A Matter of Life or Death Denim

Content taken from Dr Denim

"According to the experts, denim/jeans should not meet detergents or washing machines for the first six months after purchase. That's why (he) decided to write this blog and document the life of (his) new jeans for the first six or so months of their life"

Dry cleaning your jeans is OK, and as far as I understand, won't shorten their shelf life. However, you need to find a dry cleaner that knows what they're doing. It's the same with everything in life. You don't go to the first car mechanic you find. You look around a bit, and ask people who have used dry cleaners in your area before.

"Dry-Cleaning in certain solvents will return the jeans looking like new or better with no shrinkage." If you're living in the US, have a look at http://www.americasbestcleaners.com/, for the top 50 dry cleaners. According to Dependable Drycleaners in Denver, they did a test for a local TV station, where they dry cleaned a pair of pants 10 times, and washed an identical pair 10 times. When they compared them side by side, the dry cleaned pair looked as good as they did on day one, only softer, where the pair that was washed looked older and lost color.

My test, however, has nothing to do with washing vs dry cleaning. It has to do with "wearing in" the jeans for 6 months, and then washing them, in water, for the first time, so that the raw denim would shrink the 1-5%. That will, according to the experts, give me a really good fit -- Darryl De Necker

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