Fading and Initial Colour Characteristics of Sanforized vs. Unsanforized Denim

[coleslawyum]

How about a hot wash with a quarter cup of Tide and 40 minutes in the dryer? Works for me every time.

[Shhhhh]

so i've got a grim tim open dry selvage. do i soak first? or jus wear it for as long as i can? tat's gonna b my 1st selvage from nudies...

in e past i had a n&f black selvedge.. it was washed once after a month of wear.. nothin showed on it after a wash.. which was a little disappointing.. now it's still black as ever but much softer and comfortable to wear...

[beautiful_FrEaK]

it is sanforized so no need to soak, just wear...simple as that

[sif_muna]

Well, I thought it might re-set all of hte wrinkles and then there'd be a risk of getting wear in different places that looked odd.

Depends on how strongly set your wrinkles were before the soak. My first "true" raw denim was some N&F WG but it was a couple sizes too big for me (I got it $50 at a sale), so the wrinkles didn't really set well. There were no "pinch" plaecs and definitely nowhere near ripping. However, the fades were fine.

After 4 months I did a soak and after wearing it again, the wrinkles set differently. Especially in the honeycombs, I thought the stress from before the soak would weaken the denim at the crease line and force my jean to crease there after the soak, but it didn't.

[Shhhhh]

it is sanforized so no need to soak, just wear...simple as that

gdy! thanx!

[maltess2]

this doesnt answer your question, but it relates to the topic

i had a conversation with Kiya at SE once about sanforized denim and how it fades. Many people dont pre-soak their sanforized jeans because they dont shrink anyway, but Kiya explained to me there is actually a benefit to soaking sanforized denim before wearing: exposure to water helps denim fibers to "open up" and this will allow the denim to break-in/fade better (true for any raw denim, sanforized or not).

of course, sanforized jeans that are not pre-soaked will still fade just fine- however this isnt recommended since wearing raw denim for a long time (months) and never washing/soaking them damages the denim and causes it to become weak.

i imagine comparing how sanforized vs unsanforized denim fades is hard since different brands use different cotton, different dyes, different construction, and dye the threads a different number of times. there's a lot of variables, unless you can compare within one brand like SDA-203 vs SDA-103.. that'd be interesting

how long this pre wear soak should be?

[Danny @ Rivet & Hide]

how long this pre wear soak should be?

There are no rules but an hour will do the job.