8 DIY Inexpensive Ways to Distress Denim at Home
Distressed style of jeans has been in and out of fashion since the 1980s, but of late the trend is more popular than ever. Purchasing distressed jeans from a branded store can be an expensive affair. However, if you know the right way to distress your denim at home, it’s fun and quite easy. There are several ways you can distress your jeans at home with easily available tools, for that inexpensive yet personalized look. Let’s explore some inexpensive ways to do it at home itself
8 Effortless & Cool DIY Inexpensive Ways to Distress Denim at Home
1. Scissors
One of the most obvious ways of “distressing” denims is to use scissors. Make artificial holes in the knees, where jeans are most often worn through. It is advisable that you try on the denims first and mark where your kneecaps are, just to ensure the cuts are lined up correctly.
2. Razorblade
A razorblade is most effective on the hems and seams of your denims. Use the razors in a subtle manner and make small cuts on the outsides of pockets and the bottoms of the legs. Razor also enables you to separate and cut the indigo-dyed threads from the white cotton threads. This will help to maintain the structure of the jeans while getting rid of some of their color.
3. Serrated Knife
You can also distress your jeans using a serrated knife and slit along the knee to get that horizontal cut. The serrated knife ensures that the cut isn’t too clean while giving you a long slice cut across the knee. Once it is open, pull and rip the hole all the way across the front of the pant.
- Handy Tip: Use a deck of cards as a backing to help create a level, hard surface that you can place inside of one of the pant legs in order to prevent them from getting cut or bleached through to the other side.
4. Sandpaper
This is probably the cheapest and most popular way of distressing denims. It gives you that worn out and faded look without bleaching or making actual holes. Sandpaper, especially a sanding block is quite cheap and allows for finer scraping. To get the best results, you need to use 220 grit or something even finer. Some of the great places to use sandpaper on your denims include:
- Back Pockets– By putting cards in the rear pockets, you can sand the edges to simulate typical wallet-shaped wear.
- Pant Legs– The legs incur most of the wear on jeans. So the places to sand down the most are the backs of the knees, the bottoms of the legs, and the front of the thighs.
5. Tweezers
After cutting parallel slices in your denim, remove the blue threads with the help of tweezers to just leave the white threads. However, based on the sturdiness of the white threads, there may be a risk of ending up with larger holes. So this technique is best done in small sections.
6. Bleach
Another inexpensive way of getting that worn look out of your jeans is using bleach. But it is the trickiest of all methods. Bleach may leave discolored splotches; therefore you should use it in moderation!
Using this method, you can also give your distressed denims interesting patterns! This can be done using:
- Paintbrush – Dip a paintbrush in bleach and draw your own bleach designs! Use a small brush for intricate designs or a large brush for sweeping strokes.
- Spray Bottle – You can create patterns using a spray bottle and stencils. This method is known as the resist method. Lay the stencil over your jeans and spray!
- Handy Tip: You may want to put cardboard in the jeans to prevent soaking through to the other side.
7. Cheese Grater
In this method, you first need to cut a few parallel lines in the denim and then use a cheese grater to rub the surface of the cuts, and add texture to the cuts.
8. Pumice Stone
Rub your pair of denims with a pumice stone dipped in bleach to get that worn out look around the pockets or holes. To get that threadbare look, rub the denims perpendicularly with a pumice stone.
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