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Denim - anything but basic

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jeans-on-jeans From jeans in every style and colour, MRP has some great pieces to help you keep warm this winter PHOTOs: supplied
jeans-on-jeans From jeans in every style and colour, MRP has some great pieces to help you keep warm this winter PHOTOs: supplied

There’s a lot of comfort that comes with winter. There’s soup, fuzzy blankets, no need to come up with excuses to stay home or even deal with the guilt of wanting to stay indoors. But what I love most is that one can wear your favourite denims in peace.

Denim is that one fabric we can’t live without. Show me one person who doesn’t own a pair of jeans! Okay, maybe your grandma, but I’m pretty sure she used to rock them back in the day… Ask her, she’ll tell you.

And while everyone should own at least one really good pair of quality jeans, just like you should have one amazing-quality coat, MRP is stocked up on affordable denim-everything – from tube, skinny and cropped fits to shirts, skirts, dresses, dungarees and more. The details are endless; like acid wash, abrasions and embroideries, bringing a fresh spin to denim this season.

This season, embroidered denim is a must – and hopefully just for this season. I’m not a fan unless we are talking about those hot flamingo-sequin mom jeans – now those are ones worth owning forever.

View and buy the items at mrp.com

Jean hacks

Jeans can be fickle. They’re all cut differently, even when you buy them from the same brand. The wash changes the sizing, and depending on how you care for them, they fit differently every time you put them on.

It can be superfrustrating. Either the denim has become extremely stretched out, and the jeans are way too big, or it has shrunk down to a tiny version of its former self.

So here are some fixes for those denim dilemmas:

If they are too big

If your jeans are a little stretched out, throw them in a standard wash cycle, but you have to put it on the hottest setting. This method works best if your jeans are made of denim that’s as close to 100% cotton as possible. But you can’t use any fabric softener. After they’ve been washed, toss them in the dryer, and turn it to the hot setting. All the heat will constrict the fibre in the denim. If it’s the size of your waistband that’s too big, iammommahearmeroar.net has cool tricks you could try.

If your jeans are too tight

I imagine this to be the easiest way to try to stretch out a pair of jeans that shrunk: Spray them with lukewarm water and then lay the jeans out on the floor. Stand on each leg of the jeans, bend down, and use your hands to manually pull and stretch the jeans while they are wet. And I mean pull them in any and all directions. Apparently reapplying the lukewarm water is a must for total success.

And then there’s a trick that I’ve tried that actually works… Put on the jeans that are too snug, fill a bath with warm water, and sit in it. The warm water will help loosen and stretch the threading a bit. But warm, not hot water.

Yes, you should wash those jeans

Dirty jeans are smelly, okay. If you don’t want to wash your jeans, that’s really up to you to decide – they’re your jeans after all. I snuggled up with a boy that wore jeans and a denim jacket on our date. Soon after, I had to make a run for it to gag in a corner because that stuff smelt like it hadn’t been washed since 2002! I don’t know why or how that happened, but everyone needs to clean their jeans if they want another date.

So, here are the best ways to wash those jeans:

Turn your jeans inside out before chucking them in the washing machine – that helps to preserve the colour. Easy on the detergents. While it’s tempting to think that more detergent equals a cleaner item, or that more fabric softener equals softer jeans, in reality, the overuse of washing detergents will just make those jeans more dirty, because it will lead to product build-up. Also, that silly freezing-the-jeans trick everyone keeps sharing is a myth. It doesn’t eliminate bacteria. Sure, the jeans emerge odourless, but as soon as you put them on and your body heat makes contact with the material, all the bacteria and what-not that was lurking therein will be reactivated.

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