Silicone: Helping produce the perfect jeans for you and the environment

Today’s denim jeans are soft and wearable the day they are purchased. That is because manufacturers put their denim through a rigorous finishing process that requires time, energy, numerous processing steps, and a lot of water.

A new granular silicone softening technology was recently introduced that has the potential to reduce the amount of water, energy, and labor required for denim processing – and to increase productivity.

The new eco-softener enables previously incompatible processing steps to be combined. While each company finishes jeans differently, it is estimated that use of the new technology can reduce water consumption as much as 30 to 50 percent. That translates into about 15 liters (3.96 gallons) of water saved on every pair of jeans!

In China, which produces about 30 percent of the world’s denim, this technology could save up to 7.5 billion liters (1.98 billion gallons) of process water annually.

Learn about water-saving denim processing technology from Dow Corning.