There are a lot dangerous marketing myths being told about chew necklace care.
We will go over how to take care of your chew necklaces, what to do, and what not to do.
This will be a brief, and concise article, but you will leave here with the information you need to know.
Dishwasher Safe vs Hand Wash
The myth going around is that chewelry is safe to wash in the top rack of the dishwasher.
Dishwashers use aggressive water pressure, and the dishwasher detergent chemicals are too harsh and abrasive for silicone. The physical impact a chew sustains in the dishwasher causes the silicone material to become brittle, break easily, and creates a massive choking hazard.
Plus, chewing on a chew pendant, chew stick, or handheld chew out of the dishwasher leaves you eating dishwasher detergent.
Once silicone becomes brittle from dishwasher heat or chemical abrasion, it will develop microscopic tears. If you can see small white stress marks or if the silicone feels sticky or gummy even after rinsing, the chemical structure has broken down. For your safety, discard the chew immediately. A compromised chew is a choking risk.
Silicone sensory chews are naturally water repellent, so it's easy to clean either with mild soap and water, or simply rinsing with clean water and drying with a clean towel.
It's best to avoid harsher soaps, especially avoid antibacterial soap, because you will end up with a mouth full of soap residue and antibacterial chemicals.
Impossible to Clean Chews
There are chew materials that are impossible to clean, so it's best to avoid these.
Fabric Chews, also known as T-shirt necklaces and T-shirt chews, are impossible to clean and are highly unsanitary.
When chewing on the fabric for a short amount of time, the fabric absorbs the saliva, teeth plaque, and the wetness from saliva can create mold. It's basically a cesspool of bacteria, in addition to the chew material being a safety risk.
If you try to handwash a fabric t-shirt chew, the wetness of the fabric from the water will be hard to dry and can cause it to grow mold. Then it gets that musty wet fabric smell.
Washing a fabric chew in the washing machine can leave you with a shredded mess in your washer. Using a clothes dryer to dry the chew, can cause the fabric fibers to come off the t-shirt necklace.
Fabric chews are also one of the most dangerous chews out there. You can read more about that in The Truth About Chew Necklaces: The Science of Bite Force.
About Silicone
Unlike fabric or wood, silicone is non-porous. This means it doesn't have microscopic holes for bacteria, saliva, or skin cells to hide in.
Chew silicone naturally repels moisture. Saliva stays on the surface where it can be easily rinsed off, preventing the bacterial soak that happens with T-shirt necklaces.
Because silicone is inorganic, it doesn't support the growth of mold or fungus.
Many chews are made from materials like amber, fabric, wood, marble, TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) which is also known as TPR (thermoplastic rubber), teething bead materials, but silicone is the optimal choice.
Silicone is the easiest to clean, the most durable, the most gentle on your teeth, and overall safest and cleanest material to chew.
Not all silicone chew structures are equally durable enough for the right chewer. The structure of the chew itself, like texture vs smooth, matters most. You can read more in the The Truth About Chew Necklaces: A Structural Integrity Guide.
When to Retire
The first time a chew breaks, it is time to throw it away and stop chewing on it.
If indented holes appear that can fit a grain of rice, the chew has now become a choking hazard for you.
How durable a chew is depends on whether or not it gets teeth marks. The more teeth marks there are, the higher the likelihood you will have to stop using the pendant and throw it away.
As an example, smooth surfaces and hard chewers don't mix. The amount of teeth marks a smooth surface can get will cause the pendant to quickly become deformed. However, if a light chewer chews on a smooth surface, it might not get teeth marks at all because the bite force pressure put on the pendant is very low.
The main rule is any sensory chew that starts breaking or cracking, immediately stop chewing on it and throw it away.