A new pair of black jorts looks almost solid from across the street. After a summer of careless laundry, the same pair can look closer to charcoal, with a grey haze along the seams and the pocket edges. Some of that is honest wear. A lot of it is the washing machine.
None of this needs special products. It needs a label, a cold setting and a few habits.
Start with what the label has to tell you
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission sets the rules for care labels. A label has to say whether a garment should be washed by hand or by machine, whether bleach is allowed, and how to dry it. It also has to warn against a care method that would harm the garment, if you might reasonably use one. The maker is required to have a reasonable basis for every instruction on it.
That makes the small tag inside your waistband the most reliable care advice you have. Our carpenter jean's label, for example, reads machine wash and tumble dry low. Our women's boyfriend jeans ask for a cold machine wash, a low tumble, no bleach and no iron.
One line on a label is worth looking for with dark denim. The FTC says that when a garment is not colorfast, the label must say to wash it with like colors or to wash it separately. If you see either phrase, take it literally.
Inside out, cold, with other dark clothes
Turning a pair inside out before it goes in is the single habit most worth keeping. The outside face of the denim is the part you see, and inside out it spends the wash rubbing against the drum and the other clothes from the back instead.
Cold water and a load of other dark clothes do the rest. Washing black denim with towels or white tees gives loose dye somewhere to go, and gives lint somewhere to come from. A shorter, gentler cycle is enough for a pair that is only worn, not stained.
- Close the zip and the button. An open zip catches on other clothes.
- Empty the pockets. A forgotten receipt turns into pulp that clings to dark cotton.
- Skip bleach unless the label allows it. On black denim, even a small splash leaves a mark that does not wash out.
- Wash less often. A pair of jeans or jorts that is not dirty can often be aired out instead.
Drying without guessing
Dry the way the label says. Where it reads tumble dry low, use the low setting and take the pair out while it is still slightly damp. Then hang it by the waistband to finish. Where a label says nothing about drying, hanging the pair is the gentle choice and costs you only time.
Hanging also helps a baggy leg keep its line. Denim that dries crumpled in a basket holds those creases the next time you wear it.
Reading the fiber line
The fiber content label is the other half of the tag. The FTC requires fibers to be listed by their generic names and by percentage of weight, largest first. That is why our jorts read 70% cotton, 20% polyester, 10% rayon.
Rayon may also be labeled viscose, since the two names describe the same family of fiber. Our carpenter jean lists 9% viscose. A fiber under 5 percent can be named when it has a job to do, and spandex for stretch is the usual example, such as the 1% spandex in our women's jeans.
Black versus charcoal black
If you shop our black jorts, you will see two dark washes. Black is the deeper, near-solid one. Charcoal black starts out faded toward grey, with the stitching showing through a little more. If you like the lived-in look, charcoal black gives it to you on the first day, and the habits above keep it from drifting much further.
Unsure about a waist size, an inseam or a wash? Write to lowrise@luminblaze.com and the people at LuminBlaze will answer.