By SHELBY BILBRUCK
Columnist

Jeans are a necessity to keep warm in the winter, but not everyone knows the number one way to keep their jeans looking and feeling like new.

If you want your jeans to look like the day you got them, don’t wash them after every wear. Jeans can fade and shrink in the wash, especially if you use hot water to wash them then crank up the heat to get them to dry quickly.

Save on your water bill and clean your jeans while you shower by hanging them up in the bathroom while you shower. The steam will freshen your jeans, make them smell clean and the small amount of water entering the jeans won’t cause them to shrink.

If you haven’t washed your jeans in a while and start to notice a smell, you can freeze them to get rid of the odors. When you wear jeans, bacteria from your skin make their way into the fabric, which is what eventually causes them to start to smell.

Freeze away the bacteria by putting your jeans into a bag and sticking it in your freezer for a few hours or overnight. Although a lot of bacteria need heat to completely vanish, freezing them will also kill enough to give your jeans a more pleasant smell.

You can also soak your jeans in vinegar to help keep the original dye looking like new. Add a cup of distilled white vinegar to a cold bath, throw all of your jeans in there and let them soak for an hour.

Once you take them out, hang them up or lie them flat to dry. The best part is when they finish drying, they won’t even smell like vinegar!

If you do have to wash your jeans, you can still always skip the dryer to prevent