Cleaning Your Wetsuit

Always clean and dry your suit as soon as possible. Rinse your wetsuit with fresh water. Its best to fill a bucket/tub/ trash can/ bath tube up with clean water and soak your wetsuit in that so it gets clean all the way thru. You can use a wetsuit shampoos and conditioners, PISS OFF and Sink the Stink are good and there are others out there. You can also use mild laundry soap or baby shampoo to clean wetsuits. Try to avoid peeing in your wetsuit; Urine is a hard smell to remove. Inspect your wetsuit for rips and tears as you are washing it.

Drying Your Wetsuit

After washing and rinsing your wetsuit, turn it inside out to help retain the flexibility on the outside of the wetsuit. Hang to dry on a wetsuit hanger or three to four plastic hanger, but don’t use a wire hanger. Wire hangers will cause the neoprene to stretch over the shoulders. The sun is your wetsuits worst nightmare as the UV rays can damage the neoprene and shortening the lifespan and the effectiveness of your suit.

                         

 SCUBAPRO Dry suit hanger      SCUBAPRO Universal Hanger

Storage  

Store your wetsuit on a flat surface or on a wetsuit hanger. Avoid folding whenever possible to avoid creases. If stored folded it can leave creases and those will take away from the insulation properties. Avoid leaving your wetsuit in stuffed in a bag, or in a hot car, as it will reduce the lifespan of your suit.

Things that Can Damage Your Wetsuit

Hot water can ruin neoprene, causing it to lose some of its flexibility. Sun and UV rays cause neoprene wetsuits to age quickly. Dry your wetsuit in a shaded area. Chlorine or salt water will break down the neoprene. The crystals for the salt water will cut your suit. This is why it is important to rinse your wetsuit with fresh water after use in chlorine or salt water.

Things to Avoid

Do not use bleach or put your wetsuit in a washer machine or a dryer. Everyone loves getting into a dry wetsuit but the drier is real bad for it. (So maybe just long enough to make it warm if you feel like you have to) Avoid pulling your wetsuit over rings, watches or anything it could get caught on. Also just pulling it on can rip it. Avoid putting petroleum jelly on your suit. Petroleum products destroy the adhesive of the wetsuit seams and can penetrate the neoprene making it hard to repair. If you are trying to avoid chafing you can use Body Glide as that has been made to be wetsuit friendly. Using beeswax or zipper lubricant can prolong the zippers life and help keep them from snagging and tearing and it also helps them work better.

Repairing Tears and Rip

Inspect your wetsuit for rips and tears after each use. The rips and tears are much easier to fix when they are small, and will grow if they go unnoticed. Wetsuits can easily tear from things like watches, pier pillions and rocks. Small tears (around 1-2 inches long) can be easily repaired. Tears bigger than a few inches may require professional repair services. If the stitches or seams are torn it may also be a good idea to take your suit to a professional for repairs.

Things you should keep on hand

Storm sure Neoprene Queen, Aquaseal and E6000 fabric glue. These are good to just leave have in a small zip-lock container in your dive bag. It is better to stay ahead of a rip. There are also wetsuit repair kits available that contain everything you will need. If you are deployed overseas and cant’ get the a true wetsuit glue, then you can try a “bike tire repair kit” from any bike store (the glue used to fix a bike tire inner tube is basically the same) and is ok for “field repair” it is not recommended by any wetsuit companies but it is a good last resort if you having to dive for a couple hour in a ripped wetsuit and have no other options, like taking your buddies suit and saying “ wow you ripped your suit that sucks”

If you want learn a lot more about wetsuits watch the below video

Below is quick summary

• Rinse with fresh water after dives to remove the salt water
• Hang up inside/out for drying
• Do not dry under sunlight to prevent neoprene being damage (sun baking) – this one is the most important.
• Do not use laundry liquid to prevent neoprene being damage
• Do not put in dryers
• Do not Iron
• Do not Bleach
• Do not store too much folded to avoid wrinkles

All this information is on this label stitched inside your suits.

Wetsuits

Tags: Scubapro

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2018 at 14:00 and is filed under Advertiser, Guest Post, Maritime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.