How often you should actually wash your jeans in between wears

You’ve probably been washing your jeans the wrong way, and if so, it might be doing damage to your favorite pair.

Whether it’s with a shirt, jumper, or sweatshirt, jeans are versatile pieces to have in your wardrobe. Plus, if you get a really high-quality pair, you can enjoy your jeans for even longer.

But if you actually want to make sure you’re getting the time and quality out of them that they were designed to have, you should be following this rule when it comes to washing them, say Levi’s.

Levi’s is famed for its denim products, and especially its range of jeans.

The CEO of Levi’s, Chip Berg, once notoriously shared that he never washes his jeans in a conventional way, and there’s a reason for it.

Levi's shared its advice to denim owners (Getty Stock Images)

Mostly, he spot cleans them.

“And, when my jeans really need a wash, I do it the old fashioned way: I hand-wash them and hang-dry them,” Chip once wrote. “Ask my wife – I really do!”

But why?

It’s to preserve the integrity of the denim, its shape, its color and its longevity.

According to Levi’s Product Care page on its website, you should aim to wash your jeans no more than once in every tenth wear.

That’s not often at all.

Levi’s say that ‘washing denim too frequently can cause them to lose their shape and fit’, and you should ‘wash them once every 10 wears at most to keep them fitting correctly and minimize sagging’.

If they need to be cleaned in the meantime, simply ‘use a damp cloth or old toothbrush with mild soap to remove small stains between washes instead of a full cycle’.

According to the denim experts, there are three options to wash denim that helps to extend its lifespan.

There is:

• A washing machine
• By hand
• Dry cleaners

The website went on to explain: “Dry cleaning is unnecessary, and handwashing is not the most convenient. Washing machines are convenient if you follow a few simple steps.”

Stop washing them (Getty Stock Images)

If you do choose to wash via the machine, Levi’s suggests washing your jeans inside out to protect the color from fading during the wash, closing your zipper to maintain the shape, run it on a gentle or delicate cycle with cold water to avoid stress, shrinking or fading.

Also, make sure you’re using a ‘gentle detergent for darker colors, especially for dark blue or black washes’.

From there, you should skip the dryer as they could break down your denim.

Instead, the experts say to ‘hang dry your denim or lay them flat’ as it 'preserves the fit and helps you avoid possible shrinkage or fabric warping’.

On social media, people had mixed reactions to the denim hack, with many agreeing to the advice.

One person wrote: “This is actually good advice. Washing jeans less keeps the fabric stronger, prevents fading, and saves a massive amount of water. Denim isn't meant to be washed like t-shirts,it's built to age, not shrink and fade every week.”

Someone else said: “The less you wash Levis, the better they look.”

But another wrote: “I care about my comfort more than about the fabric longevity.”