5 ways to create stunning distressed jeans

Distressed jeans with an antique effect, slightly faded, with a beautiful texture are the desire of every fashionista (and fashionista too). Today, distressed, washed-out jeans are in fashion! Perhaps, such a passion for denim existed in the nineties. And now it’s back and gaining momentum! How to make scuffs on jeans with your own hands? Let's find out!

But not everyone can buy fashionable, worn trousers in a store; the prices for more or less beautiful models are very high, and what is cheap often does not look the way one would like. So why overpay? Moreover, there has been a pair of practically new jeans lying around in my wardrobe since last season. It's time to find out how to make beautiful and stylish scuffs and create a fashionable look with your own hands!

Ways to make distressed jeans at home

Faded and artistically torn denim pants have not gone out of style for many years. These jeans are worn by both men and women; abrasions on the fabric give the clothes a stylish and casual look.

If you were unable to purchase ready-made frayed trousers in the store, you can correctly make frayed jeans at home with your own hands. Methods for creating abrasions can generally be divided into 3 categories.

• Mechanical. In this case, the new fabric is affected by the abrasive method - the jeans are rubbed with sandpaper or pumice, cut or unraveled in the right places with a razor or knitting needle. The main advantage of the method is that abrasions can be made exactly in those places where they are needed, and they can be made very insignificant or clearly visible. The main disadvantage of this method is the risk of accidentally damaging the denim so much that subsequently you will no longer be able to wear the jeans.
• Chemical. The effect of worn pants is created by bleaching individual areas of the fabric. Typically, trousers are treated with chlorine-containing agents - the paint fades in certain places, and it seems that completely new trousers have been worn for a very long time. The method is very effective and simple, but it also has a disadvantage - with chemical treatment, the strength of the fabric decreases, and the jeans will subsequently wear out faster.
• Thermal. When jeans are treated with bleach at high temperatures, areas of the fabric do not completely lose their color, but become lighter, this also creates an “aging” effect. The main danger when using the thermal method is that the jeans may change color too unevenly, and you will not get a beautiful result.

It is best to create artificial abrasions on straight, classic or skinny jeans; on wide, shapeless pants, artificial aging does not look so impressive. Not only blue, but also black distressed jeans look good; a stylish look is achieved through bright contrast. It is also recommended to place the abrasions in a vertical direction from top to bottom; this visually lengthens the legs and looks more stylish and beautiful.

Attention! To decorate holes and frayed areas, you need thick denim fabric; denim jeans that are too thin will quickly become unusable after artificial aging.

How to create a distressed effect on jeans using crochet

One of the easiest methods for aging jeans involves using a crochet hook. Photos of how to create rips on jeans can be found on the Internet, and the procedure is as follows:

• try on clean and dry denim pants and mark areas directly on yourself with small chalk to create abrasions;
• the pants are removed and straightened on a flat surface;
• Use a crochet hook to pick up the longitudinal threads in the right places and pull them up, and then cut them along the border of the intended zone.

The longitudinal denim threads are painted in the color of the trousers, and the transverse ones differ in shade from the main fabric. Therefore, if you leave only light transverse threads in the intended places, the abrasion will look as natural and bright as possible.

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Using a crochet hook, you can make decorative frayed areas as accurately and accurately as possible. However, it will take a lot of time. Before aging your trousers, you will have to be patient, since you will literally need to pull out the denim threads one at a time.

Irregularly shaped holes

Sloppy rips on the jeans give the look a touch of rebellion and go with street style. The process differs in the way the cuts are created. Rules for getting shapeless holes:

1. Make from 5 to 8 transverse slits of different lengths. They are placed one below the other, in accordance with your idea.
2. You need to release the white fibers randomly, but in some places you can leave blue threads.
3. If you want to increase the size of the hole, then several white threads are removed.

The holes on the fabric can be shaped into a star, heart or any other shape. In this case, you need to place the wrong figure so that the larger diameter of the hole falls on the shared thread, since it stretches less.

How to make distressed jeans using sandpaper

Another way to age jeans is to sand them with stiff sandpaper. The main advantage of this method is that it takes little time to create abrasions.

In order to make frayed holes in jeans, you need to:

• take fine-grain sandpaper and tweezers;
• wet and wring out the jeans properly;
• Using soap or sharp tailor's chalk, draw areas of abrasions on the pants in the right places;
• Rub the targeted areas thoroughly with a piece of sandpaper.

To make the abrasion look more impressive, you can use a blade to make a small longitudinal cut in the center of the intended area.

After the abrasions on black jeans or blue pants are ready, they will need to be further processed. Here tweezers will come to the rescue; with its help you need to pull out the frayed longitudinal threads.

After the abrasions are completely finished, the jeans will need to be machine washed on a delicate cycle. This will allow you to remove microscopic pieces of frayed fibers from the inner and outer surfaces of the fabric.

Advice! Sandpaper should be applied to those places on the jeans that rub themselves when worn, then the abrasions will look natural.

How to make distressed jeans using pumice

Another quick and convenient way to make scuffs on jeans with your own hands at home is to treat them with regular pumice stone. In essence, the method is very similar to aging with sandpaper, but when using pumice, the abrasions are more accurate, lighter and more natural.

The operating algorithm looks approximately the same:

• on wetted trousers, mark areas in which it is necessary to create the effect of worn fabric;
• the marked areas are carefully but carefully treated with a piece of pumice;
• at the final stage, individual fibers of denim are pulled out using tweezers or a crochet hook.

An interesting way to age denim pants using pumice is to treat the entire surface of the jeans. Since the abrasive properties of pumice are quite weak, it does not harm the structure of the fabric. If you run a piece of pumice over the entire pair of jeans, the pants will take on a completely natural and stylish worn look. To enhance the effect in certain places, they can be lightly rubbed with sandpaper.

Of course, when using pumice and sandpaper at the same time, you should not get carried away. If you age jeans too carefully and for a long time, as a result, holes will simply form on them, and entire places will fall apart after several washes.

Why is it necessary?

Having jeans with holes and fringes means being stylish and on trend. You can buy a ready-made model, aged at the time of manufacture according to the designer’s sketches. It is much more practical to make holes, scuffs, and fringes with your own hands. You will have to spend a little time, but the item will be 100% unique.

Sometimes jeans are worn and torn forcibly, the reasons that force this to happen:

• the item faded after washing;
• my pants got caught on a sharp object, a hole appeared in a visible place;
• hair dye got on the fabric;
• your foot touched an enamel-painted bench;
• Stains from grass, blood, and fat cannot be removed from the trouser leg.

You can list for a long time the reasons why good pants lie in the closet. Using the methods described below, it is easy to revive a damaged item and make a new one more stylish.

How to Make Distressed Jeans Using Bleach

You can create beautiful scuffs on jeans without any abrasive effects. A well-known product called whiteness helps to achieve the desired effect. Powerful bleach creates an interesting optical effect, due to the fact that individual areas of the fabric become much lighter, giving the impression of worn jeans.

In the classic version, when using whiteness, bleach is applied to jeans spotwise, only on pre-designated areas where decorative abrasions need to be created. The algorithm looks like this:

• white is diluted in warm water in equal proportions;
• the jeans are straightened out on a flat surface, and a piece of hard cardboard is placed under the designated areas from the inside, this is necessary so that the whiteness does not soak through the jeans from the front and back of the leg;
• Using a brush or a regular cup, diluted bleach is applied to the marked areas;
• The whiteness is left on the fabric for some time; for the exact period, you need to look at the instructions on the packaging of the product.

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After the time has expired, the jeans will need to be rinsed several times in clean water and dried naturally. You need to carefully remove the cardboard from the inside and rinse the trousers immediately so that the whiteness does not have time to lighten the excess areas.

Important! Treating jeans with white to create scuffs is only possible with rubber gloves; aggressive bleach has a negative effect on the condition of the skin.

If you study photos of how to make frayed jeans with your own hands, you may come across another method that allows you to create scuffs using bleaching without any effort. This method is called the “lump” method, and it consists of the following:

• jeans made of coarse fabric are tied with a tight knot, and then tightly tied with elastic bands several times in random places;
• the resulting lump is first moistened with water from a spray bottle, and then immersed in a basin with whiteness diluted in it;
• after a certain time indicated on the label of the household product, the jeans are removed from the basin, the elastic bands are removed and the knot is undone.

After this, the jeans are rinsed several times in running water and dried in the same way as in the previous version. Thanks to a tight knot and several elastic bands, after processing in white, artistic abrasions and faded areas appear on random areas of the jeans. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to pre-mark the places where abrasions will be created with this processing method; the “pattern” is applied randomly.

Features of stretching

After washing, high-quality jeans become narrow in certain places, for example, in the waist area. Inexpensive models can fit on a large scale. Become short because they have shrunk in length, or narrow because the width has decreased along the entire length of the legs or in the hip area.

In the calves

Skinny jeans often become tight in the calves. There are 3 options for increasing the volume of the lower leg:

• moisten the fabric, iron it with an iron, moving it in the transverse direction;
• moisten the fabric, intensively stretch the trouser legs wide with your hands;
• moisten denim in hot water, pull the trouser leg over a cylindrical object, remove it after the material has completely dried.

On the hips

If your pants sit very tightly on your hips, you need to wet them, blot off excess liquid with a towel, and put them on. In order for the tissue to stretch, perform several active bends and squats.

If exercises do not help, the jeans are moisturized and stretched:

• step on one of the pockets;
• With both hands, pull up the opposite part of the trousers.

When the pants at the hips are the right size, the result is secured. They are put on and not removed until they are completely dry.

In the belt

Sometimes the waist size changes by a decent amount, then any model of jeans becomes small. It is impossible to button your favorite pants. You can slightly increase the width of the belt:

• you need to wear jeans;
• lie on your back;
• pull in the stomach;
• fasten the button first, then the zipper;
• get up and do some exercise.

The fabric of the belt stretches better when bending straight, right, or left. They are performed from a standing position, with feet shoulder-width apart. The same effect is achieved during squats.

The towel option allows you to quickly stretch your trousers in the waist area. The method of application is as follows:

• The towel is first immersed in warm water, then wrung out well;
• wrap around the waist and upper thighs;
• they pull pants over it;
• walk until the jeans and towel are dry.

Use an old towel because the denim fades. To avoid catching a cold, the procedure is carried out if the apartment is warm.

How to make rips on jeans with a razor

If you need to decorate your jeans with noticeable and severe abrasions, or even make holes in them, it will be most convenient to use a regular razor blade. You need to use it carefully, but it also saves a little time.

• First of all, it is necessary to mark the location of future abrasions on the jeans using chalk or hard dry soap.
• After this, use a blade to carefully draw 2 even parallel lines along the right and left seams to release the fibers of the fabric.
• Using a needle, knitting needle or tweezers, longitudinal threads are pulled out of denim to obtain a fringe of the desired length.

You can also use a razor to create frayed seams on jeans. To do this, dry trousers need to be laid out on a flat surface and straightened, and then using a sharp razor blade, make shallow cuts along the edge of the seams, to the depth where the inner second layer of fabric begins. After this, you need to lightly ruffle the incisions with tweezers, and then apply bleach to the desired places and hold it for 10-15 minutes. Finally, the trousers are rinsed several times in warm running water or washed automatically in a delicate cycle.

Attention! When creating abrasions on seams, you must be very careful not to cut into excess fibers. If the cut is too deep, then at the first careless movement the jeans will simply come apart along the seam, and it will become impossible to wear them.