smelly helmet

[NbyNW]

How old is your helmet? They should be replaced every so often, but I'm not on top of what the current recommendations are.

[marni]

I throw mine in a sink of warm water along with a touch of dawn dish soap or shampoo to cut out the body grease and accumulated sun screen every time the straps start showing white salt stains. Let it soak about 15 minutes, swish it around and then rinse and let air dry. In the summer that is weekly for me while in the fall spring and summer I can get away with doing it once or twice a season.

marni

[malkin]

Looking on the bright side, I crash often enough that I haven't had a helmet get stinky.

Lately, I've been wearing a hat anyway and Brewer has taken to wearing a scarf both of which can go in the washer.

I don't think I'll be washing any helmets until they start sporting laundry tags: Hand wash in cool water with mild detergent...

[TrekTheKaty]

Ditto rinsing in the sink--but I also wear a buff underneath my helmet.

[spindizzy]

I just went and sniffed my helmet...I have never washed it..wondering if smelly helmet smells may be wafting to others around me during races... it doesn't smell but i shall give it a regular sniffing ..just to be sure.

[Delta7]

I remove the pads put them in a small laundry sack and wash in the washing machine. The helmet goes in the dishwasher.

[OakLeaf]

I wouldn't put it in the dishwasher. Temperature is too high, even if you air-dry and even if you don't use your dishwasher's onboard water heater.

Both Snell and CPSC standards for bicycle helmets require them to survive temperatures of 50°C (122°F), plus or minus 2° (Snell)/3° (CPSC). Tap water is ordinarily hotter than that.

Even considering the length of a single dishwasher cycle vs. the minimum four hours a helmet has to undergo the heat stress, this is a total risk/benefit analysis FAIL. Benefit: you save ten minutes and your hands stay dry. Risk: catastrophic head injury.

And that's disregarding the potential effect of dishwasher detergent on the EPS. I don't know whether chlorine bleach (or oxygen bleach, if you use a "green" detergent) degrades EPS or not, but it's generally a bad idea to expose a helmet to any harsh chemicals.