Jeans are one of the best-selling fashion items every year. Everyone wears jeans and usually has at least 2 pieces in their wardrobe.
In the past, the denim fabric used for jeans was made from natural cotton fibers. They have a strong and durable construction that allows for good wear and tear resistance. That’s why denim jeans were worn by miners, gold miners, and industrialists in the 90s.
My father also had a couple of regular-fit original Levi’s Strauss jeans that he wore for over 10 years while working as a full-time gardener for more than 6 hours a day.
The pants are still durable even though the seams have slipped a few times. Once patched, they should work fine again.
My father once told me that he had an accident while crossing the street and if he hadn’t worn these jeans, my father’s leg would have a big scratch.
Will my dad’s jeans get worn out at the crotch?! Yes, but not so seriously. The proof is that my father has been wearing the pants every week for all these years with no problems at all.
These days, due to high production costs, some fashion brands have provided the wearer with a wide selection of jeans fabrics, from cheap to high-end.
If you go with poor-quality jeans, their crotch will wear out quickly when you have to sit for up to 10 hours a day. Don’t be surprised if one day you notice a big hole in your crotch but don’t know why!
In addition to the quality of the material, there are some more reasons why jeans wear out quickly at the crotch. Let’s dive in!
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Why does the crotch of my jeans wear out?
I often joke and call my friends “glossy butts” when their jeans are worn down at the crotch to give a slick look. Jeans that wear out quickly are a sign that you need to buy a new pair of pants. Yet, knowing why jeans wear out quickly can help you find solutions to slow down the process.
Friction all the way
Friction is the biggest cause of all wear and tear, even with the pants you’re wearing. The crotch is the place in direct contact with the seat of the chair where you usually sit, no matter what you intend to do.
When you sit down, the pressure of two-thirds of your body will be on the crotch, causing the denim fibers to squash down.
Your crotch will wear out faster if you sit and move your body constantly. Yes, we never sit still for eight hours a day. Your body usually turns left, right, or swings 360 degrees, and your butt will move with your body. These movements contribute to faster crotch wear.
In addition, friction also comes from you rubbing the crotch with something, such as a brush, during the cleaning process.
Since the crotch is the direct contact of the pants to surfaces, you can accidentally sit on some stains on the corporate dining chair or the seat on the subway. You can’t give up sitting, but just get back home in a bad mood and find a way to clean up those stains.
Since denim fabrics are way tougher, we will usually use a brush to scrub away the stains. This process involves soap liquid removing stains from the fibers and scrubbing them with a brush to remove the stains all the way out of the fabric.
This makes the abrasion of the jean crotch happen twice as fast.
Low quality fabrics
There are many reasons for you to invest in a few pairs of high-quality jeans from reputable brands, one of which is that poor-quality jeans tend to wear out at the crotch faster.
We can judge the quality of jeans by the stitching, the weight of the fabric, and the way they are made. Usually, heavy jeans (weighing in at 340 grams) will have a stronger and more durable structure.
They are woven from larger and thicker fibers, which results in a slower rate of abrasion. High quality jeans are usually found in 100% cotton jeans. As the name suggests, this fabric is a combination of jeans fabric and natural cotton fabric. They have low stretch, and the pant form is usually quite large, but their thick structure provides better resistance to abrasion.
The lowest quality jeans fabric is known as “recycled jeans.” This fabric is made from recycled poly jean fabrics. They can be blended with 35% or 65% synthetic fibers.
Therefore, the wearer will find it quite uncomfortable and dry to wear. It is not recommended for daily wear, especially in hot weather. It is also for this reason that recycled jeans are less expensive than all other jeans fabrics. Their thickness is also lower and therefore wears out quickly.
Poor construction
The Jean crotch is sort of a 4-way intersection—the intersection of four important seams. Therefore, if it is not properly and firmly constructed, it will cause you discomfort while wearing it. You will tend to rub this area more, causing rapid wear.
The crotch seams of high-end jeans need to be sewn straight and firmly. The inside of the seam should not have heavy excesses. You won’t feel very comfortable when sitting on this rugged thing.
Some people will find a way to reinforce the layers inside the crotch and back pockets to increase the comfort of the wearer while sitting as well as reduce excessive abrasion in these areas.
This also reduces the stretch of the jeans’ crotch from the outside. You won’t have to see your pants polished at the crotch more and more.
If you don’t know how to do this stuff, you probably want to look for gusseted crotch jeans, which provide more space around the crotch areas. This will potentially reduce possible friction from your body when sitting on the jeans all day long, which leads to fewer chances of tearing the crotch.
Overstretch of tight jeans
Our butt has never looked better on anything than skinny jeans. Their design helps to push up our buttocks and make them look fuller.
However, skinny jeans are usually made from thin jeans fabric, woven from smaller, thinner fibers by double weaving. Therefore, despite being manufactured with good technique, skinny jeans are still capable of quickly wearing down at the crotch.
You might think that skinny jeans are super stretchy, so they won’t wear out. This only happens when you first wear it after you buy the pants.
If you wear skinny jeans that are too tight for your size and the fabric has become over-stretched over time, the crotch will quickly wear down to its glossy shine with the time you sit and the friction between your body and where you sit.
There’s almost nothing you can do with overstretched skinny jeans when they’ve been worn so thin at the crotch. You can just substitute a better pair of new ones.
Low-rise designs
Low rise often makes your body feel uncomfortable when sitting down. This design can pull the waistband deep below when you sit. This will cause a larger area of the crotch to be worn.
If you have a large butt and wear low rise jeans, you are trying to stretch the entire jeans from waistband to crotch as much as possible. This will cause the material to wear out quickly with constant daily friction.
Improper washing and drying
We mentioned above that crotch stain removal with a brush and detergent is easy. But the wrong way of washing and drying jeans also causes wear to the entire pants, especially the crotch, since this is the location that is often more abrasive than other areas.
- Careless folks often throw dirty jeans straight into the washing machine and let them be cleaned with all other clothes without knowing that the washing machine is the enemy of jeans. The rotational speed and centrifugal force will stretch the denim fibers quickly. I believe you will notice your jeans are noticeably wider right after washing with the washing machine on normal mode. The more stretchy jeans are, the more likely they are to wear out in the crotch.
- Washing with too much detergent also causes the denim fabric to wear out quickly. Since denim is made from natural cotton, alkaline detergents in high concentrations of laundry detergent will corrode fabric fibers after each wash. You will see your jeans fade and appear thinner after washing them directly with a high concentration of detergent, especially powder detergent.
- Continuous washing every day also directly affects the maximum stretch of jeans. This thins the fibers, causing the crotch to quickly wear to a glossy shine when it comes to friction.
- Drying jeans in direct sunlight is the fastest way to harden the natural cotton fibers present in the structure of denim fabric. Strong sunlight will corrode and, over time, will cause the fabric fibers to break. Not only will your crotch be worn out, but it may also have an unexpected hole.
Keep pulling the crotch
I know some people find doing this thing so much fun. Some of us tend to unconsciously like pulling the crotch of the jeans. You can do this to check the seams or to see if your jeans have stretched too much or not.
Whether unintentionally or intentionally, these pulling forces cause the fibers to stretch, increasing the risk that they wear out more quickly when exposed to friction.
Some last words
Wearing worn out crotch jeans isn’t fun. You look like a broken guy in a cheap pair of jeans.
In fact, even expensive jeans will wear out at the crotch to a glossy sheen. But the rich probably wouldn’t wear a pair of jeans that crinkled at the crotch.
The best way to prevent crotch wear is to buy a high-quality pair of jeans and make sure they are washed and dried properly.