Ultimate Guide To Cleaning Football Equipment Properly

When it comes to football, having clean and well-maintained gear is not only essential for comfort but also prolongs your gear’s lifespan so it can perform at its best season after season.

In this guide, we will explore the best practices for cleaning and deodorizing your football gear properly.

Since 2008, Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray has gained a reputation for its exceptional ability to eliminate the toughest odors found in sports gear. Our products provide safe and effective solutions for athletes looking to keep their gear fresh and odor-free without the use of irritating chemicals. So yea, we know a thing or two about cleaning sports equipment properly!

Here are our tips and tricks to properly clean and maintain your football gear.

Why You NEED To Clean Your Football Gear

Properly cleaning your football pads is not just a matter of aesthetics. It’s crucial for avoiding health concerns and ensuring your equipment lasts as long as possible.

Health & Hygiene: Football gear, especially items that come in direct contact with your body like pads and helmets, can become breeding grounds for bacteria. Some of those germs can cause dangerous infections like staph and MRSA. Regular cleaning not only helps eliminate these harmful germs but also makes your gear less habitable to those germs in general, ensuring you can stay on the field to help your team win.

Odor Control: As any athlete knows, intense practices and games always lead to sweaty, nasty smelling sports pads. Proper cleaning, especially with sports equipment deodorizing sprays like Vapor Fresh, effectively neutralizes and eliminates odors on your pads, keeping you more comfortable and ready to perform.

Gear Performance & Longevity: Football gear can accumulate a lot of dirt, sweat and grime over time. Eventually, this will lead to the equipment being unusable. Regular cleaning removes that debris, helping maintain the functionality and longevity of your gear. By properly caring for your equipment, you can extend its lifespan and optimize its performance, ensuring you get the most out of your investment and the best performance on the field.

Start The Cleaning Process As Soon As Possible

Bacteria thrive in moist environments. Thanks to your sweat, your football gear will be soaking wet after a practice or game, making your football gear a breeding ground for bacteria.

The sooner you can make your football gear clean and dry, the better off your equipment will be. The longer you wait to clean your football equipment, the harder it will be to eliminate and prevent those nasty lingering odors.

Choose A Safe & Effective Spray Like Vapor Fresh

You’re going to need a strong, safe and effective cleaning spray to eliminate dirt and odor from your football gear. Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray has been a leader in the industry for a long time for a few main reasons:

Strong Sweat Odor Elimination: Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray is the most effective way to deodorize any piece of sports gear, especially your football gear. Its powerful plant based formula penetrates deep into the pads, neutralizing odors at their source and leaving your gear fresh. Say goodbye to lingering odors for good.

Safe, Non-Irritating & Non-Toxic: Vapor Fresh is made with natural plant based ingredients that won’t irritate your skin, unlike many other products on the market.  Nothing could be worse than putting on your gear and being itchy for the entire practice or game.  You’ll never have to worry about that with Vapor Fresh.

A Versatile Multi-Purpose Spray: Vapor Fresh Spray is not just perfect for football gear, but it’s also amazing at cleaning and deodorizing hockey gear, lacrosse gear, soccer gear, yoga mats, boxing gloves, shoes, home gym equipment and much more.

Quick & Easy: Vapor Fresh is designed as a leave-on spray, so all you have to do is spray down your equipment and allow it to air dry. No wiping required. Couldn't be easier.

How to Clean a Football Helmet

Football helmets can become one of your sweatiest pieces of equipment and therefore your smelliest.  Cleaning your football helmet is essential to maintain your hygiene as well as its protective abilities. However, using the wrong cleaning products or procedures can compromise its integrity.

Here's are some tips on how to properly clean and maintain your football helmet:

Wipe Down The Interior And Exterior: First you're going to physically wipe the inside and outside of your helmet clean. The best way to do this is with some Vapor Fresh Cleaning Spray and a microfiber towel.  The plant based cleaners in Vapor Fresh will lift away dirt and sweat from the surfaces of your helmet and the microfiber towel will catch everything within its fibers.

Spray Liberally With Vapor Fresh: Next you’ll want to spray down the inside and outside of your helmet again with Vapor Fresh. This time, you're going to leave it on instead of wiping it away. This will allow it to penetrate deeper into the helmet to eliminate odors and leave behind a nice fresh scent.

Allow To Fully Air Dry: Finally, you'll want to leave your helmet in a well ventilated area to allow it to air dry completely. This means you can't put it in a locker or bag until it's completely dry. Storing it away before it's fully dry will allow bacteria to thrive again.

Cleaning Football Shoulder Pads

Here are some tips and suggestions on how to clean and deodorize your football shoulder pads properly:

Lay Or Hang In A Well Ventilated Area: In order to maximize your cleaning efforts, it's best to find a clean, well-ventilated spot to either lay your pads down flat or hang them.

Spray with Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray: Next you'll want to spray Vapor Fresh on both sides of your shoulder pads. Make sure to get every single inch of padding saturated well. Don't wipe away the spray when you're done - you’re going to let it sit.

Allow To Air Dry Completely: Now you just let Vapor Fresh do its thing! As your pads dry, Vapor Fresh will be penetrating deep into the pads to eliminate the odors at their source. Make sure you keep your pads in a well ventilated area while they air dry. Once your pads are completely dry you can store them away for next time.

How To Deodorize Cleats

Along with helmets, cleats can become extremely smelly due to collecting excessive amounts of sweat as well as not having enough airflow, creating the perfect breeding ground for germs.

Here’s how we suggest cleaning and deodorizing your cleats:

First, Remove Insoles & Laces: If your cleats have removable insoles and laces, remove them both from your cleats for more thorough cleaning.

Soak The Laces In Soapy Water: Take your laces and soak them in soapy water.  We like using a cup with dish soap as it’s simple and easy.  After 15 minutes, remove them, run them under running water to remove excess soap and allow them to air dry on a towel.

Run The Insoles Under Running Water: Wash the insoles with soap and running water to remove dirt and sweat.  Be sure to run them under water again to remove all excess soap, otherwise you can compromise your traction when you put them back in your cleats.

Spray Everything With Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray: With the insoles and laces still off the cleats, spray Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray directly into the cleats until they are well saturated. You should also spray your insoles and laces separately as well.

Allow Everything To Air Dry Naturally And Completely: Allow everything to air dry naturally and completely.  You don’t want to use any external heat such as hair dryers or the sun because it can warp the materials.  And you’ll want to let everything dry completely otherwise you can make your cleats a prime breeding ground for odor-causing bacteria again.

Reassemble Everything: Once everything is completely dry, put your insoles back in your cleats and then put your laces back on your cleats. You now have the freshest cleats on the team!

With Vapor Fresh And The Right Cleaning Process, You Can Have The Freshest Gear On The Team

Properly cleaning and maintaining your football gear is essential for hygiene, odor control and the performance of your equipment. And it makes you look like an absolute all-star!

Vapor Fresh Sports Cleaning Spray was made for this specific purpose.  It can clean and deodorize your sports gear, eliminate stubborn odors and leave everything smelling fresh without the use of irritating chemicals that can harm your skin or ruin your gear.

Smell like an all-star.  Clean your football gear with Vapor Fresh.