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Do You Freeze Your Jeans?
This idea of freezing your jeans instead of washing them keeps coming up, and I guess it works from a bacteria-killing perspective. But something about this seems kind of bizarre. Like is it that bad to just clean them the old-fashioned way? And even if it's wrong to wash raw denim, what about regular denim? (And how do you even know if your jeans are raw?) Also, if you don't wash them and put them in the dryer once in a while, don't your pants just keep getting baggier and baggier until they look terrible and fall off? There are so many questions! Have you ever frozen your jeans? Do you feel strongly about this issue? This is a safe space. Please discuss.
"The whole point of the jeans"
"If you wash them, you will remove all of the good coolness that they have."
And that is when he should have realized that the extraneous pockets and zippers could not possibly be part of any "good coolness" that those jeans might have.
I agree! Those jeans might be fancy, but they are definitely NOT COOL.
but what about that grimy feeling when you've been wearing them for like 5 days too long…?
umm…never even heard of this!! who is doing this!??
also…the add staring me in my face for "butt lift jeans" is making me sick! do you see her ass!!?? I WANT ONE!!
No
Big ol' HELLS YES to the "baggier and baggier until they look terrible and fall off" bit.
Heard about this about a year ago, was totally intrigued. But not really in a want-to-try-this way. When I read it I was just home from milking goats on the farm where I work, covered in goat slobber and poop. Does freezing take care of that? Methinks no.
As far as the stretching and stretching thing, I'd say that it does stop, but you'd probably have to buy jeans in a size small enough that it takes you a couple of days to stretch them out to begin with, then they'd be perfect. In places where dryers are not as common (most places, probably, though I know Scandinavia and Australia are like this, fer starters), people do buy their clothes smaller because line-dried clothes don't shrink the way dryer-dried clothes do.
Line dried clothes do shrink, they just are stretched back out by gravity during the drying process. Contrary to popular belief, it's almost entirely the effect of the water on the fabric that causes clothes to shrink in the wash. In fact, a hot dryer can actually cause clothes with rubber or plasticy artificial fibers to get baggier, as the heat kills the elasticity. (I don't know if any clothes are made of that shrinkydink type of plastic that uniformly contracts in the heat, but that would be kind of awesome.) Clothes that are dried flat, rather than hung, will shrink about as much as those in a drier.
Well I freeze my shoes, like my heels that get stinky after too many summer wears. It stops them from smelling, maybe it works with jeans too.
My freezer is full of frozen walleye and yeah. I don't want my pants to smell like fish. So. No? Thanks?
New invention: "Chest (of Drawers) Freezer" !!
wtf…after perusing these comments i just dont understand! we can freeze them to get "rid" of bacteria….is it erasing the stank too!?? cuz you women cant tell me that after freezing jeans that crotch area just smells fine! this is just retarded to me….i am so confused!
My closet's in Antarctica. You should see my FedEx bill.
This video should not be called "how to freeze your jeans." If you edited together the parts that were actually about how to freeze your jeans, the video would be five seconds long. It should be called "how to justify freezing your jeans."
my. thoughts. exactly. it shouldn't have even been a video, just "put them in a bag, or don't, whatever, just stick them in your freezer, they'll get clean, don't worry about it. COOL JEANZ."
And… how long do you freeze them for? This is important missing information from a "how to" video.
Gross. The freezer won't kill bacteria like a hot dryer, and dirt build up in the fibers will eventually start to break down the fabric anyway, so I say wash them (inside out if you're worried about fading). The freezer also won't kill smells. But maybe it slows down the mold forming on week old food stains?! Ugh.
Freezing kills the smell in shoes, so I'm tempted to think it would do the same for jeans.
Won't the odor blossom again once the bacteria reach room temperature?
@kitten_witawip I'm assuming the smell is from bacteria farts and if you kill the bacteria, they can no longer fart. Or something. #science!
I'm klutzy at times, so I can't avoid the odd case of spillage and stains. I also don't tend to spend G-Star money on jeans, so I don't care enough to worry about ruining the rawness. In the washer they go.
But when I can keep them spot-free, freezing might be worth trying to freshen them up between wears.
WTF re: RAWNESS OF JEANS?
OK so the skinny (jeans) on this is that some people who pay A LOT for fancy designer jeans feel very strongly that washing your jeans like a normal person will TOTALLY RUIN THEM. But(t-enhancing jeans)!!!! If you never wash them they will get way baggy and so stinky even your boyfriend (jeans) will notice and stop loving you. So you freeze them both to kill the bacteria (by freezing it to death! Just like how I killed the mouse I trapped in my apartment sophomore year of college. TMI? Yeah.) AND to make them shrink up again and fit you sexy like.
Another website I used to go to had a huge thread dedicated to people fighting about this.
you froze the mouse!?? seems horrible! i just shot mine in the head with BB gun
What?!? Really? How in the hell did that happen? You must be a great shot.
How long did you leave the mouse in the freezer before you were sure it was really REALLY dead? I would be afraid it would reanimate once it warmed up again. (Even though I know that's impossible. Still, Zombie Mouse.)
I like the way you (classic) fit the references to jeans in there.
Unless this was early in your spring semester at a college in WISCONSIN, there is no reason not to have set the little thing free in some wooded area instead. I am not a fan of arbitrarily killing things.
I went to college in the city in the northeast and it was the middle of winter, hence not freeing it. It was stuck on one of those sticky traps (we were not allowed to use any other kind of trap and in fact after this refused to use traps even though our apartment was infested with mice) and was going to starve to death, so freezing it seemed more humane.
One time when I was really crabby at my younger brother I stuck a bunch of his pants in the freezer so he couldn't find them/when he did they were cold and stuff? Does that count?
Are these actual questions? I can't even tell but here are answers, whatever
1) Yes it is that bad because it washes out all the indigo whereas the jeans stay darker longer and develop interesting (some would argue "good-looking") fades at the places where they crease and such when they aren't washed. These creases are the things that manufacturers try to replicate with their hideous bullshit faux-distressed patterns that look like random lines of chalk applied all the fuck over your pants.
2) The dyes in regular denim don't come out as easily as they do in dry denim because the surplus dye has already been washed out in the extra processing that regular jeans go through. (you should probably still turn your jeans inside out and avoid over-washing them anyway)
3) You know your jeans are raw because that will no doubt be mentioned on the label and they will stain every white thing they touch.
4) You're supposed to size down so the jeans are way too tight to begin with and stretch to conform to your body with wear.
5) I do not fuck with high maintenance clothing and only ever buy jeans when they go on sale at Express and Hollister and other mall stores.
6) I have strong opinions about jeans that look good on sexy men with sexy asses and sexy legs (see also: not the guy in the video) but I also have strong opinions about toolbags who say things like "washing pants removes all the good coolness from them"
I wear pretty much nothing but jeans and have never heard any of this. I was going to completely ignore this video, largely based on that quote you mentioned in point 6, but I guess this freezer thing is actually something I should consider?
if your jeans arent more then $300 dont do this! *i am only using the info i gathered from comments.
**i pray your jeans do not cost more then $300.00
Though there are Levi's shrink-to-fit dry jeans for dudes interested in dry denim who would fly into a rage at the idea of spending triple digits of dollars on pants
Are "dry" and "raw" the same thing?
Yes.
If you don't wear dry denim or have problems with your jeans getting worn and faded too quickly, washing them should not present a problem
Yeah! I had a friend once who bought some very swanky jeans and I think they came with instructions to not wash them for, like, a year? So they would develop his unique fading pattern. I had never heard of that. Only he only had one pair so he wore them like every day.
I also had a different friend who wore the same jeans every day and never washed them, but that was different…it was a contest with someone from high school, I think? To see whose would disintegrate fastest?
@spex That definitely seems like the sort of thing high school kids would compete about.
I think how much jeans end up bagging out really varies depending on the brand and construction. My usual jeans are from the Gap and they bag out fast and furious after a couple of wears. But I got a pair of Banana Republic jeans on super clearance and they're still going strong after five or six wears — I hang them up in an open spot so they can air out and de-wrinkle a bit, but I guess they're just made of more durable stuff that better holds its shape.
@itmakesmewonder gap jeans are the BAGGIEST.
It can't be any worse than driving the dirt deep deep into the fibers with superheated steam?
Yeah, I guess if you steam them without washing first it would just cook the dirt into them. Maybe other people aren't slobs like me and don't ever spill stuff on their jeans?
So this video makes it seems so much more obnoxious than it actually is.
I freeze my jeans and I've done it for years because for my entire life my jeans have faded if they even get in the same room as a washing machine. I don't have the bagginess issue that a lot of people seem to have, so I can't comment on that, but I will tell you that I do this with my cheap denim and it's so very worth it.
Also, unless you're living with an Apartment Therapy writer, no one who you share a freezer with will care that your jeans are in the freezer. There are many more things to nitpick about than that.
My jeans? My jeans seem clean but I'm also scared about my jeans.
I wash my jeans inside-out on cold water and then hang to dry. Am I doing it wrong?
That's how I do it.
This may gross people out but I seriously never wash my jeans. I'm not really messy when I eat and I don't really get them dirty somehow, which is kind of weird considering I wear them all the time. I also have 4 pairs of the same black style from gap. Anyway, I've literally washed my jeans twice since I bought them in August. They show a little wear but they're not falling apart. I think I might try freezing though!
U r not alone. I haven't washed my jeans since like June! I only wear them a couple of times a month, though.
I don't think freezing stuff kills much bacteria. I've heard it just stops them from growing. Otherwise you could eat raw meat that has been frozen, use ice cubes made from Mexican tap water, etc.
But bacteria is definitely the main cause of odor. For shoes (especially flats that I don't wear socks with) I use the Febreze Antimicrobial spray. Seems to work pretty well. Also can be sprayed in the pits/other stinky areas of jackets/blazers/stuff that requires dry cleaning that you hate paying to dry clean. But raw denim-wearers would probably not be into the idea of spraying chemicals on their $300 imported 26lb denim trousers.
"I don't think freezing stuff kills much bacteria. I've heard it just stops them from growing. Otherwise you could eat raw meat that has been frozen, use ice cubes made from Mexican tap water, etc."
This is very much correct.
I'm afraid freezing your jeans won't do much in the way of bacteria. Additionally, most of the odor imbedded in clothing most likely comes not from bacteria but from your sweat, which contains urea. Yeah. Like urine. And when urea is in water (as in our good friend sweat), it gives off ammonia, which I'm sure y'all know stinks to high heaven.
It is likely that febreeze works by neutralizing the ammonia that's given off by the urea + water combo.
Sincerely,
Your Friendly Internet Neighborhood Scientist
I don't wear jeans? I think I have a pair of pants somewhere deep in my closet, but it's skirts and dresses town for me.
ABC, 123, that guy froze his jeans like me!
…then what happens when you spill ranch dressing or salsa on them? What then???
Also: oils!!! Oils from your skin!!! You will totally get zits all over your thighs because you will have oils, dead skin cells, sweat, and other not-good-for-hoarding bodily waste. And also there's the matter of the dye staining your skin (happens!)as well as all clothing/furniture is comes into contact with!!! I officially decree this practice ridiculous. Worthy of ridicule. Go ahead, ridicule away, it's fine. Dye should be washed out of clothing before it is sold/worn.
THIS IS BANANAS
Yeah, like I want to be faced with my jeans every time I raid the freezer for that pint of rocky road.
Mishka NYC (I am not endorsing them buy they sell nice raw jeans for about $150) sell these on-line. Here's what they say:
Since these are raw (meaning they are unwashed) we also recommend not washing them right away! Wear them to loosen them up, and continue wearing them for a few weeks or for optimal fading, 6 months, before washing them. When you decide to wash our raw denim we recommend only a light rinse in cold water to loosen some of the color around the whiskering that will bring out the unique flavor you have created with your jeans!
So bottom line, I didn't wash my jeans for six months, and yeah, they look pretty cool (after the washing). Although maybe now everyone I know hates me because I smelled? Maybe I should have froze them? I don't know! Maybe next time.
Freezing jeans is so over. I sous-vide all mine now.
I'm from Portland and this is SO common here! Tons of people, including me, don't wash their jeans for a year or so…it makes them fit to your body and fade amazingly. Dry denim!!!