Your Baseball Hat Is Probably Filthy — Here’s How To Wash It

The basic makeup of a hat — with the brim, rounded shape and plastic pieces — make it pretty impossible to just throw in the washing machine when it’s in need of a cleaning.
But between daily wear and the fact that many people throw on a cap to hide dirty hair, it’s clear that baseball hats do need to be washed.
Laundry experts shared with HuffPost the best ways to wash a baseball hat to keep it looking new and smelling fresh all year. Here’s what they said:
“So, funniest way, and it’s my favorite way, but it’s the funniest way, is you can wash them on the top rack of your dishwasher,” said Patric Richardson, the author of Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore.
You can use oxygen bleach or a little dish detergent (which is a form of oxygen bleach), and put it in the regular dish detergent dispenser, he said.
“You just run them for a cycle, just don’t run the heated dry,” Richardson added. The hot water, though, is great for getting out sweat stains, he noted.
“It really is the best way to do it but it’s funny because it’s such a hack, right?” he said.
“First, what I do is with a soft brush, whether it be scrubbing brush or even a bristle brush, I use a solution of dishwashing liquid and water,” said Leanne Neiland, an Australia-based cleaning and organizing social media influencer.
She recommends using two or three cups of water and a few drops of dishwashing liquid, and then simply dunking the brush in the mixture and scrubbing the brush all over your baseball cap.
This is a great way to freshen up a dingy hat or spot-clean any stains.
“And then if there’s a lot of dirt on the cap, which I know with my kids there always is, I use a mixture of washing soda, so maybe one or two tablespoons of washing soda, and then make it into a paste and scrub that onto the dirt,” she added.
Washing soda is a more powerful version of baking soda, which makes it ideal for stain removal, but it can be harsh, so use it sparingly.
If you want to wash your hat in the washing machine, there is a way. You can find hat washing cages on sites like Amazon that snap on around the hat, said Richardson. This allows it to keep its shape as it goes through a washing cycle.
Richardson said this is his second favorite way to wash baseball hats (the dishwasher is his top pick).
“You really need warm water — cold water’s just not going to get that gunk out,” said Richardson. “And oxygen bleach is probably your friend here, because it’s so great at removing sweat,” he added.
If you don’t have a dishwasher, you can hand wash your hat — but Richardson said this is his least favorite way to clean a cap. He recommends using hot water, oxygen bleach and a few drops of laundry detergent.
“I would put the hat in and I would let it soak until … the water had cooled off enough that I could put my hands in it, and then I would scrub the inside of the brim with a bar of laundry soap and a brush,” Richardson said.
“The reason this is my least favorite is it’s going to be the least effective for removing that sweat ring. It will do it, but it’s going to require more work, it’s more manual,” he said.
There’s a reason oxygen bleach is a recommended ingredient in most hat-washing methods.
“It’s non-toxic and is a great stain remover, and it’s great for colors, so it’s not going to bleach your hats,” Neiland noted — meaning, it’s very different from chlorine bleach.
For really dirty hats, Neiland said she soaks them overnight in oxygen bleach because oxygen bleach often needs some time to work. Once it’s done soaking, give it a good rinse.
You can find oxygen bleach online and in any drug store. OxiClean is a popular brand of the product.
If you go with the dishwasher method, the hat will naturally be propped up by the dish racks. But if you choose to hand wash your cap, you want to make sure to dry it over either a bowl or two cups, said Richardson.
This will help the hat keep its rounded shape, he said.
You don’t need to go overboard with your hat washing.
“If you’re wearing your hat every day, they tend not to go moldy, but if you leave them in the cupboard over winter, they will go moldy,” Neiland said. “You should wash them at least once a season, and at the very least at the end of the season.”
Or, if you only wear your hat during baseball season, for example, you should wash it at once the season’s over, added Richardson.
This is the minimum, though. If you wear your hat for sweaty outdoor sports, once a season likely won’t suffice.
“I really think you need to wash it when it feels dirty, when it looks dirty,” Richardson said.
“I will tell you, I have heard that if the band is really sweaty and oily, it can cause acne,” Richardson said. So, all the more reason to make sure you keep your hat clean throughout the year.
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One hack to help keep it a little cleaner throughout the season? Spray some hairspray on the inside rim. “That avoids [getting] makeup on your hat rim because foundation’s really hard to remove,” Neiland said.
Richardson said if your hat is a little smelly, but not actually dirty, you can spray it with some vodka to remove the smell.
“Vodka removes the odor from anything,” Richardson said, “And that is a characteristic that is unique to vodka. It doesn’t work with any other alcohol … it has no odor, so you can spray it on freely, and when it dries, it’s completely gone. It’s very antibacterial, that’s why it works.”
Whether you need to spot clean a stain, fully wash a soiled hat or just freshen up the odor, there are many ways to keep your baseball hat looking fresh.
“It doesn’t matter which way you wash it, for heaven’s sake, just wash it because it’s easy,” Richardson said.