How to clean and sanitize your headphones

After a bit of use, any headphones can start looking grimy and dirty. Whether you wear your headphones to the gym, rely on them to get you through long-haul flights, or keep them at home to listen to music while you do chores, it’s natural for germs and gunk to build up. Thankfully, with the proper tools and know-how, keeping your headphones clean is a fairly easy thing to do.

Products used in this guide

• Affordable ANC: Anker Soundcore Life Q20 ($60 at Amazon)
• Essential cleaner: Mrs. Meyers Clean Day Hand Soap ($11 at Amazon)
• Pick-a-size: Presto! Paper Towels ($10 at Amazon)
• Germs begone: Swan Isopropyl Alcohol ($13 at Amazon)
• Nice and gentle: AmazonBasics Microfiber Cleaning Cloth (From $13 at Amazon)

How to clean your headphones

When it comes to cleaning headphones, you’ll want to make sure you clean both the headphones themselves and, perhaps more importantly, the speaker pads covering them. Starting first with the outside of your headphones, here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Remove the earpads on both ends.
2. Wipe down the exterior of the headphones with a cloth that’s been dampened with soap and warm water.
3. Dry everything off with paper towels or another cloth.

This part of the cleaning process should be fairly simple, especially since most headphone exteriors are typically made out of plastic. If your headphones happen to have a fabric covering, you’ll want to double-check that it’s OK to clean it with water and soap.

With that done, we can now move on to the pads for your headphones. For this:

1. Dampen a cloth with a small amount of rubbing alcohol.
2. Gently wipe the exterior of both pads to clean them.
3. If you want to go a step further, use a Q-tip soaked in alcohol to get at any small crevices there might be.
4. Put a small dab of rubbing alcohol on the mesh part of the pads.
5. Gently rub the mesh together.
6. Leave everything out to air dry.

The speaker pads are likely the dirtiest part of your headphones, seeing as how they’re what’s pressed against your skin/hair and tend to pick up the most sweat, dirt, etc. You might want to repeat this process a couple of times just to make sure everything is properly sanitized, especially if it’s been a while since you last cleaned them.

Some things to keep in mind

One thing you’ll want to note when cleaning your headphones is the material your padding is made out of. Some use a PU leather (aka plastic), whereas other, more expensive options use genuine leather. If you have headphone pads made out of the real deal, make sure you’re using cleaning products that are safe for use on leather.

While you’re cleaning, you’ll want to make sure you get those pads as pristine as can be. Since these are what comes into contact with you the majority of the time, they’re the biggest carriers of bacteria, germs, and other nasty bits.

Our top equipment picks

Affordable ANC

Anker Soundcore Life Q20

$60 at Amazon

Impressive headphones at a great price

Finding noise-canceling headphones without spending a heap of money can be a challenge, but it’s something the Soundcore Life Q20 absolutely delivers on. Audio quality is great, the active noise cancellation is effective, and the 40-hour battery life is perfect for traveling.

Additional Equipment

Along with a good pair of headphones, you’ll also need stuff to clean them with. If you need to stock up, here’s some stuff we recommend getting: