Can You Put Your Fave Jeans In The Washer and Dryer?
The age old questions for fashionistas and renegade Idaho-bred cowboys alike always boil down to our favorite hues of indigo and light washed denim. Some are about best brands, best wear, authenticity, and coolest looks, but most are about the best way to wear, wash, and dry your jeans with minimal to no wear and tear. Many people in the denim business have very clear stances about how to wash and dry your jeans, but there has been zero definitive answer to the question, "Can you manually dry your denim?"
Since I was born, my mother's take on washing our jeans has been to turn them inside out and hang them up to dry. We also washed them much more often than recommended by denim professionals and connoisseurs.
In college I found it was faster for me to keep them inside out and put them in the dryer. The jeans I bought were generally pretty stretchy, and I didn't see any visible wear and tear. However, after doing some research for this article, I realized the error of my college ways.
It all started with a video of Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Chip Bergh telling Fortune Magazine that you should not wash your jeans. He also happened to be wearing a pair of jeans he had not washed in a year! Famed American designer Tommy Hilfiger agrees; he told TMZ last October that he, "never wash[es his] Levi's" and claimed that, "They'll fall apart. I love them broken in."
While this may seem to be the course of action for people like me who cannot afford unlimited pairs of $300 Paige jeans, it seemed to ludicrous to think that I had been completely mistaken for my entire life of twenty-three years. Additionally, having jeans lose their wash, quality, stretch, et cetera seems to be the main concern here. But, what about personal hygiene people?
Delving deeper into the rules of denim care, I found a few hacks that were supposed to make me feel maybe a little bit better about the total upheaval of my regular jean care? I think? They included dry cleaning, sticking your jeans in the freezer, salt water, vinegar treatments, and dryer sheets in the pockets!
I also even found a select few articles that said it was alright to put jeans in the dryer. Good Housekeeping told me that, "All fabrics and especially jeans benefit when you take them out of the dryer slightly damp. Simply tug and smooth them into shape and let them finish drying flat or on a hanger. If, even after tumbling on low heat and a delicate cycle, you see lots of lint on the dryer's filter, you may want to switch to line drying your jeans to help preserve the fabric."
That sounds like a green light, right? If the moms of America have been washing and drying jeans like this for years, who is right: mothers or denim experts?
The denim experts weighed in with some compelling arguments. As they are people who really understand fabric, it's hard not to side with Chip Bergh and Tommy Hilfiger. Yahoo News went as far as to call the dryer "denim's kryptonite." Oof. Likening dryers to kryptonite did not help my case.
Yahoo News also interviewed the founder of denim repair and reconstruction service Denim Therapy Francine Rabinovich, and she said that most of the requests she gets from clients stem from dryer damage. “The heat of the machine damages the cotton and weakens the fabric,” she said. “You should really be getting two or three years out of an average pair of jeans.”
At this point, it seemed like tumble drying on low was still just not going to cut it. I had to radically change my denim care or I would be the only one to blame for continually wrecking them. The only thing I found somewhat comforting was that I could shrink stretched out jeans a bit to restore them to their original fit. Otherwise, my conclusions seemed somewhat bleak.
And then, I found her. Manrepeller's resident fashion mercenary and founder Leandra Medine says that this argument is moot: "Other aficionados-in-the-making say washing them cold and allowing them to air dry elongates their lifespans while I, I have jeans that I have been wearing for years—some that have been washed at least 100 times and others that haven’t been washed once, ever."
Perhaps whether or not you wash and dry manually, by-hand, or not at all depends on personal preference—much like choosing a low-rise acid washed pair over a high-rise dark wash. Perhaps your jeans are meant to serve you more than you are meant to serve them? It's certainly a more comforting notion for busy women like me. Although, after all of this research, I probably won't be washing and drying my jeans as often now. Smells like freedom? Let's hope so.
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