How to Wash Your Roller Derby Pads and Mouthguard

Smelly.

Sometimes I open up my gear bag and am overwhelmed by the stink. Yuck! We work hard during practice, and some of us sweat a lot. I'll be honest: for a while, I didn't really bother washing my pads. I actually just left my gear bag in the car because I was too lazy to bring it inside. Once in a while I'd wash them, but not regularly.

I've turned over a new leaf. I'm sick of smelly pads! I try to make it a habit to always bring my pads inside and at least open up the bag to let them air out. That's a good start. I now also try to wash them once a week.

Washing your pads can be as simple as throwing them in your bathtub and letting them soak in hot water and color safe bleach. I prefer to just throw them in the washing machine.

Make sure when you wash your pads in the machine that you pre-velcro everything so the pads don't stick together and get stretched out.

Next, I put my pads in a zippered mesh bag so they don't get tossed and tumbled around too much.

Washing machine settings
+ Hot water;
+ Not too much detergent. I use the same stuff I wash my clothes with, but you can also use color safe bleach;
+ Gentle cycle;
+ Soak option, if available.

Drying instructions
Hang to dry! Don't put 'em in the dryer (at least according to all the internet research I've done.) A word of caution: pads can take 1 - 2 days to dry completely...so don't wash them the night before you have practice!  When it's nice outside, you can also hang them outside to dry.
I hang my pads up to dry in our laundry room, which is pretty warm so they do dry rather fast.

So fresh and clean!

My custom mouthguard...the case has small holes
in it to allow it to dry. But I still need to wash it!

OK, so...what about your mouthguard? Again, I've been guilty of just tossing it in my derby bag and letting it sit. Then I upgraded to a mouthguard case with air holes, so it wasn't exposed and could properly dry out. A quick google search of "bacteria mouth guards" yields some scary results, including this article.

There are a few options for washing your mouthguard (note, these are just recommended methods, but not anything approved by medical professionals or whatever):

+ pure lemon juice soak
+ listerine before and after use
+ solution of water/ bleach
+ a scotch/ whiskey bath
+ brushing your mouthguard with a toothbrush and toothpaste... which is what I do!

Brusha brusha brusha. Kinda messy, but getting it clean!

How do you wash your gear? How often do you wash it?