How Do I Clean My Hitachi Magic Wand?

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She’ll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Check The Squalor Archive for assistance. Are you still dirty? Email her.

How do I clean the head of my Hitachi Magic Wand?

The Magic Wand which, fun fact, no longer uses the Hitachi brand name though it is still produced by the company is motorized and runs on electricity, which means you must never ever ever submerge it in water. Generally speaking, that’s the rule of thumb for motorized toys (some, however, are waterproof and obviously those are A-OK to submerge), where non-motorized toys can be submerged in water for cleaning purposes. Another general rule of thumb is never to clean any of your toys with anything you wouldn’t put in your body, which means things like bleach and hand sanitizer are out. And actually? Most of the time just good old soap and water is all you need.

With the Wand though, things are even easier than that: For regular cleaning, a wash cloth soaked with hot water and wrung out well so that it is just damp and not wet or dripping is all you’ll need. Just wipe the head off and you’re done. That should be done after every use.

If you’ve never cleaned the Wand’s head, you may need to do a deeper clean the first go, in which case follow those same instructions but add the tiniest amount of a mild soap to the mix. That will help to remove any build-up of fluids and the appearance of grime. Then wipe with a clean, damp wash cloth to remove any excess soap. And there you have it, a clean Wand!

Is it possible to get “sex stains” out of a mattress? Got carried away and forgot to put the clean sheets down.

Ahhhhhh I love it—ruttin’ around on a bare mattress! Get it, girl!

It’s definitely possible to get those sex stains out of the mattress, yeah. You’ll want to use an enzymatic cleaner—those are your OxiCleans, your Zouts, your Nature’s Miracles of the world. A spray product is good because it’s very easy to apply, just remember that the rule of thumb when executing any kind of stain removal on a mattress is to be very sparing with liquids. You don’t want to saturate the mattress because allowing it to dry completely is crucial, and the use of too much liquid will mean it will take forever to dry out. If you have a standing fan that you can point at the mattress, that will help to speed along the drying process. You can also use a foaming cleaner; oftentimes products designed for removing pet messes from carpeting are also a great option for removing human messes from mattresses, so look out for those.

Once you’ve settled on the right product for you, the rest is pretty simple: Apply it sparingly to the stain, allow it to sit for a spell (maybe 10 or 15 minutes) so that the enzymes can penetrate the stain and do their thing, then go in and give it a gentle scrubbing with a damp cloth or sponge. Then wipe the area clean of the product using clean water and a cloth or sponge; just like with the use of the stain remover you want to be sparing with the amount of water you’re using. If the area has gotten wetter than you’d like, bear down on a dry towel to absorb some of the moisture, otherwise just let the thing air dry.

More information about the event can be found here; I truly hope many of you will come—these kinds of events, where I get to hang out and just talk and laugh with people are so much fun for me.

For those of you who don’t live in New York but want to find out more about the different materials toys come in and how to care for them, check out my book: There is a chart that lists a dozen different types of toys along with specific cleaning instructions for each type. You could also watch a clip of me talking about cleaning sex toys on HuffPost Live if you wanted!

Jolie Kerr is the author of the book My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha (Plume); more cleaning-obsessed natterings can be found on Twitter,Kinja, and Tumblr. Squalor appears on Jezebel and Deadspin on alternating weeks.