Vinegar, bleach or dishwasher for bath toys?

Start with the toys that already went bad

Some bath toys have been sitting wet for a while. You pick one up, and it smells off or looks cloudy. This post is about those toys.

There are three common ways to clean them: a vinegar soak, a bleach soak, or a trip through the dishwasher. We make a bath toy organizer, so we've thought about this a lot. Here is a plain look at each one, and then the point we care about most.

We won't give you amounts or timings. We aren't going to make claims about what any cleaner does at a chemical level, either. Your toys came with their own care instructions. Those win over anything a blog post says.

Option one: the vinegar soak

This is the one most people try first. You already have vinegar in the kitchen, and it's cheap.

• What's good: Easy to find. No special gloves or open windows.
• What's not: The smell. Your bathroom will smell like a salad for a while, and so will the toys until you rinse them well.
• Best for: Solid toys with no hole in them. You can see the whole surface and reach it with a cloth.

The soak is simple. Toys go in a tub or sink, you cover them, and you wait. Then you rinse, and the toys need to dry fully before they go anywhere near a bath again.

Option two: the bleach soak

Bleach is the strongest-smelling option on this list, and the one people have the most opinions about.

• What's good: It's a familiar household product, and it clears away the dark spots you can see.
• What's not: It's the harshest on the toys themselves. Some colors fade. Some soft materials don't like it. You need to rinse the toys very well afterward.
• Best for: Hard, plain toys when nothing else has worked, and only if the care label for that toy allows it.

We'll stay out of the chemistry here. Practically, bleach asks the most of you. You have to be careful with it, rinse for a long time, and then wait for the toys to dry. If a toy has a hole in it, the rinsing gets harder, because the water has to come back out of that hole.

Option three: the dishwasher

This is the "set it and forget it" option. Toys go in, you run a cycle, and you take them out.

• What's good: It takes the least effort. There's no soaking and no scrubbing.
• What's not: Not every toy likes the heat. Some soft or thin toys can warp. Small toys can also fall through the rack, so a mesh basket or a top-rack spot helps.
• Best for: Sturdy toys whose care label says the dishwasher is fine.

The dishwasher also has a limit. A toy with a squeaker hole can take in water during the cycle. That water then stays inside after the cycle ends. We said this on our product page too: a toy that holds water inside itself will hold it anywhere. Nothing we make fixes that, and neither does a dishwasher.

Which one should you pick?

Here is the short version.

• Want the least work? Dishwasher, if the toy's label allows it.
• Want something from the pantry? Vinegar soak. Plan on rinsing well.
• Have a hard, plain toy that needs more? Bleach soak, with a long rinse and a careful read of the care label.

Whichever you choose, the step people skip is drying. A clean toy that goes back into a damp pile is a toy you'll be cleaning again in a few weeks. Lay the toys out and let air get to every side.

Notice what all three methods have in common. They fix a toy that's already a problem. None of them stop the problem from coming back.

The point: drain between baths and you clean less

This is why Mike and Dawin built the Bath Buddy. In 2018 we went looking for a way to keep bath toys off the tub floor. What we found was mesh bags and buckets. The mesh bags grew mold, because wet toys hung in a sack that never dried out. We didn't want that for our own kids' toys.

The trouble starts when wet toys sit in their own water. So the fix is to get the water away from the toys. The Bath Buddy does that with its shape, not a coating or a spray.

Here is how it works. Two pieces connect precisely, and you'll hear the click. Water runs off the toys and is looped down by gravity to a second level underneath. That level catches it. You dump it, wipe it with a cloth, done. Nothing pooling under the toys, nothing to scrub the next morning.

The wet toys go in, the water drains out, and bath's over. When toys aren't left sitting in a puddle, you aren't pulling out the vinegar or the bleach nearly as often. The deep clean becomes a rare job instead of a standing chore.

We also keep the routine small on purpose. Dump the bottom level, wipe it with a cloth, and that's all. It takes about two seconds, which is a routine you will actually keep.

The one honest limit

We publish this part because it matters. It only fails one way: if the water never gets dumped. If the bottom level sits full for days, water sits there, just as it would on any bathroom surface. And a toy that holds water inside itself will hold it anywhere. We don't claim to fix that one.

So the plan is the same as before, with one difference. Use vinegar, bleach, or the dishwasher for the toys that already need it, and follow each toy's care label. Then keep new trouble from starting by draining after every bath.

A few details if you're curious. Bath Buddy sits on four rubber pads, so it stays put with nothing to mount and nothing to drill. It comes with a silicone rinse cup. Toys aren't included. Shipping is free in the contiguous US, and it's $39.88.