Product Description

Basic Materials

Most jeans are made from **0 % cotton or a mix of cotton and other fibers. Fashion jeans depend mostly on a blend of spandex (Lycra ©) and cotton to create the stretch effect for best fit and comfort. A percentage of between 2 and 8 percent spandex is most popular and can be easily found in most denim producing countries. Recently, several smaller jeans manufacturers have started to use Tencel / cotton blended fabric to produce jeans.

Denim tends to soften by wearing and washing it, thus creating the feel of well-worn blue jeans. If the denim is blended with Tencel fiber the wear will be similarly to cotton, but as it dyes easier, much more colors are possible.

Regular denim is a very tight woven twill construction. From top to bottom yarns are dyed with indigo dye or blue/black dye and from left to right the yarns remain white. The yarns have a very strong twist to make them more durable, but this affects the color also. The yarns are twisted together so tight that the indigo dye usually only colors the surface, leaving the center of the fabric white. As the fabric wears away during use, the white cotton yarn surface appears, giving denims a lighter or medium blue color. This same feature is an advantage in sandblasting and whiskers making process, but more about that later.

Nowadays many types of jeans will receive an extra (over)dye in the textile mill. These jeans will, therefore, have colored yarns in both directions and thus preserve their color much longer.

The yarns used in denims can vary in weight from 5 to as much as *5.5 ounces / square yard of fabric. The heavier the fabric, the more durable it will be.

For several years now, fashion jeans in distressed denim are highly popular. There are several treatments or looks available, like acid washing, stonewashing, damaged look, aged, white washed, bleach washed, super bleached and rinse washed. All of these resulting in a pre-worn look. Treatments will result in more texture, different coloring from frosted, bleached light to faded looks, and distressed edges.

Before the jeans buyers would break in their own denims by wearing, washing, bathing and sometimes even bleaching them. Now, it is more trendy (and easy) to buy jeans that look like they are already broken in. The distressed denim look is mostly achieved through the use of chemicals (bleaching), mechanical treatments (rubbing or abrading), or a combination of both. They can be achieved by variations of washing the denim fabric with special pumice stones soaked in a bleaching agent called potassium permanganate, in a huge washing machines. Different sized stones create different effects. By combining the bleaching, the pumice stones rubbing of the fabric surface and the laundry action itself the fabric will soften and abrade and create a worn or second hand look on the surface. A relatively long rinse wash is needed to remove the leftover bleach from the denim. If this step is skipped, the fabrics will turn yellow when they come in contact with warm water, hot air, or sunlight and this can then not be repaired. Even though this particular look is sometimes called "acid washed", there is no actual acid used anywhere in the process.  

Recently quite a few new processes have been introduced to achieve the same effect as, for instance, stonewashing, but at much lower costs. Sandblasting is a process which blasts small particles at denim fabric. This treatment uses very little chemicals. Another approach uses enzymes which break down cotton fibers used in denim, causing the highly twisted yarns to release indigo dye and soften thus lightening the fabric. Regardless of what method is chosen to make distressed jeans, the lifetime of the garment will be shortened. Excessive bleaching and abrading could even weaken the fibers to the point where holes will appear and seams may break. It is estimated that an average acid wash affects the fabric more than *5 home washings. In the past we have seen several do-it-yourself kits available to the end user. If you wanted to "distress" your own jeans, with your own unique patterns, this was the way to do it. Most of these kits used some type of mild bleaching agent or just a plain pumice stone for rubbing. Although these processes are not as strong as the industrial treatments, they will still lower the jeans wear life. Denim producers may also use special yarns and weaving techniques to give the denim softer touch than regular denims. Some of these techniques will result in an "antique" look but without the damaged edges. This, combined with a mixture of finishes, such as sandblasting and stonewashes, are used to enhance the antique or worn looks.