White Stripes in NATO Straps
I was looking at a certain merch store and I noticed that a lot of the striped NATO bands had prominent white stripes. In fact I have one such items from there already, with the middle third of the strap being gleaming white.
Maybe I live a dirtier life than some, but I know full well that these things don't stay immaculate. They get handled and exposed to daily muck. I've certainly soaped and scrubbed textile bands in the past after they get too grungy.
But white will never be as gleaming as when new. In fact, the new pristine strap looks too new. So it's almost a lose/lose in some ways. It looks too new when new, but will never be sufficiently clean enough after some real use.
Am I utterly nutty? Do you seek or avoid textile bands with white, or even light, color stripes? For the above reasons or something else?
Started as a quartzbro goofing on the mechanical snobs, wrote for thetruthaboutwatches.com, and lately started finding forgotten familial vintage watches in need of love.
I mostly avoid white clothes, towels, curtains, sheets; pretty much anything white gets a 2nd & 3rd think before I acquire it.
Straps are no different
This is my standard weekend wear, with the occasional white striped NATO.
I own few white objects and zero white watch straps.
This might be the sanest thing I've heard today. I have children sub 6. White clothinf is a pleasant and increasingly distant memory. Anything that purports to be white is actually just a dingy grey...it just hasn't stuck around here long enough.
I was thinking this when I saw the title...
Get a strap dirty or put the watch near muck or even kids no no no. But to be serious it's all about the watch and if needs some white in the strap it gets it,and natos and fabric straps are at the lower end of the price scale,so if it does get grubby and won't clean up in the bin it goes and replaced. Good point though.
From my experience wearing it a while will transform the white stripe strap to an ecru stripe strap. Problem solved. 😎
I don't really mind. If you like white stripes but getting it slightly "less white" is a pet peeve, then just get a whole bunch of them with every purchase, and rotate them so they are less prone to irritate you. Enjoy! 🍻
I'm tempted to tea dye the things, as an even dinge is fine. The problem of course is that the buckle and spring bar areas gray out first so the contrast exposes all.
I try not to wear something white too often but anything with white nato strap... yeah my job, mudder races or big pasta sauce party buffet. That for sure will add some odd colors. You gave me a new idea Oscar I make sure I mention you on my next white nato strap post.
I try not to wear something white too often but anything with white nato strap... yeah my job, mudder races or big pasta sauce party buffet. That for sure will add some odd colors. You gave me a new idea Oscar I make sure I mention you on my next white nato strap post.
I just did the tea/coffee dye and it worked fantastically.
Here's all that I did.
That's it. Ideally one would heat set with a hair dryer or clothes dryer or something, but supposedly the tannins in tea will stain anything pretty well, even polyester.
I'll get a photo tomorrow in good light, but the formerly stark white is now lightly and uniformly dinged, but still registers as the color white, just muted. The other colors are inconsequentially affected. The heat seems to have had no effect on fabric, stitching, the heat fusing, or anything else.
Photos, before and after
Wow I would of been tempted to use bleach myself and what a clown/cow color strap I would of end up. What you did there was fantastic!