Bleached Denim: DIY Thrift Flip

Bleached denim started making its way back into fashion trends last year.

Back in February, we saw the two-tone denim trend take off. So many of us followed suit and started to bleach our own jeans. I like my jeans too much to experiment on them with bleach, so as soon as Goodwill opened back up I was on the hunt. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any 100% cotton jeans in my size, but I did find some denim shirts! I was envisioning two-tone dip-dyed bleached denim.

Note: You should probably wear a mask for this project…I didn’t and suffered the worst headache after. Not to mention, I couldn’t get the smell of bleach out of my nose for hours. 😬

Things You’ll Need:

• • Bleach
  • Denim (100% Cotton)
  • Plastic Tub
  • Face Mask

Prep

Fill a bowl or tub wide enough for your denim, with bleach. Next, soak your shirt(s) in water so they are soaked through. Wring out excess water. Soaking the shirts helps the bleach travel freely through the material and also prevents the bleach from weakening the cotton material. Note: You may see that bleached areas of the denim are more susceptible to tear, so don’t over-soak in bleach.

Bleaching

Carefully place your denim in the bleach, avoiding splashing stains. The bigger the bowl is, the less likely you are to get splashing stains from moving the material around. For shirts with sleeves, fold them behind, like you would with clean laundry. This will help ensure the sleeves match the dye lines on the front and back of the shirt.

Also, it’s good to have a general idea of how far up you want to bleach so you don’t go past that point on the material. I used the pockets as my dye-line, knowing that it would seep through the pockets a little. I also used a wooden dowel to move the material around so I could ensure all areas were bleached evenly.

Wash + Dry

Once you achieve the desired lightness, rise your material in a tub or sink, to get as much of the bleach out as possible. I recommend gloves during this process. Also try to rinse from the top down so you don’t accidentally spread or splash the bleach to an undesired area. Now you can wash and dry as normal.

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Personally, I love the way each of these tops turned out. I plan to rock them unbuttoned, over a top or dress.  I’d also love to try this method on a pair of shorts for summer!

Have you tried bleaching denim?

This post was originally published on June 23, 2020 and updated on July 8, 2021.