Rough-out and Suede Care
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Cuffing doesn't help in my experience. The reverse side of denim bleeds just as bad. Short story, old jeans or non indigo only with rough-out. You can buy suede foam soap and a suede brush to wash out the indigo. It works a bit, but won't remove everything. And you'll have to do it every time you wear denim with the bootd, and you'll end up wearing down the leather more the spots you have to wash. All in all far from optimal.
It is confining. I held out with my Smokejumpers for a long while but caved recently. Fortunately they've seen enough action that the crocking is just part of the picture now.
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I recently wore my fresh pair of lefty while wearing a pretty light colored rough-out red wing. The indigo transfer is substantial and while I understand that it's part of the "evo" of the boot I don't want it to look like a dark blue ring going around all my lighter rough-out boots.
Does anyone have a cleaning solution for this? :-\
I doubt there is much to do in the way of stopping transfer besides only wearing your cuffed pairs with the light boots….. god that sounds confining.
Try getting a gum velour bar.
As Neph said indigo transfer will be inevitable, but gum velour is what my mate (who has been a cobbler for forty years) uses to clean up suede etc. And i have seen him get some awful stains out of peoples boots by using it.
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I have the gum bar and it works pretty good. I use the gum bar to clean it and then the suede brush to raise the grain a bit. looks like new boots everytime. The blue indigo does turn to dark markings after a while, which may help, or hurt your desired evo…
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Ok, well I see this as an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. I've used the forum largely as a second hand shopping experience and have contributed very little to the community as a resource. Now's my chance.
Here's the experiment:I hate crocking. I love my boots and denim equally but see this as a denim problem.
After some research on the interwebs it sounds like vinegar and cold water do a good job of setting indigo.
I've also researched a fabric dye fixative and come up with a product called Retayne.
I'm going to apply both to a fresh pair of IH raw denim and see where this rabbit hole takes me. Findings will be posted on the other side.Cheers.
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You can't have your cake and eat it. Denim fades because of the way the indigo warp is rope dyed. The indigo oxidises onto the surface of the denim and the abrasion of that oxidised layer/s of indigo is what exposes the white core of the rope dyed yarn and gives us the fades that most of us like in our jeans.
If doing anything with vinegar makes any difference to the amount of abrasion and hence indigo loss, then I'll eat my jeans. I suspect Retayne won't make any difference either because it can't stop the physics of abrasion.
If you want fades then you have to put up with indigo transfer.
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You can't have your cake and eat it. Denim fades because of the way the indigo warp is rope dyed. The indigo oxidises onto the surface of the denim and the abrasion of that oxidised layer/s of indigo is what exposes the white core of the rope dyed yarn and gives us the fades that most of us like in our jeans.
If doing anything with vinegar makes any difference to the amount of abrasion and hence indigo loss, then I'll eat my jeans. I suspect Retayne won't make any difference either because it can't stop the physics of abrasion.
If you want fades then you have to put up with indigo transfer.
Well….when I said "see this as a denim problem" I really meant that I see the opportunity to try to at least slow this down from the denim side. I get the chemistry and intent involved, really I do and if nothing can be done then screw it but it's difficult getting a new pair of custom Nick's in silver grey rough-out and on the first day the look like they've got one of those blue toilet bowl rings around them.... just saying
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Have you considered going chicken leg style?
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I'm interested to hear/see how this Retayne experiment goes. I don't think I would ever spray something on my jeans to keep the indigo from rubbing off as it would kind of defeat the purpose. My biggest worry would be if the stuff actually works then the wearer could end up with a pair of jeans that is nice and broken in and faded up top but looks fresh and inky at the ankles, which would look completely unnatural.
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So here's the deal, I had no intention of washing my jeans in a mix of Retayne so I carefully applied it full strength with a q-tip strictly to the inside of the hem.
I'd say it was a success as I wore a relatively clean light pair of Chippewas for the experiment with much less transfer than the last time. Granted, it might not take much to build it up and get the toilet bowl blue ring around them but I'm happy the process was at least slowed down.
I might do a second application.
Pictures below:
