Best Ways to Clean Your Bong
We all love hitting the bong, but we all know that those things can get real nasty if they aren’t cleaned regularly. It happens to us all, and hey, who can blame you for not immediately giving your bong a clean right after taking a massive hoot? At the end of the day though, regular cleaning and maintenance will make your bong hits better tasting and healthier. And it’s simple!
Why do you want to clean your bong?
Beyond just wanting tastier hits (nobody likes nasty bong water flavour), dirty bong water can actually be a health risk to you and your homies. Stagnant water is the ideal home for all sorts of bacteria, fungi and microbes. These microbes can form a substance called biofilm which can combine with plant matter in your bong water to form mold. You wouldn’t take a drink out of a scum-filled pond, and you shouldn’t be inhaling similarly dirty water from your bong. Clean your bong!
Maintaining Your Bong
The good news is cleaning/maintaining a bong doesn’t take a ton of effort. One of the best things you can do is change your bong water regularly. Dumping your used water at the end of a session or end of the night and refilling before your next session will not only gives you nice fresh hits, it will also remove some of the time for biofilm and mold to grow in your bong and keep your bong cleaner. While changing the water regularly will go a long way in keeping your bong clean, it will still gather gunk, so eventually you will still want to do a proper clean on your piece. You can delay this res buildup by using a product called RezBlock. When you add RezBlock to your water, it prevents the resins from sticking to the glass and instead they float in the water allowing you to pour out that gunk along with the ash and other particulates you don't want. RezBlock is completely organic, which means you'll need to change your water out regularly. With RezBlock and regular water changes, you'll see drastically less buildup in your bong.
How to Clean Your Bong
So, you’ve changed your water regularly, but your bong has still gotten dirty. Don’t panic! You’ve got options. Bong Cleaners tend to fall into two categories; soakers and shakers.
Shakers such as Orange Chronic or Randy’s Black Label combine cleaning solution and an abrasive grit. They are generally the fastest way to clean a glass piece. Simply give the bottle a shake, pour a little in your bong, cover the bong’s holes, and give it all a good shake. You should be looking at a pristine piece in just a few moments. While not necessarily needed, there is a product called Res Caps that can be quite handy when using a shaker solution. Res Caps are basically little silicon caps that cover your bong’s mouthpiece and stem holes so you can not worry about any spills or getting the cleaning solutions on yourself.
Much as the name suggests, soaking solutions such as Purple Power are designed to soak your bong. Simply fill up your bong with the solution, let it rest for a few hours or overnight, then dump out the cleaner and give a good rinse with water. Most soakers are reusable, which is nice. It’s not a bad idea to run them through a paper towel or some other filter to get some of the gunk out before returning them to the bottle though.
Bowls and Stems
Bowls and stems on bongs often gather thick, hardened layers of resin and will need to be cleaned separately from the main bong body. What works well is giving them a soak in some bong cleaner in a Ziploc bag or Tupperware container. Really rezzed up bowls/stems might need a little help on top of the cleaner, but a few prods with a pokey or a brush or a pipe cleaner should do the trick.
While bongs have been well established, dab rigs work very similarly. Although you might want to consider some cleaners such as Purple Power 710 or Dark Crystal Cleaner that are specifically designed for dab rigs that will yield better results.
Here at Shell Shock we have all tried the Randy's Black Label Glass Cleaner as it really just does cut through everything like a hot knife through butter! So don't be surprised if you come by the store and get the Black Label recommendation!
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