According to a recent post on Lifehacker, you should clean your Earbuds for both better sound and better hygiene.

“Earbuds can get dirty surprisingly fast, especially if you use in-ear earbuds—the sealed design increases the heat in the ear canal and leads to more ear wax and oils accumulating on the bud. You can’t just dunk them in water and shake them around however, especially if you spend big bucks on them to please your audiophile ears.”

From there they recommend several options of gentle cleansers, but surprisingly, they also recommend using a dry soft bristle toothbrush, the very same method we recommend for cleaning hearing aids.

I’m not sure how much the average person wears ear buds, no more than an hour or two a day I would would wager, but I know our patients on average wear their hearing aids 10 hours or more a day.  I cannot stress to you just how important the REGULAR CLEANING of your hearing aids are.  A good routine of cleaning should include three vital parts.  First, daily use of a soft bristle toothbush. This will remove loose flaky wax and skin particles from the body of the hearing aids.  It will also help remove wax that clogs the opening of the receiver, where sound comes out of the hearing aid.  If the receiver gets clogged, it can make the hearing aid sound like it is dead. If wax gets in there and sets for a long period, it will actually destroy the hearing aids, causing an expensive repair. The second step should be daily use of an antimicrobial wipe to remove sticky wax and possible infection causing agents from the hearing aids. Third, regular scheduled cleaning at your local provider.  The daily cleaning you do is wonderful, but it cannot get at deep wax or moisture.  At our office we use a vacuum/dryer system to remove wax and moisture. This will extend the life of your hearing aids and keep them working up to par. Just remember a little cleaning goes a  long way.

If cleaning keeps your ear buds up to snuff, just think about how much more important it is to protect the investment you have made in better hearing!