How To Clean Your Kayak Helmet?

To ensure your kayak helmet continues to look nice and new, you need to clean your helmet frequently. So how to clean the helmet properly? The following article will give some pointers on cleaning your kayak helmet.

Something you should know before starting:

1. If you need to wear the helmet today, don't wash it. Because the helmet will take some time to dry.
2. Please avoid the use of odor-eliminating sprays. Because you're likely to end up with a Febreze and gross cheese-smelling helmet, or you'll run the risk of putting a Lysol'ed helmet on your head, starting to sweat, and getting Lysol in your eyes.
3. Do not use solvents (for example, Alcohol, acetone) or any other aggressive washing detergents that can change the quality of the helmet.
4. Consult your owner's manual. You must ensure you won't do anything to avoid your specific warranty.

Now we need to prepare the tools we'll use to clean the helmet.

• Microfiber rags

Microfiber rags do not need to be new or expensive but make sure they are clean.


• Toothbrush

The toothbrush has to be something with soft bristles. We'll use this in hard-to-reach places where those microfiber rags won't allow you to clean easily.


• Baby shampoo

If you don't have the baby shampoo, Dr. Bronner's, a mild soap or dish soap, would also work.


• Warm water

30 degrees celsius or 90 degrees Fahrenheit and neutral ph water.

How to Wash Your Kayak Helmet?

Remove the Accessories

If your helmet is equipped with any accessories like a visor, then the first thing is to remove the visor. Don't forget to remove any electronic system you've installed.

Remove the Pads

The padding is easily removable.

Wash the Pads

Mix a few drops of shampoo in a bowl with warm water, dip the pads in the solution, and let that set for about 15-20 minutes, then massage them back and forth like you'd wash your hair. The reason for using shampoo is to remove all the oils from your hair. It does a great job of removing all the oils.

Wash the Internal

Dip the microfiber rags in shampoo and warm water solution, and wring it out well with several quick pumping motions.
That's going to do two important things for you.

First, it's going to relieve the microfiber rags of excess water. It should be a wet cleaning, not a sopping-wet cleaning since you don't want to saturate the helmet's protective lining with water completely.

Second, that pumping motion will create suds, and the suds are what we want for cleaning. So, give the helmet's interior a good scrubbing with your sudsy-but-not-overly-wet microfiber rags. Repeat several times with clean water (again, wring the microfiber rags out well so that it's not soaking) to relieve the helmet of the soap.

The liner of most water sports helmets is easy to clean, like our Tontron 1# Whitewater Kayak Helmet, equipped with quick dry soft EVA absorption liner, which is comfortable and can be cleaned as new with a simple wipe.

Wash the Shell

If the exterior is gritty, which it probably is, you can wipe that off with the sudsy microfiber rags. Just save that for after you've cleaned and rinsed the interior so that you don't transfer the grit to the microfiber rags to the helmet's liner.
If you do anything stuck in the vents or around the gaskets, use the toothbrush and get a little bit of warm water on, work your way around the helmet and down, and make sure to get any of the spots that might be trapping dirt clean.

Removing Stains from Helmets

Staining is likely to happen on the chin strap in the form of makeup. A simple way to remove that is: Use rubbing alcohol.

Drying the Helmet

Don't use external heat, like a hairdryer, clothing dryer, or microwave. It'll damage any plastic parts. Just put them on a nice clean towel, let them air dry, and come back the next morning.

If you need to wear the helmet today, use a dry microfiber rag, and vigorously wipe the interior dry as best before allowing it to air dry to completion. If the day is damp or humid, or if you live in a damp climate, you may want to do a few extra things to speed along the drying process, like setting a fan in the direction of the helmet or balling a hand towel up and inserting it into the cavity to absorb moisture. If it's a dry, warm day, setting the helmet outside will also help to speed up the drying time.

How to Wash a Visor?

Do not use solvents (for example, Alcohol, acetone) or any other aggressive washing detergents that can change the qualities of the visors.

Soaking with the microfiber rags draped over it. We're going to do the same way we cleaned the helmet's shell with just a little warm water and a microfiber rag.

Most of the grime should have been loosened very nicely when we had the rag draped over, and by removing the pin lock, insert it to clean the inside and any fingerprints or watermark so that you can wash these out. Because you will be replacing the pin lock insert on a nice clean visor, once we have this cleaned again, we're just going to take our dry microfiber rag and wipe it down, and this is where you'll see if any fingerprints or anything is lingering behind. Hold it up to the light. If you see any scrapes or scratches, it might be time to go ahead and replace a visor. But usually, you can get a pretty decent living out of a visor by just maintaining it regularly.

If your visor has special functions, such as anti-fog or anti-scratch, it is better to use a specific cleaning set.

Don't try to dry them clean without moisture. You will drag salt/dirt/dust around the coating and leave marks on the inside of the visor. This is difficult or impossible to correct afterward.

That's all about cleaning your kayak helmet.
If you have specific questions about your helmet, send us an e-mail. Thank you.