Our tips for maintaining your neoprene wetsuit
Your surf suit 🏄🏻♂️ is like your second skin , it protects you from the cold: it's your best ally once in cold water. ❄️
A good surf suit is also an expensive investment 💰
⚠️ In this time of neoprene shortage, we advise you to take even more care of your wetsuit, because finding a new one is not easy.
Here are 5 enemies of your Surf suit 🧐
- Your iron
- Your washing machine
- Your dryer
- Hot water 🌴
- Sun and salt ☀️
To take good care of your wetsuit, here are some simple tips.
If you want extend the life of your wetsuit, some best practices are needed. Changing wetsuits every year isn't the best solution, so let's start with the most important.
- Avoid changing on abrasive ground , the best thing is to have a small mat for changing, you will also avoid sand on the wetsuit and anything that can drag on the ground. You can also put your wet suit there.
- Once at home, rinsing is mandatory after each surf session. Salt is not your wetsuit's best friend: as it dries out, small crystals will form and attack your wetsuit.
- Hot water damages the bonding of your wetsuit.
👉🏻 At the end of the season or if you smell smells, you have to disinfect your wetsuit 🤮
What to do if your wetsuit smells bad?
The humidity encouraged the multiplication of bacteria and fungi that's what gives the bad smell . Worse than the smell, these micro-organisms can create infections.
Never wetsuit in the washing machine! Some did and they had problems. Faced with odor problems, drastic measures must be used, with a disinfectant (suitable for neoprene wetsuits).
You will have to soak your wetsuit in water for 30 minutes with the disinfectant product then let it dry. 💨 Here is our selection of neoprene wetsuit cleaner .
Drying: a key step in maintaining your wetsuit
⚠️ It is important not to dry it on a classic hanger .
With the weight of the wet neoprene, your wetsuit will deform at the shoulders. There are accessories specifically designed to dry your wetsuit and surf accessories. We have selected the Surflogic brand, which offers hangers specifically designed for surfing wetsuits.
If you are outside, or in your bathroom, you can fold your wetsuit in half and dry it on your Godry , whether on your door, your van, or in your bathroom.
You can also opt for a special surf suit hanger: our selection is here 👉🏻 Surf suit hanger 🏄🏻♂️
If you are chilly, there is also a version that blows air to dry your wetsuit faster and do two sessions in the same day without needing two wetsuits.
All our advice applies to neoprene wetsuits whether you use them for diving, windsurfing, kiteboarding, wing or longe cote.
CAN I MACHINE WASH NEOPRENE?
The answer is NO, beware of what you can read on the internet.
Here is a bad example
"You can also wash your neoprene wetsuit in the machine, cold, adding a little fabric softener . Put the neoprene in the machine at the end of the season to sanitize it well. Do the same at the start of the season: the neoprene will thus regain its elasticity."
Under no circumstances does the machine make the neoprene elastic. If you want to preserve your neoprene, as a reminder, here are 5 enemies of your wetsuit.