Add Cleaning Your Sex Toys to Your Quarantine To-Do's, Boo!

It’s no secret that your vagina is like the secret garden of bacteria, but like good bacteria that we need to maintain a healthy biome. So making sure your sex toys are clean will keep your * garden * flourishing. So please, please, please take this quarantine time to clean your sex toys! Heck, while you’re at it maybe even organize your special drawer, but that’s if you’re really feelin’ the clean bug.

But I clean my sex toys after every time I use them! Mmmhmm, sure ya do. We’re not here to judge and you probably do give them a nice little rinse, maybe even a soapy soak, but it’s important to keep these babies CLEAN clean!

First of all, you need to figure out if your sex toy is porous or nonporous. Which are just like they sound. A porous sex toy will have tiny holes that can, you guessed it, harbor things like bacteria. Nonporous has a smooth surface, so will be less likely to carry bacteria and germs (but still does!). Porous sex toys tend to have a more rubber surface (think sex toys that feel like skin) while nonporous has a hard plastic, glass, metal, or silicon surface.

Now that we had a little Sex Toy Surface 101, let’s just cover why this is important. If you have a sex toy that is on the porous end, you want to be very diligent of cleaning very thoroughly. If you were using and possibly had an STI, those can technically live inside of the pores on your sex toys, and you may want to be especially cautious of this when sharing with a partner. Note that bacteria can live on porous and nonporous sex toys and LOVE damp environments, so this could potentially lead to UTIs or bacterial vaginosis.

Okay so I just use soap and water and we’re good? Yes, but please be careful about discerning what type of toy, whether or not it vibrates, and whether or not it’s labelled as waterproof! Most toys are going to be heat sensitive, so don’t boil. If your toys are made out of borosilicate glass, silicone, or a metal, those can be boiled! Just make sure they are not vibrating toys.

For everything else that vibrates and is not water proof, wipe down with a warm, damp, soapy washcloth.

If it doesn’t vibrate, run the toy under warm water and clean it with a soapy washcloth - this can also be done with a vibrating toy that is waterproof!

Happy, clean vibin :)