How to clean your phone (properly)

We love our smartphones. They go everywhere with us, and we use them no matter what we’re doing. No. Matter. Where. No. Matter. How. Gross.

As a result, our lovely smartphones are disgusting. Everything you touch ends up on your phone screen, where you end up touching it again, or smearing it on your face and around your home.

Rightly, you want to clean this icky germ nest as often as possible. It’s not tough and it takes no time at all – but you’ve got to use the right stuff. Some cleaners are packed with harmful chemicals that can ruin the screen of your smartphone, either straight away or over time.

Here’s our guide on how to clean your phone:

Germ-killing cleaning

70% Alcohol Wipes

You may think that it’s best to jump for the most powerful cleaner in the house, but this would be a mistake. Harsh chemicals, bleach derivates and 100% alcohol containing cleaners will strip your smartphone's special coating.

The best thing to go for is a wipe containing 70% isopropyl alcohol. It’s right in the sweet spot – enough to clean without damaging. They sound very scientific and specialist, but these wipes are readily available as they are commonly used for cleaning glasses, as well as cleaning minor cuts and scrapes.

Always be sure to use non-abrasive wipes and cleaners, otherwise you’re headed to scratch city, scratch scratch city.

Washing Up Liquid and Water

If you’re the owner of certain waterproof smartphones, you’re able to wash your phone with a little washing up liquid (or other, non-chemically and harsh soaps) and water.

Use a damp cloth and a tiny amount of soap. Use a second damp cloth to remove any soap residue and leave it to dry. Microfibre cloths are great for this, but if you’d like a natural solution bamboo cloths are the perfect alternative, as they’re absorbent, antibiotic and antimicrobial, and really soft.

Apple smartphones from the iPhone 7 onwards should be OK, and Samsung phones from the Galaxy S7 onwards should also be fine. But, please oh please, double check that your phone is waterproofed. Also, don’t think this means you can ram it in the dishwasher or start attacking it with a scouring pad like last night’s lasagne dish.

Even though some phones are waterproof, it’s best not to fully submerge them.

Get on the case…

Don’t forget to clean the case! Most synthetic cases can be cleaned up using soap, warm water and a bit of elbow grease. Just make sure it’s dry before you put it back on your lovely clean phone.

If you’ve got a case made of other materials, like leather or wood, use the appropriate cleaners.

Hunt the dust

Even your phone is waterproof and locked in a case, it is still covered in cracks, cervices and holes that fill with dust, grime and general pocket mank. Tackle these teeny little unpleasantries with some small, soft brushes, bristles, foam tipped buds and dust stickers. We’ve listed the perfect kit down below.

UV Phone Baths

If you’re looking for a more technological solution, then there are several UV phone-baths available on the market, such as the LayOPO below. To germs and other nasties, UV is a killer. These cleaning devices bathe the phone UV light for around five minutes to kill all of the contaminants – although it can’t be said for sure that these devices will kill all bacteria and viruses.

Smears and greasy lines, be gone

If you want your phone to sparkle after its germ-killing washdown, then a natural and gentle screen cleaner and microfibre buffer combo like Mistify down below is just what you need.

Now… wash your hands!

There’s no point in going through all this cleaning if you’re just going to wipe your grubby mitts all over your pristine device now is there? Besides, it only take 20 seconds (and yes, you should be counting!)

BONUS PRO TIP

Now your phone is looking perf, you won’t want to touch it from fear of smudging it and germ-ing it up again. Then… go handsfree! Using some AirPods or a set of Bluetooth earbuds reduces the amount of phone touching you need to do. You can use voice commands with Siri, Google or Bixby to complete operations, dictate IMs or send voice memos.

Plus, tbh, it’s much quicker than manually typing and it lets us be more… shall we say productive? Yeah, that sounds better than lazy.

Here’s some phone cleaning essentials:

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