Over the past few weeks, nationwide stay-at-home orders have left people with tons of extra time on their hands. While some have picked up baking, exercise, or art, one of the coolest, yet most unexpected, things to come out of quarantine are the creative videos of people altering and coloring their jeans using bleach.
I decided to give it a try and make my own bleach designs, and now, I'm here to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to make your boring blue jeans into killer fashion pieces.
There are so many options when it comes to styling your own bleach designs, whether you choose to do flames, waves, scallops, mandalas… the list goes on.
Get the right equipment
https://www.target.com/p/clorox-zero-splash-bleach-pen-1-pen/-/A-13106024
What is most important is that you make sure you have the right equipment to go to town on your jeans and make them your own. One of the best investments I can recommend when it comes to intricate designs is a bleach pen. The laundry detergent brand Clorox sells these at very reasonable prices depending on where you shop, so grab a few of these pens for your designs.
Choose the right jeans
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
The next step is choosing the jeans you want to deface with all this bleach. Now, I know what you're thinking: I'm gonna use the jeans that fit best on me and that I look best in. I fully realize how tempting that can be, but if you end up ruining your favorite jeans, you'll come out of this whole experience with less cool jeans than you went into it with. While you're at the store, pick up a cheap pair of darker blue jeans to put your designs on, as it will make the bleached areas pop so much more. Even if they do not fit you perfectly, it is never good to ruin your favorite pair of jeans.
Choose and outline your design
photo by Alina Snepste on Unsplash
Time to unleash your inner artist and design some awesome jeans. Try looking up various options for your bleach creation, and make sure that you're happy with what you've decided upon before going to town with the bleach pen. Outline your chosen design on the jeans using a washable marker or pen, and make sure that you can see the design you've drawn out. Then, apply generous amounts of the bleach gel to the surface of the jeans, a few centimeters from the actual design you've drawn, if possible. The reason for this is that the gel will soak into the denim fabric and spread slightly, so this technique helps to mitigate the mistakes in the design.
Bleach your denim!
To finalize the design, apply small amounts of the bleach gel to the edge of the design so that the gel has minimal soakage.
After waiting about eight hours for the gel to set and soak in, wipe the gel off of the previous area and reapply until the desired color of the denim is reached. After a certain point, the denim may not whiten any further, and applying more bleach after that point may severely weaken the bonds of the fabric and begin to dissolve the fibers. When you are happy with your design, throw the jeans in the washing machine with laundry detergent and air dry. Using heat to dry may weaken the denim fibers even more, much like how bleached hair could become incredibly damaged if heat is applied after treatment.
Now you're done! Admire those beautiful jeans you designed, and don't be afraid to show off some dope quarantine fits on the gram.
