Platinum silicone is the easiest toy material to keep clean, which is most of why we use it. The routine below is what we do with our own pieces. It takes about ninety seconds after use and ten minutes once in a while, and it is the difference between a piece that lasts years and one that goes sticky in a season. Skip to the section you need; the order is the order you will need them in.

After every use

Warm water, an unscented soap, your hands. Rinse first to get fluid and lube off before it dries, then work the soap over the whole surface including the base, rinse again until it stops feeling slippery, and dry it with a clean towel or leave it on the rack.

The water should be warm, not hot. Hot water does not clean better; it just makes soap harder to rinse off. The soap should be something you would use on your own skin. Antibacterial hand soaps are fine. Dish soap works but leaves a film on soft silicone that takes extra rinsing. Anything with a strong fragrance leaves the fragrance in the surface for a day or two, which you will notice the next time.

Dry it properly. Silicone does not absorb water, so the only place water hides is in grooves and under the base. A toy put away wet is not going to rot, but the moisture can sit against whatever it is stored with, and that is where problems start.

Grooves, beads, and suckers

Most of our range has surfaces that a flat hand cannot reach. Abyssal Depths has rows of sucker cups; the split tip on Nagaros has a fold that closes on itself; the sleeves are hollow and need cleaning inside as well as out.

A soft toothbrush handles all of it. Keep one that only does this job. Work along each groove with soap on the bristles, rinse, and check the folds with a fingernail for anything left behind. For the hollow sleeves, turn the sleeve inside out as far as it will go, wash the inside, then let it dry inside out so air reaches the interior.

Milking Fruit II is two parts, a soft outer sleeve over a firm core. Pull them apart and wash them separately; the gap between them is the one place fluid can otherwise sit unseen.

When to boil or bleach, and how

You do not need to sterilise a toy that only you use. Soap and water are enough. Sterilising is for three situations: a toy is going to be shared, it has been used anally and is moving to anything else, or it has been sitting in a drawer for months and you want a clean start.

Boiling. A pot of water at a rolling boil, three to five minutes, then out with tongs and left to cool on a towel. Do not let the toy rest on the bottom of the pot, where the metal is hotter than the water; put a folded cloth or a steamer basket under it. This is for solid, single-material pieces. Two-part items like Milking Fruit II go in as separate parts. Anything with an electronic component stays out.

Bleach soak. One part household bleach to nine parts water, ten minutes, then a very thorough rinse under running water and a wash with soap to get the bleach smell off. This works for pieces too large for a pot, which in our range is most of the L and XL sizes.

Not the dishwasher, even though people recommend it. The heating element in a domestic dishwasher can exceed what soft silicone tolerates, the detergent is harsh, and the toy comes out smelling of rinse aid. Not the microwave: silicone does not heat evenly in one and you can cook the core while the surface stays cool. Not a hairdryer for drying; same problem in reverse.

Storage

Dry, out of sunlight, and not touching other silicone. That last one matters more than people expect. Two silicone toys stored pressed against each other for months can bond at the contact point, or transfer colour, or pick up a tacky patch where the surfaces met. A cloth bag per toy, or a drawer with a towel between them, solves it. The original packaging works if you kept it.

Sunlight through a window over a year will yellow the lighter colours and stiffen the surface. A drawer is better than a shelf.

Weight is the other storage question. A large piece in our range is over a kilogram, and a soft one will slump if it is stored standing on its tip. Lay it flat or stand it on the base.

If it has gone sticky

A tacky surface on a silicone toy almost always means one of three things. Silicone-based lube was used on it and not washed off; the toy was stored touching another silicone or rubber item; or the toy is not actually silicone and the plasticiser is coming out.

For the first two, a wash with dish soap and a soft brush, then a boil or bleach soak, will usually bring the surface back. If it does not, the surface has been chemically softened and it is done; a tacky silicone toy is not dangerous, but it will collect lint and be unpleasant to use. For the third case there is no fix, because the stickiness is the material itself. There is a home test for telling the two apart in the materials article.

When to replace it

A tear or split anywhere, especially at the base of a plug or along a seam. A smell that survives a wash and a boil. A surface that stays sticky after the fix above. A visible change in shape, like a plug whose neck has stretched. Any of those and it goes in the bin. Platinum silicone does not wear out from ordinary use; the failures we see are from lube, storage, or a cut.

A tangent. The cleaning question that comes up most in the forums we read is not about silicone at all; it is people asking why their TPE stroker needs a dusting of cornstarch after every wash. The answer is that the material is sweating out its softener and the powder is hiding it. Silicone never needs powder, and if a "silicone" toy came with a sachet of it, that is worth a second look at the label.

Questions we get

Can I use a toy cleaner spray?

Yes, if it says it is safe for silicone. They are convenient for a rinse between rounds. They are not a substitute for soap and water afterward.

How do I clean the suction cup?

The same way as the rest; the underside of the cup collects the most. If the cup has stopped gripping, wash it, dry it, and it will grip again; a greasy film is what kills suction.

Does boiling shrink or warp it?

Not at three to five minutes. Boiling for half an hour, or resting it on the pan bottom, can. Set a timer.

What about lube?

Water-based every time. Silicone lube only after a patch test on the base. Oil is fine with silicone but not with latex condoms. The full breakdown is in the lubricant guide; the short care rule is that whatever you use, wash it off the same day.