The Misappliance Of Science

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Acid Jeans

Debunked: Hot-drying acid-washed jeans "re-activates" the acid.

Any acid used to treat the jeans during production will be washed out by the manufacturers before the jeans even get to a retail outlet. If there is any acid remaining, it should only be trace amounts, which would be gone after one or two washes.

Hot-drying does not "re-activate" acid. Acids don't work that way. Liquid acids in laboratory test-tubes or beakers may become volatile when heated, but trace amounts of acid residue in the fibres of jeans (assuming there are trace amounts in the first place) are not 'dormant' chemicals just waiting to get reactivated by heat.

Hot-drying jeans might shrink them, acid or no acid. Perhaps this story arose from someone arbitrarily blaming the shrinking of their jeans on "re-activated acid"?