How to Clean Swimming Goggles in 6 Easy Steps

Last Updated on Mar 08 2024

Whether you have a high-end pair of swimming goggles or a cheaper set, you want to be able to see through them when you get in the water. When your swimming goggles are dirty, they’re a pain to use, defeating the whole purpose of wearing them!

The good news is that cleaning your swimming goggles is easier than you might think, and it doesn’t take much work. Here, we walk you through everything that you need to know here and provide helpful tips to keep them clean!

What You Need

The last thing that you want is to get halfway through a job only to realize that you’re missing something. Here’s a quick rundown of everything that you need to clean your swimming goggles.

The 6 Steps to Clean Swimming Goggles Are:

Now that you have everything that you need to clean your swimming goggles, it’s time to get started. The good news is that while it’ll take a little while, there’s quite a bit of waiting between steps, so you can move on to other things.

1. Rinse Them Off

Before you do anything, you need to rinse off your goggles with clean water. Bottled water or tap water works great, but don’t use seawater or pool water.

Cleaning your goggles with water free of salt or chemicals is the first step to ensure that everything else you do is effective. 

2. Clean the Straps With Soap

After you rinse off the goggles, use a mild soap to clean the straps, and keep soap off the lenses. Even a mild soap can strip off the anti-fog coating.

3. Rinse Off the Straps

After you clean the straps with soap, rinse them with tap water or bottled water until you get all the soap off so it can dry completely without any leftover residue.

4. Soak the Lenses With Vinegar Solution

Fill your bucket with hot water, and mix in 5 tablespoons of vinegar. Thoroughly mix it, and then put the swimming goggles into the solution. Completely submerge the goggles, then let them sit for at least 2 hours to thoroughly clean the lenses.

Feel free to put the lenses and the straps or just the lenses in the mixture for cleaning.

5. Rinse Off the Lenses

Once you remove the lenses from the vinegar mixture, rinse everything off with tap water or bottled water. Ensure that you get off all the vinegar during this step.

6. Let the Lenses Air Dry

Now that you’ve finished cleaning the swimming goggles, it’s time to let them dry. You can shake dry them to start, but then let them sit and completely air dry before storing them.

Keeping Your Swimming Goggles Clean

You just put in all that work to clean your swimming goggles, so the last thing that you want is to have them get dirty right away. If you follow these four tips, you should be able to keep your goggles clean longer, saving you time because you won’t have to clean your goggles after each use.

Rinse Them Off After Using Them

While it might not seem like it makes much sense to rinse off your swimming goggles after you’ve been swimming with them, you need to get off all the pool chemicals or saltwater.

Simply running tap water or bottled water over your swimming goggles goes a long way in preserving your goggles and keeping them clean. 

Don’t Touch the Lenses

The more you touch your swimming goggles lenses, the more you’ll need to clean them. Your fingers have oils that will rub off and smudge the lenses, and the only way to get them off is to clean the goggles again.

Moreover, a good pair of swimming goggles will have an anti-fog coating, and your fingers can wear off this coating.

Use an Anti-Fog Spray

Even if you never touch your swimming goggles, the anti-fog spray will still wear off over time. The good news is that when this happens, it doesn’t mean it’s time to ditch the goggles and buy new ones.

All you need is a top-notch anti-fog spray. It will help protect your swimming goggles and ensure that you don’t need to clean them as often.

Store Them Correctly

One of the most important things that you can do to keep your swimming goggles clean is to store them correctly. Always let them dry out completely, and then put them in a storage container.

Also, keep them out of direct sunlight or extreme heat, as these things can cause the goggles to wear down faster.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to clean your swimming goggles and how to keep them clean, it’s up to you to do the work to get yourself seeing clearly in the pool again!

We promise that it’s not much work to clean them, and it’s well worth it to have crystal-clear vision while swimming around.

Featured Image Credit: Sekau67, Pixabay