LEARN HOW TO CLEAN YOUR STRETCH WATCH BAND
HERE'S HOW TO CLEAN THE STRETCH BAND ON YOUR WATCH
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D-I-R-R-T-Y
(And no, that’s not a Christina Aguilera Song…)
It’s your stretch watch band.
Stretch bands and highly popular. Just about all the inexpensive watches (like Timex) have either stretchy bands or faux leather straps…
And chances are, that band is dirty-dirty, and you don’t even know it!
Stretch watch bands (where the band stretches so you can slide it over your wrist easily), have 1000 little, bits and moving pieces, parts that pull apart, open up, close… They trap dirt like a garbage disposal.
It’s Gross!
Have you ever looked? Have you ever stretched out your links and looked inside your band? It ain’t pretty. More than likely it’ll be black, caked with dark icky mud, muck, and full of 20 years worth of who-knows-what.
Jewelers see it all the time…
People bring in their wrist watches to get a link repaired, removed, inserted… (with those half-bent U shaped fasteners)… And we pull them apart to work on them:
SURPRISE! (It Stinks, too!)
Yikes! It’s hard to even touch. You certainly have to wash your hands afterwards…
And you’ll probably notice the dirt more in the Summertime. When your arm is all hot, moist and sweaty… That dirt and gunk will then leave black residue, stain marks on your wrist.
No kidding!
Plus, all that debris will actually shorten the lifespan of your links. It’ll eat them alive. Corrode them. Make them brittle and break…
So here’s how to clean them:
It’s simple and it just takes a few minutes.
First, remove the band from the watch itself. You don’t want to get your movement wet or it’ll ruin that.
Use a watch spring bar tool to pull those spring bars back from the watch arms and free your band… (if these spring bars break or bend, go see a jeweler)
Once the band is free, put it into a jewelry ultrasonic cleaner with hot water (like coffee hot), and a dash of Mr. Clean. Then leave it vibrate in the cleaner for a good 20 minutes or so. It’ll do wonders to your band (not to mention turn the water a messy black sludge).
But hey, at least you know it’s working.
Clean it, pull it apart, look inside the links. If it’s clean, put it back on your watch and enjoy. If not, back in the sonic brew it goes.
Keep doing this until all the residue is removed. Eventually it’ll be clean as a whistle (and no more black goo).
And that my friends, is how you keep your stretch wrist band clean.
Enjoy your Sparkling Clean Watch!
Cheers! :)