoid, because they’re designed to make whites look whiter and they leave denim looking faintly chalky.

Hanging is where most people go wrong. Don’t wring them. Don’t put them in the dryer, not even on low, not even for ten minutes to “take the damp off.” Dryer heat shrinks cotton and sets whatever creases happen to be in the fabric as it tumbles, and those random creases fade in strange places for the rest of the jeans’ life. Hang them from the belt loops on a hanger or a clip, away from direct sun, for 24 to 48 hours. While they’re still damp, give the legs a firm tug from the hem to recover some length.

Shrinkage depends on one word on the label

Before the first wash, check whether the denim is sanforized. Most raw jeans sold today are. Sanforizing is a mill process that preshrinks the fabric, so a sanforized pair loses only a little. Unsanforized denim, sometimes called loomstate, hasn’t been through it, and it shrinks a lot.

The length figures assume a 34-inch inseam. If you’ve bought unsanforized jeans, soak them before you wear them at all, using the same tub method, and buy them a size up in the waist and 3 to 4 inches long. Then wear them damp for an afternoon and they’ll mold a little to you as they dry.

Stretch denim plays by slightly different rules. A pair with 1 or 2 percent elastane in the weave shrinks less, but heat breaks down those elastic fibers, and once they go, the jeans bag out at the knee and never recover. Cold water and a hanger matter even more there. I’ll admit I’m no fan of stretch in raw denim to begin with, but if that’s what you own, treat it gently.

Don’t hem a raw pair until after the first soak, sanforized or not. I learned that one the irritating way, with a pair I had taken up to a perfect half inch of break, which then sat a quarter inch above my shoe after one bath. If you’re deciding how much break you want, decide it on washed denim.

The machine, the freezer, and other shortcuts

You can wash raw denim in a machine, and I do for older pairs. Inside out, cold water, the gentlest cycle, the lowest spin, and nothing else in the drum. Expect a little more fading than the tub gives, and a few faint lines where the machine creased them. For a pair two years in, I accept that trade. For a new pair, I fill the tub.

Wash the first few times alone, whichever method you use. Indigo bleeds for months, onto a pale couch or anything washed with it. Keep your white tees and anything pale out of that load, unless you want them a pale shade of blue.

Freezing jeans to kill the smell gets passed around every year. As far as I can tell, all it does is make cold jeans. The smell comes back as soon as they warm up, because the sweat and oil are still in the cotton. Soaking in vinegar or salt to set the dye is another one. Indigo doesn’t set that way, and I’ve never seen it make a difference I could point to.

Between washes, hang the jeans by the belt loops overnight instead of folding them over a chair. Air does a lot. It’s the same logic as storing a suit between wears: let the fabric rest and breathe, and it’ll need cleaning far less often.

Spills don’t have to mean a full wash. For a drop of coffee or a smear of grease, dampen a white cloth with cold water and a drop of dish soap, blot from the outside of the stain inward, then blot again with plain water. Don’t scrub. Scrubbing raw denim rubs the indigo off and leaves a pale patch that’s harder to live with than the stain. A spot clean takes five minutes and buys you weeks before the tub.

Repair beats replacement here, too

Even well-washed jeans wear through eventually, usually at the crotch first and the back pocket corners after that. Catch a thin spot at the inner thigh while you can still see light through it but not your hand, and a tailor or denim repair shop can reinforce it with a backing patch and dense rows of stitching for about $20 to $40. Wait until it splits and the job gets bigger and less invisible.

Hems fray last, and a frayed hem is the cheapest fix on a pair of jeans, around $15 to $25 to take up and restitch. The back pocket corners go when you carry a thick wallet in the same spot every day, and a few bar tacks at those corners cost less than lunch. I wore through my first serious pair in eleven months because I bought them a size too tight and every sit-down strained the crotch seam. Buy them loose enough to sit in comfortably on the first day.

The principle is the one I use on knitwear: darn a hole while it’s small. A pair of raw jeans that’s been patched twice and washed a dozen times has better fades and a better fit than the day you bought it. I’d take it over a new pair every time. More on that kind of upkeep lives in the care and repair section.

The verdict: Wear new raw jeans about three months before the first wash, then wash whenever they’re dirty or smell. Do it inside out in a bathtub of 60°F to 70°F water with a tablespoon of mild, brightener-free detergent, soak 30 to 45 minutes, and hang them by the belt loops to dry for a day or two. Never use the dryer, never hem before the first soak, and get thin spots reinforced before they tear.