Distressing give your baseball caps some character and a sense of age. And this is a good way to express yourself as well.
You can own a distressed hat worn without years of use. Read this article and you can find several ways how to distress a baseball cap.
Don’t hesitate and learn how to turn a new baseball cap into your design.
How to Distress a Baseball Cap?
There are many methods of distressing a baseball cap, here are some of the methods:
1. The washing & waxing method
The process to distress a new baseball cap with wax is simple: spray it with water and apply dish soap as you scrunch it up for about 5 minutes.
Rinse the hat, put it on a flat surface, and set it aside for 30 minutes or overnight to dry.
After the hat has been dried, put a coat of wax on it, wax it up about halfway, then take a rag and scuff the bottom of the hat. Now your hat is distressed!
When finished with the distressing process, you can also paint a baseball cap with spray paint, but be careful not to use too much black.
When you dry the cap, get rid of the excess spray paint by rubbing it off with a rag.
To finish your work up, you can spritz some hairspray on the cap and give it a quick dry.
Also Read: How to Change the Color of A Straw Hat
2. The grease pencil method
This is pretty simple and is best done with white hats. There are a lot of brands, but Sharpie works the best.
This technique involves tracking your hat on the paper, making marks where you want to distress.
And then spread it out with a spoon or finger and rub it in until it’s completely covered.
3. The old toothbrush method
If you don’t want to ruin the color of your caps, this method is for you. Take your toothbrush and just rub it along the hat and let it take away some of your hat’s natural color.
You can also use spare toothbrushes if you have a bunch of them laying around in a drawer before you start.
Also Read: How to Clean A Hard Hat to Avoid Odor
4. The corn starch method
This is best for white hats, and it’s not that bad. You mix corn starch with water and let it sit until you have a nice thick paste.
Now just put a layer of your paste on the hat and rub it in with your finger or a spoon until you have smeared all of the paste.
The corn starch will work differently depending on the fabric, so some colors may require more than others.
5. The bleach method
This is best for black hats because they turn out the best and stand out from both the hat and original color.
You can use any kind of bleach at all, but just be careful not to get it on your skin or clothes.
This can be done with spray bottles or small buckets of water. It’s up to you.
Also Read: How to Block A Hat with Ease?
Tips on How to Distress a Baseball cap
1. When you’re distressing your hat, make sure to put at least 2 or 3 layers of cloth between the hat and the brush or spoon.
The reason is that if you didn’t, you would see some stains on your hat that you don’t want to have.
2. Also when applying bleach or wax, make sure you have a good amount of distance between the bottle and the hat being worked with it.
This will help keep any spills from staining your shirt, pants, or other clothes.
3. Apply wax or other chemicals with a sponge and apply in tiny amounts at a time. This will make it easier for you to control the number of chemicals.
Also Read: How to Keep A Cowboy Hat On In The Wind?
4. Rember that distress doesn’t mean making your ball cap out of shape. So do not use your hat as a pillow.
If you sleep with the hat on, it will probably break and then you’ll have no hat to make fun of.
5. Don’t use a brush that has teeth when applying wax or other chemicals to your hat.
If you do, then the grit of the teeth will get caught in between the scratches and make them even bigger or cause a lot of damage to the fabric.
6. Besides any of the methods described above, you can just iron your hat.
This will give it a cool look and will also kill two birds with one stone because it will seem like there is a crease in your hat where your head bends when you have on a fitted baseball cap.
Also Read: How to Break in A Hat?
Conclusion
If you have a lot of baseball caps that are just sitting around collecting dust, then instead of throwing them out, try distressing one or two of them and see how they turn out.
It might not be your cup of tea, but if you’re a master at distressing hats and have made hats like these before and they turned out great, then you may have a future in doing this for money.