Three weeks into my first pair of raw jeans and my hands go blue, the inside of my white trainers has gone blue, and I sat on a cream sofa at a friend's and had a bad five minutes. I've read you're supposed to wait months before the first wash. Is there a point where the transfer stops on its own, or am I just going to keep ruining things?
Turn them inside out when you do wash, cold, gentle cycle, no softener, hang dry. Machine washing raw denim like that is fine and the internet's horror about it is overstated.
Light coloured sofas, car seats, white trainers, cream carpets — assume all of them for the first month or two. The one that catches people out is a leather car seat in summer, which does actually stain and is annoying to get out.
Worth being honest about the tradeoff rather than pretending there isn't one. Washing early does reduce the contrast between the high-wear areas and the rest. If you care about that look, wait longer and be careful. If you just wanted good jeans, wash them and stop thinking about it.
I think I'm in the second camp and had absorbed rules meant for the first camp.
@curl_chemist · 2w ago · 3 replies
Heavy transfer for the first few weeks, much less after the first wash, mostly gone by the second or third. It's loose indigo sitting on the surface of the yarn and it has to come off somewhere — either onto your sofa or into a sink.
The "never wash for six months" thing is folklore that got taken seriously. It came from wanting sharp contrast fades, and you get most of that from just not washing them constantly. Washing at three months instead of never costs you very little contrast and saves your furniture.
If you want to cut the transfer without a real wash: cold soak in a bath for 30-40 minutes, no detergent, no agitation, then hang dry. That pulls a lot of the loose dye and barely touches the fades.
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@backbutton_bri · 2w ago
Did the cold soak and the water went genuinely alarming colours. Hands stayed clean all week afterwards.
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@bobbin_bind · 2w ago
Add a cup of white vinegar to that soak if you want. Some people swear it sets the remaining dye, and at worst it costs you a cup of vinegar.
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