If you wear earbuds when you hike, bike, climb, or jog, you might give them a wipe down every now and then. Big brands, like Apple and Beats, recommend cleaning earbuds after each use, but I’ll be the first to admit: it’s easy advice to ignore.
I’ve worn the same pair of Beats Studio Buds for two years while jogging and have never rinsed them off once. My husband’s the same. His Apple AirPods have logged hundreds of miles of road cycling sans cleaning. Gross? Very. Risky? Yes.
So, if you’re looking at your earbuds and thinking, yep, these are pretty nasty, here’s how to keep them and, in turn, your ears in tip-top shape.
Why You Should Clean Your Earbuds
When you place earbuds into your ear, you subject them to all kinds of gunk, says Dr. Douglas Hildrew, an otolaryngologist with Yale Medicine. When ear wax and sweat mix in the ear canal, they create a sticky goo. That gook can latch onto dead skin cells, bacteria, and environmental debris like dirt and air pollution particles. “That mixture is going to get stuck on your earbuds and tends to find the nooks and crannies in the wire mesh,”…
