

#Tlc the laundry guy how to#
“Most women know how to wash their jeans,” says Schaeffer. “The heat of the machine damages the cotton and weakens the fabric,” she says, adding that if you indeed skip the dryer and wash jeans properly (whether by hand or in the machine), “You should really be getting two or three years out of an average pair of jeans.”Īnd if you’re a woman, you’ve got an even better shot at making your darling denim last. “The most horrible thing for jeans is putting them in the dryer.”įrancine Rabinovich, founder of mail-in denim repair and reconstruction service Denim Therapy, agrees about the dangers of drying jeans, adding that many of the repair requests her company gets stem from dryer damage. “Most people end up throwing them in the wash hot with a bunch of stuff and then they put them in the dryer,” says Schaeffer. “I’ve done it so many different ways and it’s really OK to put them in the machine,” according to Schaeffer.īut if you take away one jeans-washing tip, let it be this: The dryer is denim’s kryptonite.

And if you really want to hand wash your jeans, it doesn’t hurt, but you don’t need to go to the trouble. “I tell people to wash them at your comfort level but try to go as long as possible without washing them,” he explains. “That will allow them to stretch back out since jeans get a little tighter when you wash them.”Īs for how often to give your jeans a cleaning, basically the less you wash them, the better. “Put them on when they’re 90 percent dry,” Schaeffer says. Over the shower rod is the perfect place. ”They use synthetic dyes, the color fades and the fabric shrinks up too.” “Most jeans are cheaply made and they’re made to look like they’re not,” adds Schaeffer. “When it starts the spin cycle you let them go just for a minute and pull them out so that the spin doesn’t knock them around the jeans and the coloring off of them too much,” he advises, adding that washing them with regular detergent and letting them go through the spin cycle will not just cause the jeans to lose their color, but also change the fit. Make sure you’re standing by when the spin cycle starts. It goes in your machine and it doesn’t create suds.” says Schaeffer, who adds that when it comes to the water temp, just think of what you’d give a baby a bath in. It’s a castile hemp soap that you can use on your hair, your face, and your clothes.
#Tlc the laundry guy full#
Wash them inside out in the washing machine on the lightest possible cycle (usually called gentle, delicate, handwash) in warm water with one cap full of gentle soap. Schaeffer’s Garment Hotel imports all of its denim from Japan, dyes it with real indigo dye and manufactures every pair of jeans in house, charging $265 for a signature pair that comes with two sessions with a staff tailor (one the day the jeans are purchased and another after they’re broken in.) Schaefer also offers customers a completely custom pair created from scratch for a steep $695. Schaeffer – who began moonlighting from his sales and finance job as a buyer and seller of vintage goods before opening his current business in 2009 – knows jeans pretty well. To find out the once-and-for-all best way to clean those jeans, we talked to Robert Schaeffer, founder and owner of Schaeffer’s Garment Hotel, a high-end denim manufacturer, retail shop, and repair service based in Los Angeles. Throw them in the laundry with the rest of your clothes? Wash them in the sink? Send them to the cleaners? We’ve even heard of people popping their denim in the freezer … all in the name of making sure their beloved blue jeans don’t shrink, stretch, or fade. But even if you are careful not to put them in the dryer, you’re still probably not giving them the TLC they need to keep looking great.

Your jeans are the hardest-working item in your wardrobe.
