KNOW YOUR DENIM : WASHES AND FINISHES
If you have ever wondered about your denim, read on to find out about the various washes and finishes.
We Can Do Custom Washes. Just email or send us your picture front + back or actual sample.
Raw Denim
Is unwashed, (sometimes referred to as dry denim) it can be any construction but can be identified by its dark blue colour and stiff handle. Raw denim is denim fabric in its unwashed, unfinished state received from the mill.
Acid
Also referred to as Marble/ Moon or Snow wash. This finish provides the jean with sharp contrasts in tonal colour. The process is achieved by soaking pumice stones in chlorine and letting these stones create contrast during the wash process.
Rinse Wash
It is the most basic wash for a denim garment. The purpose of this wash is to make the garment wearable as it takes residual dye out from the jean to help stop the colour running. Also the wash gives a softer handfeel compared to a raw jean but still maintains a clean appearance!
Mid Wash
This is a typical mid blue wash found on most jeans. This jean has under gone the same washing as a rinse jean but for longer to remove more indigo dye colour and create a mid blue colour level. The wash also ensures the jeans have a softer handle compared to the raw denim.
Light Wash
A light wash jean is light blue in colour. The jean has undergone the same washing as the mid wash jean but for a longer period, washing out more of the indigo to give a lighter blue colour.
Bleach Wash
This process makes the denim heavily faded. Bleach wash jeans are easily identifiable as they are light and washed out. Washing with bleach is one way to achieve this finish, it can also be applied locally through spray or hand rubbing on desired area. This process is very complicated and requires highly skilled operators.
Black/Grey
Black and grey denim undertakes a similar dying process to traditional blue denim, but uses a different dye colours to give the desired colour.
All-over Tinting
This is when colours of dye have been added to the jeans in the wash process to create different colour finishes. Looks like someone put a hot fudge sundae in with the dye and the jean has now become brown in colour! Different colour dyes create different colour finishes! Commonly used are Brown and Green tints to give a browned off or green finishes.
Coated Denim
PU (Polyurethane) coating is applied on the fabric in the mill after weaving and will not deteriorate during laundering.Thistype of coating will last thefor the line life of the garment.
Vintage Finishing
At Burton many of the jeans have a worn in look to them,thisis often called a vintage look. The washing processes help create the vintage lookas the colour levels can be changed and tints added to give different colour levels. However allot of the denims at Burton have also under gone finishing processes to give the worn in vintage look. The vintage look is achieved by adding the PP Spray (a kind of bleach), hand scraping, whiskering and grinding.
