How To Clean Headphones Using Simple Household Items

August 8, 2020 Anonymous

By guest contributor Asim Bashir, Seoul

Asim owns the site https://www.headphonesradar.com

Disclaimer by the editor: CLEAN AT YOUR OWN RISK! audioreviews.org takes no responsibility for your actions based on the suggestions below. Please note that Asim is not a native English speaker who does not live in an English speaking country. The language used is very charming. Please be forgiving, you cunning linguists of this world.

Many of us are in constant search of simple DIY’s to maintain life and usefulness of our day-to-day necessities like headphones. But it requires an active mind to explore the cleaning ideas right from our house, kitchen for sure. Apparently, I did this job on your part too and here I am with great items you can find at home to free the headset from all the muck you have been hating.

3 Homemade Tips How To New-Clean Your Headphones

If you want to fit yourself best in the criteria of a tech expert, not much, at least a simple cleaning of your most-used device can be a good kick-start.

Before you head over to any of the out-of-the-scratch formulas mentioned below, gather a number of versatile cleaning tools that are going to help in each of the following tips you choose:

• Earbuds

• Toothbrush (preferably old and used)

• Cotton

• A bowl of warm water

• Clean cloth

These items and methods can be applied to all the headphone types, be it over-ear, on-ear, and in-ear. If your device has detachable parts, just separate them and clean exclusively in detail to ensure smooth and visible results.
You should better replace the ear tips if you have in-ear headphones, the ideal duration to use each pair is 3 months.
Use a soft microfiber cloth whilst cleaning surfaces and not the extra-soft wool cloth that leaves behind the wool traces.

1- Alcohol

Now Alcohol is something that is readily available in every European household and can be grabbed instantly to have a quick cleanup session. If you have proportioned alcohol like isopropyl alcohol and rubbing alcohol, well and good, or you can distill it yourself by adding some water in the edible alcohol. It’s like, 2 spoons of water in 1 spoon of alcohol.

How to do it:

Take an earbud.
Dip it in the alcohol solution.
Pull and push it in all the holes of your headset where it can reach in the areas your fingers cannot.
Repeat it one more time after a single cycle.
Take some cotton and dip it too in the alcohol solution and compress the unnecessary water out.
Rub the headband with it and leave to dry.
Take the toothbrush having soft bristles and rub it gently on the mesh part of the headset.
You can rub the complete headset with a damp cloth in warm water afterward if you don’t want the remains of alcohol solution. (Optional)

The uses:

Alcohol works as a disinfectant and using it as a cleaning agent, you are killing that 99.9 % of germs from your audio gear, yes, that 0.1 % is immortal anyway.

If your bulky headset has a metal headband, the alcohol solution will also bring about shine on it, fainting down the stubborn stains and debris away.

Tip: The same strategy can do well in the case of hand sanitizer and hydrogen peroxide if you happen to run out of alcohol.

2- Dish Detergent

Dish detergent, being the asset of the kitchen, can save you a lot of time and money because just a few drops are required to better the headphones as clean as possible. But, the modern liquid detergent must be used and conventional soap detergent must be avoided in such a case.

How to do it:

Take two bowls and fill both with a cup of warm water each.
Separate the headset parts that can be.
Put some drops of dish detergent in one bowl of water and mix the solution.
Take a clean small piece of cloth and damp it with the solution.
Remove the excess water well.
Rub the piece of cloth wholly on the headset.
Rub this solution for a little more time on the ear pads and then dip them in the separate bowl of warm water.
Take them out after a minute, squeeze the water and leave to be dried.
Also, clean the complete headset with another clean piece of cloth damped with simple warm water (no detergent added) and place the parts aside to air dry.

The uses:

The combined use of warm water and dish detergent will be helpful to loosen the glued ear wax and dirt, ultimately ridding your headset from all the impurities.

The after-effects of detergent are shown in the form of a constant sparkle on the surfaces. Moreover, the leftover hair will also be removed due to the warm water and the oil extracts transformed from your skin will also be washed off through the detergent.

3- Baby Wipes

This tip can work ideally every alternative day and at any time you want or feel the need for cleaning, maybe right after gym or cycling.

Even if you don’t have babies at your home and also not their baby wipes, the regular wipes or the makeup wipes can do the same performance anyhow.

How to do it:

Separate the detachable headset parts.
Take a wipe leaf out.
Run it all over the headset, mesh, headband, earpads, inside and outside the ear tips, and almost everywhere.
Repeat it if you feel like the dirt is still there.
Let it dry.

The uses:

As a fun fact, the reason I started using this method every alternative day is a sweet scent the wipe leaves on the parts. I inquired into the effective approach of this tip last year when I bought one of my favorite wireless earbuds and was attempting hard to put extra years into it. Not sure if it was my struggle or the productivity of the earbuds that I still have them working great chosen from this list. Click here [ https://www.headphonesradar.com/10-best-true-wireless-earbuds-under-50/ ] to know more about the top 10 best wireless earbuds.

Plus, being regular on this tip makes me skip the weekly and biweekly cleaning routine. Hence, I jump straight to the monthly cleaning because my headset feels so fresh and clean after this.

What Is One Evergreen Tip To Protect The Headphones?

By the word evergreen, this tip can be submitted to the headphones of any kind and it will work to add life, keep not only the dirt at bay but also the moisture and hence, you will want to attend to it forever.

So always keep your headset in a flexible-but-befitting soft case and put a packet of silica gel in it.

If you are a sports person, you must swear by this tip because your headset will be moistened of your sweat most of the days which means a warm welcome to the dirt to sit and stick to it.

Silica gel can be found easily from any superstore and in the packages of some of the newly bought household products.

Once you will start keeping it in the case, forget the smell.

Conclusion

Keeping a state of cleanliness among your everyday used items can pave a way to maximize its life span and it’s you who will gain at the end of the day, right.

All these tips can be picked up weekly, biweekly, and even monthly to strengthen your device only if you are eager to use them for long enough!