DIY Colored Denim

I love colored denim. I think everyone does right now, actually. I bought a pair of yellow jeans last year and never wore them because no one else was (yes, I jump on the fashion bandwagon when it’s in my neighborhood). But this year, I have the courage to wear them proudly. Probably with my denim button up. Or my crop lace tank. Again, I like the bandwagon. It tells me what to wear. And I like being told what to wear because if it were up to me, leggings and oversized college t-shirts would be all the rage. And ponytails. Lots of boring ponytails.

And much like any trend that I fall head over heels for, I go to the extreme. As in, I own a lot of colored denim right now.

But there were a few colors I couldn’t quite find in a fit I liked or in a price range that my wallet liked. I love the J. Crew Toothpick Jean in neon persimmon and festival green, but they are waaaay too expensive (at $125 a pair). Express definitely got the colors right with their Zelda collection, but it sits a little too low on the waist for my liking. And of course, there’s always the Fifty-Five Color Skinnies from Joe’s Jeans, in which one pair costs as much as I’ve spent total on my seven pair.

So I decided to make my own. I found some white skinnies at Target that fit me perfectly, and the price was even better! They carry colored denim too, but I like the feel of actual jeans, whereas the colored pants are thinner and stretchier. They were $19.99 a pair so I ordered three pair.

I bought some Rit Dye at Hobby Lobby and found this awesome color guide on their web site. It tells you what combination of the dye powder to use to get a certain shade or hue. There are over 500 awesome colors, so it was pretty hard to choose!

Then I just followed the instructions on the Rit Dye box.

I boiled 3 gallons of water and poured it into a big bucket from Home Depot.

Then I dipped my jeans in the hot water to get them wet before adding the dye.

Next, I added two cups of boiling water with the right amount of dye and mixed….

… then added it to the big bucket. (Be sure to remove the jeans while adding the dye.)

Then I threw the jeans back in and soaked them until I got my desired color. It’s important to move the item that you are dying around if you want the whole piece to soak up the color evenly. I learned that whatever color you see when you take the jeans out of the dye is pretty much what you are going to get after you rinse them. Denim soaks up the dye well and doesn’t leave too much extra for rinsing out.

After about 10 minutes, I took my bucket to the bathtub to rinse out my jeans. You start with warmer water to rinse, and as the water begins to run clear, you make it cooler. Make sense?

Here are my jeans after I rinsed them until the water ran clear.

The last step is to dry your jeans and make sure you got the color you want!

I love the turquoise, it turned out exactly how I wanted! My pink pair however, are a little brighter than what I wanted. I was going for a lighter, paler pink, kind of barely there, but after seeing this outfit post, I actually like the color.

So now, I have red, yellow, dark pink, turquoise, blue and light pink in my colored denim collection.

But I did mention I bought three pair of white jeans, which means I have one more pait left to dye. But I’m having a really hard time deciding which color to dye them…

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What color would you go with? Have you dyed anything lately?

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