How to Dry Jeans Without Shrinking Them

Jeans that shrink are rarely the washing machine's fault. They shrink in the dryer, where heat and tumbling encourage cotton fibers to relax back toward their shorter, pre-woven state. Control the drying and you control most of the shrinkage.

Why cotton shrinks

When cotton is spun and woven, the fibers are stretched under tension. Water and heat let that tension release, and the fabric contracts. Most jeans are "sanforized," or pre-shrunk, at the mill, which means this has mostly already happened. Sanforized denim typically shrinks very little after that. Unsanforized denim, sometimes sold as "shrink-to-fit," can shrink considerably on its first wash, which is what it's designed to do.

Check the tag or the product description. If it doesn't mention either, it's almost certainly sanforized.

The safest way: line dry

1. Take them out promptly. Don't leave wet jeans balled up in the machine, where creases set in.
2. Shake them out. A few firm snaps straighten the legs and loosen wrinkles.
3. Keep them inside out. This protects the color, especially if they'll be in sunlight.
4. Hang them by the waistband with clips, or fold them over a line or drying rack at the knees. Hanging by the waistband uses the weight of the wet legs to keep length.
5. Keep dark denim out of direct sun. UV light fades indigo. Shade or indoors is better.

Expect jeans to take most of a day to dry indoors. They'll feel stiff. Wearing them for ten minutes fixes that, or a few minutes in the dryer on no heat.

If you use a dryer

• Use low heat, or no heat at all.
• Take them out while slightly damp and hang them to finish. Most shrinkage and heat damage happens in the last stretch of a dryer cycle, when the fabric is already dry and still getting hot.
• Never use high heat on stretch denim. It breaks down the elastane, and the jeans lose their recovery for good. You'll know it by the bagging and the tiny white threads poking through the surface.

If they've already shrunk

Cotton shrinkage can often be partly reversed, because the fibers are relaxed rather than damaged.

1. Soak the jeans in lukewarm water. Some people add a little hair conditioner to relax the fibers. It helps some fabrics more than others.
2. Press the water out without wringing.
3. While they're damp, stretch them firmly: pull the legs lengthwise and the waistband outward. Work in sections.
4. Hang or lay them flat to dry, and stretch again partway through.

Or put them on damp and wear them until they dry. This works. It's also unpleasant, and I don't recommend it in winter.

What I do

Everyday Pants are dried the way the label and the fabric suggest, which for most jeans means low heat or no heat and finishing on a rack. If you want your jeans line dried only, say so. If your jeans are unsanforized and you want them shrunk on purpose, also say so. That's a sentence I didn't expect to write, but I'm prepared for it.