Fold the jeans and cut out a circle.

Distressing jeans with sandpaper. Step 2—with a piece of tailor’s chalk, gently mark where your. To soften your jeans, use some sandpaper to gently sand and soften the jean. 2.3 achieve bigger threaded holes by cutting and plucking.

Just cut the end of pair of jeans you need to shorten or distress. 2.2 use bobby pins to make smaller holes. Fading a jean with bleach is a simple process but distressing the jeans involves a different bleaching process.

First, slip on the jeans you want to distress. For a rather impressive hole in the knee. If you’re looking for some frayed flair.

Put a piece of wood, such as a small board or a cutting board, inside the jeans where you are going to distress them. I used an 80 grit sandpaper with my super thick denim, and a 100 grit. 2 other ways to distress your jeans.

Using a tweezer remove the threads from the bottom to give it a rough and distressed appearance. To lighten the jeans for a distressed and worn look, carefully use bleach to fade the jeans from dark to light blue. Allow the jeans to dry naturally or place them into a clothes dryer.

Distressing jeans by hand is a safer method than sandblasting. This achieves a worn look without resorting to bleaching or making actual holes. Orsola de castro, founder and creative director of the ethical fashion label from somewhere, argues that.