Breaking in Selvedge Denim - 14 oz. vs 21 oz.

[Highwaymanman]

I go fairly long periods of time without washing mine.... Yes, I know, they do begin to waft a bit. That's when it's time to wash 'em. However, the best way to guarantee a bad fade is to wash them like you'd wash regular clothes. My best advice to have three levels of care corresponding to incremental pong severity:

1. Bring them out of rotation and air them out on a clothes line. Does wonders.
2. Sprinkle them with bicarbonate of soda and throw them in the freezer for a day or two.
3. Wash them in a bucket of cold water with some white vinegar and maybe some neutral castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's) and dry as flat as possible.

Someone on here mentioned that you have to really wear them to get good fades. This is true. This weekend I hiked the Superstition mountains Arizona carrying a 25lb child. We had to start at 5.30am and the temp was already in the mid 80's. Later that day it got up to about 112. I wore 501 STF's and engineer boots. The jeans were absolutely ringing by the end and there's no doubt they need a clean now. The combination of hard work and sweat is the very best thing for good fit and good fades though - accept no substitute. Engineer boots were designed for land surveyors in the old west so I felt pretty damn cool chugging up the mountain that supposedly hides the Lost Dutchmen gold mine while every other punter was wearing nylon whicking malarkey and plastic sneakers. Let me ask ya, who's surviving a rattler bite to the ankle there? Of course my wife thinks I'm insane but we got over that stumbling block years ago.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

What do you mean by "good" and "bad" fade? Is it the high contrast I talked about above? It's the use of such terms that I don't understand.

 

[Highwaymanman]

High contrast is more desirable although of course it's a matter of taste. I think the gold standard is when the whiskers come in behind the knees. Most jeans will whisker up pretty well around the hips and crotch and all will wear away in the front of the knees. But if you get the spiderweb pattern of whiskers behind the knees that's a good thing. It means the color has not fallen out uniformly, you've worn them hard enough to break in while at the same time the denim has retained enough crispness not to lose it's structure entirely - the folds in the stiff material determine where the lines emerge.

Just my amateur hour observations anyway.

 

[injunjack]

To get proper whiskers honeycombs, you'll need pretty tight jeans, my observation. And the properties of the denim has alot to do with fading as well.

Just wash when you feel you need to. There's nothing miraculous about that....;-)

edited correct expression, that escaped my mind while first writing

 

[GriffDeLaGriff]

Whiskers behind the knee = honeycombs

 

[Alistar79]

Let me ask ya, who's surviving a rattler bite to the ankle there? Of course my wife thinks I'm insane but we got over that stumbling block years ago.[/QUOTE]

 

[Highwaymanman]

Aye honeycombs, that's the ticket. Get them and the fade is top notch.

 

[frussell]

A rattler bite to the ankle, and your jeans will be (w)ringing wet with much more than sweat, I can speak to that from personal experience. Frank

 

[Highwaymanman]

Yowza, you've been bit by a rattler? Cripes! How did that go?

Also, didn't mean wringing as in wet, I meant ringing as in disgusting. It's a South Wales thing. Sorry, I should have been a bit less dialectical.

 

[Edward]

Ringing? Is that a localisation of minging / pigging / boggin' etc? I love dialects.

 

[Sloan1874]

Never heard that one, myself. Personal fave is boakin' ie "That gives me the dry boak, it pure does."

 

[Baron Kurtz]

yes, "bowk(in)" in the Borders.

 

[Sloan1874]

You could well be right with that spelling. It's not something I write very often.

 

[Highwaymanman]

Edward, yeah it fulfills the same category. Just as the Eskimos have loads of words for snow since they are surrounded by the stuff, we have loads of words for disgusting/ugly. Such a thing (or person) might not only be ringing but also minging (as mentioned), hanging, munting, bewling or mewling.

One might also be described as a munter, bewler or a mewler although never a hanger and only rarely a minger. It's quite distinct from being a beaut (an idiot, specifically one with a stupid face) or a bifter (either an idiot specifically one with an ogre-like aspect, or a large marijuana cigarette preferably constructed using the three skinner technique).

One could go on.

Sloan, dunno if it's definitive but Irvine Welsh renders it boak. James Kelman might do something different though.

 

[Plumbline]

I think Boak is phonetic .... refering to the noise one makes while in the act of .. "Boakin'" or "Bowkin'" which may ( or may not) involve the production of vomit.

At least that is the Glaswegian origins ....

 

[Seb Lucas]

Edward, yeah it fulfills the same category. Just as the Eskimos have loads of words for snow since they are surrounded by the stuff, we have loads of words for disgusting/ugly. Such a thing (or person) might not only be ringing but also minging (as mentioned), hanging, munting, bewling or mewling.

One might also be described as a munter, bewler or a mewler although never a hanger and only rarely a minger. It's quite distinct from being a beaut (an idiot, specifically one with a stupid face) or a bifter (either an idiot specifically one with an ogre-like aspect, or a large marijuana cigarette preferably constructed using the three skinner technique).

One could go on.

Sloan, dunno if it's definitive but Irvine Welsh renders it boak. James Kelman might do something different though.

On the subject of words, I hear "Eskimo" is a no no...

 

[Baron Kurtz]

and only rarely a minger.

Except in Aberdeen and environs (Dundee and North, essentially), where "Minger" is the term of choice. I'd never heard the term until I moved to Aberdeen and found that it was the equivalent of "Munter", which would be more common in the Borders, though it is also frequently heard in Aberdeenshire.

A similar linguistic nuance is found in the naming of chip shops: "chippies" "chippers" "the chip" etc. etc. Amazingly in some Aberdeen districts, "Chipper" is spoken with the "pp" as a glottal stop, as though it were spelled "chitter". There's gotta be something interesting in that particular quirk!

 

[scrawlysteve]

Edward, yeah it fulfills the same category. Just as the Eskimos have loads of words for snow since they are surrounded by the stuff, we have loads of words for disgusting/ugly.

I think this notion about a huge snow vocabulary is a myth... apparently the various languages of the Inuit and other groups have more or less the same level of words for the stuff as we do.... I agree we may well have more terms for disgusting/ugly.... and I think we almost certainly beat them on selvedge, selvage, self-edge ....

 

[Sloan1874]

I suspect Scots have more words for rain tbh.

 

[Edward]

Best term I ever heard for heavy rain was an old dear at church- "It's hissing down - with a P!"