Can you darken jeans?

[eks6426]

I have several pairs of jeans that I wish were a darker wash. Is it possible to dye them a darker blue without making them look weird? I was considering do a Rit dye mix with denim plus some black but I don''t want to ruin my jeans. Any other suggestions?

 

[njc]

I dont know of any other suggestions of how to darken jeans, but if you wanted to try the dye, you could always get some jeans from the thrift store. You would just need to try and match denim quality since that could effect how the dye takes. Maybe even try kids jeans to keep the cost lower?

 

[Rosebud8506]

Date: 1/5/2007 11:04:03 AM
Author:IslandDreams
I have several pairs of jeans that I wish were a darker wash. Is it possible to dye them a darker blue without making them look weird? I was considering do a Rit dye mix with denim plus some black but I don''t want to ruin my jeans. Any other suggestions?

I have actually used the Rit dye on my jeans that I wanted to darken them and they did look weird. I used the Rit dye that was the jean color (like the blue denim, I forgot what it was called). It turned them a darker color, but somehow to me, they looked more like a purpley color in certain lights - basically you could tell. I am not sure if the blue dye and the black mixed together would give it the tone you are looking for? It might. Do you have a pair of older jeans you could test it out on?

 

[ladykemma]

there are a lot of historical reeactors who use real indigo. how about hooking up with your local sca group to find someone who can use real indigo on your jeans? try civil war reenactors, local weaving guilds, spinners, also.

otherwise i would use plain rit dye black or navy with a cup of salt.

also: a lot of people have bad results because they need to use 1 -2 boxes of dye per garment. they don't use enough.

 

[eks6426]

Thanks for the ideas and warnings.

LadyKemma--I do know someone who does the reinactments so I''ll ask about real indigo....and definitely test on a cheap pair of jeans first!