Here’s the earbuds situation and let’s back up a minute and quickly grasp our ears a little more to better understand what we’re cleaning. Ears create earwax to protect the skin of the human ear canal, aid with cleaning and lubrication, and also provide some protection from bacteria, fungi, insects, and water, according to Wikipedia. Uh, cool…ish? I’m glad to have the self-cleaning function, but when it comes to earbuds, it puts us in a bit of a pickle.
See, when you have these in your ears, heat is produced. Heat literally renders them an earwax magnet. Heat melts the earwax and it kinda, well, re-settles on the earbud or IN the earbud, so you’ll start to see some sort of residue build up even after a few uses. Now, it’s not harmful, but over time it can affect your earbuds’ sound quality and, by the way, #obvious, it looks gross.
Okay, let’s see how easy it is to clean these stuff up. And just so you know, I went to an Apple store and was introduced to the right ways of cleaning earbuds by a genius, like they do in their own facilities. So I got this straight from the mouth of the Apple-horse.
You’ll Need following items to clean it, and if you don’t have any of these item, you can use our quick links to get these items:
If you have earphones with Silicon Covers
Pop them off if you have silicone covers, and soak them in soft, soapy water. To remove any residue or discoloration after they have had time to soak, use a cotton swab. Then rinse well and let them dry overnight. When they are 100 percent dry, you can not put them back on. Usually, these are found on in-ear headphones.
Earbuds
- Start by brushing the wax out of the earbud gently to dry.
- Keep them with the mesh facing down so that, as opposed to back into the earbud, any debris will slip down. You don’t want to drive the gunk in any further. Don’t press too hard.
- If you still see a waxy build-up, dip a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol once that’s done, tap it off, and then scrub the bud to remove anything left.
- Then clean the earbud and surrounding area with an alcohol wipe. This will clean the earbud slightly as well as disinfect it. Rubbing alcohol easily dries lightning and is not going to seep into the bud.
For this work, soapy water or cleaning items, or perfume, are not suitable cleaning agents because they can seep in and damage the earbud’s inner parts.
Also, make sure only the nylon bristle is your cleaning toothbrush, as something else could break off and get stuck and potentially ruin the earbuds. Plus, nylon is anti-static, meaning that during the cleaning process, it will not fry your earbuds.
You should wash them as much as you feel necessary with an alcohol wipe, though I would think it would be a good frequency to give them a clean like this once a month.
