Sometimes, while breaking in a pair of new raw denim jeans which can last 6 months or so, something terrible happens where you may have to clean them. This has happened to me with my Edwins ED-71’s. They were bought in Feb of this year and have been pretty much my go to jeans since purchase.

Check out the latest denim collection at Liberties

Bearing in mind these jeans had a very quick rinse when purchased to help remove the excess indigo die that very quickly started to collect on my shoes and underwear. This was done wearing the jeans and standing under a cool shower for 5 mins until the worst of the die had ran off. The jeans were completely unaffected by this so I was confident that another rinse would not harm the fading process.

Whilst on a flight to Marrakesh, my baby son spilt a cup of coffee on my lap. Luckily this was a very weak and insipid airline coffee so with a number of paper napkins and some fresh water, I managed to clean them off with no problems. They were dry by the time we landed.

However, sometimes you are not so lucky. The other day while feeding my son in Starbucks, I knocked a full, strong double macchiato all over myself and in exactly the same place! I stayed calm and remembered the airplane incident so just dabbed them down and allowed them to dry out. However, this time for two weeks after, whenever I was in a confined space, the car or the office for example, all I could smell was stale coffee!

So today I finally cracked and rinsed the jeans out for a second time.

Here’s how I did it…

First run a lukewarm bath and placed the jeans in. (In my case the water went brown from the two cups of coffee!)

Try not to agitate the jeans too much as we want to preserve the rawness of the cotton. DO NOT USE ANY DETERGENTS. We are only freshening the jeans up of heavy soiling, not washing them.

Once the worst was out I drained the water and gently squashed the jeans of excess water and reran the bath.

The rinse out was very swift and purely to prevent the jeans from drying in diluted coffee. I folded them about in the bath to help remove any residue.

Once you are happy with the final rinse out, lift the jeans out of the bath and just allow the jeans to drip dry. I used my shower door but you can hang on a washing line or over a radiator. Just allow them to drip dry slowly and naturally. Do not use a tumble dryer or an excessively hot radiator or aga.

Hopefully, if you have been gentle, not used any detergents, the jeans should be fine and ready to continue their breaking in period once they have dried out.

The jeans here are the (affiliate) Edwin ED-71 Slim Red Selvage Denim 14oz so you can check them out. They are my favourite pair right now. I have just written a post on the Edwin fades 6 months in here.

Check out the latest denim collection at Liberties

Have you had any raw denim disasters? Let me know!