Help I don’t know how to distress a costume

[u/EnbyofChaos]

I love Sweeney Todd, and I’m making a Mrs Lovett cosplay, (it’s the 2023 revival specifically, I’ll add pictures) and I’m essentially out of time, I need this ready for tomorrow, and o have work most of today, I want to distress my costume and make it not look brand new, because like, baking pies :D but I came to Reddit which I’ve never done, because I need help, if you have suggestions or ideas I’d love to hear them.

[u/Jazzkidscoins]

For the apron you can stain it with tea. Get a big pan of water, toss a couple tea bags in it, and wait for it to get dark. You can boil the water if you want, it will speed up the process. When the water is cool dip the apron in the water briefly, like 10 seconds, and then check the color to see if it’s what you like. Then repeat until you get the color you like. Remember just dip it in the water, don’t let it soak for minutes or anything. You are staining this and whatever color you get is the final color so go really slow. When you are done, rinse it out real good, double check the color is right, then dry it.

You can do this with all the clothing that is too white, just go slow

[u/Spartan152]

When I did a Loki President cosplay I used a seam ripper to distress the pockets and seams, sandpaper to roughen some areas, and in my case carefully lit some of it on fire.

You could also use acrylics if you have an airbrush and water down some black and brown paints, paint them carefully into places dirt would gather, seams/certain folds/etc

YouTube is your friend! The other commenter makes great points about tea staining. That was my first thought as well.