How To Stretch Out Jeans
Jeans can be finicky. Sometimes, you wash them with hot water or dry them on high heat and they shrink. Other times, the jeans aren’t pre-washed and shrink no matter how you launder them. Worst of all, sometimes the jeans you thought looked perfect online arrive at your doorstep a hair too tight.
No matter whether or not your jeans are made from 100% cotton or are made from polyester and cotton, all jeans can shrink. The question is: can you stretch them out?
The good news is that you can stretch your jeans out. The bad news is that there is a ton of conflicting advice on the internet about how to stretch them out. Do you soak them? Do you heat them with a blow dryer?
The biggest challenge with stretching jeans is getting the cotton in the pants to expand. Normally, 100% cotton material feels stiff. Only after you get it hot or wet can the cotton change shape.
We’ve done the research on how cotton stretches and shrinks. Keep reading to figure out how to stretch out your jeans and how to prevent them from shrinking in the future.
Why do Jeans Shrink and Stretch
Jeans change their shape over time because they are made of cotton. Cotton fibers are woven together like a basket to create the material in your pants.
Normally, 100% cotton material feels stiff. However, things like water and heat affect the strength and size of cotton fibers. When the strength and size of the cotton fibers change, the shape of the cotton can change. That lets you stretch or shrink it.
Cotton shrinks when it gets hot and dry. The heat makes the cotton fibers less strong. When the fibers become weaker, they get smaller and can clump close together. Once the pants cool down to room temperature, the fibers don’t go back to where they were before. Instead, they keep their new, shrunken shape.
On the other hand, cotton can stretch when it gets wet. The cotton absorbs the water and expands. The expanded cotton fibers are stronger than they were before they got wet. What’s more, the wet cotton is strong enough to not break and flexible enough to mold into a new shape.
The catch is that the cotton won’t expand on it’s own. You have to stretch it yourself.
How to Stretch Out Your Jeans
Our advice for how to stretch out cotton takes advantage of how cotton works when wet. It sounds weird, but it works! Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to stretch out your jeans:
Wet your jeans in lukewarm water. It’s best you do this in a bathtub. Make sure that you let some of the water drip off so they aren’t soaking wet. However, don’t wring them out. That’ll mess up the shape.
Wear the jeans while they are wet. Because the fibers are stronger when wet, they can be stretched more easily. Wearing the jeans while wet will let the jeans conform to your shape. You’ll want to wear the jeans for a couple hours. That’ll let the jeans get used to their new, bigger shape.
Hang dry the jeans. This step is very important. You don’t want to dry the pants in a dryer because they will shrink back to their old size -- or smaller -- because of the heat. As the jeans dry, they’ll keep their new shape because they’ll dry slowly. Once they slowly dry to room temperature, they’ll keep the stretched shape.
If your jeans are only tight in one spot, you don’t need to wear them while they are wet. Instead, wet the jeans around the spot where they are tight. Then, stretch that spot and hang to dry.
You may have read that you can stretch jeans out by pulling on them while heating them with a blow dryer. Don’t heat the jeans to stretch them out! If you pull your jeans while they are hot, you can stretch them. But, the reason you can stretch them is because you’re damaging the material and making it weaker.
How to Prevent Your Jeans from Shrinking
No one wants their favorite jeans to shrink and get too tight. If you want to prevent your jeans from shrinking in the future, here’s a few tips we can offer.
Try to buy jeans made of sanforized cotton. Sanforized cotton is pre-washed. Normally, coton can shrink by 20%. That’s over three sizes. If pre-washed, it can only shrink by up to 5%. You’ll still need to be careful with sanforized cotton, however. That’s because 5% is almost the difference between a full pant size.
You can also buy jeans with blended material.
For example, many jeans are blended with polyester. Polyester doesn’t shrink. Jeans with blended polyester and cotton are less likely to shrink because the polyester will prevent the cotton from shrinking or stretching. Jeans made with polyester are great if you wash your pants with hot water or dry on high heat.
Buying jeans with elastane is also great if you’re. This step is very important. You don’t want to dry the pants in a dryer because they will shrink back to their old size -- or smaller -- because of the heat. As the jeans dry, they’ll keep their new shape because they’ll dry slowly. Once they slowly dry to room temperature, they’ll keep the stretched shape. concerned about your jeans shrinking. Elastane is a special type of synthetic material. It’s added to cotton to make it stretchy. Even if the cotton in your jeans shrink, elastane helps the jeans expand when you put the pants on your body.
The best way to prevent jeans from shrinking is caring for them properly. Don’t wash with hot water or dry with high heat. If you heat cotton, it gets weaker. When the cotton gets weaker, it can shrink. That happens both with hot water and hot air.
How to Buy Jeans that Won't Shrink
There are things you can do to prevent your jeans from shrinking. The truth, though, is that any pair of jeans could shrink, even if it’s by a little bit. Finding the jeans that are perfect for how you care for your clothes is hard because you can’t find that information on a product page.
We’re building a platform that matches you to other people with your body. Many of the people we have worked with create amazing try on haul videos that give detailed information on the fit and fabric of the clothes they review.
If you want to find jeans that don’t shrink from expert shoppers who look like you, leave your email below to join our waitlist.
