There’s probably a more polite way to put it, but honestly, it is what it is. And I’m here to help. Today, we’re talking about how to clean the ass smell off a butt plug.
The literal first step is cleaning your sex toy with soap and water. Like….you did that right? You’re only here because that scent has stuck around, right?
Because if you haven’t cleaned your sex toy with soap and water, please go do that. In many cases, it will solve the issue.
You did it, right? So if your toy is squeaky clean and it still has that smell, continue reading, and let’s talk about how to clean the ass smell off of a butt plug.
First, What Sex Toy Material is Your Toy Made From?
Lemme give you a little lesson in sex toy materials. Don’t let your brain cloud over. I promise, this relates to how to clean the ass smell off a butt plug! Your sex toy’s material is going to give us a pretty good indication of how successful your cleaning adventure is going to be.
And I don’t want you to waste hours of your time trying to fully sanitize something that just isn’t gonna sanitize.
Porous versus Non-Porous
In the sex toy nerd world, we often talk about sex toy materials being either porous or non-porous.
This is a bit of a misnomer and oversimplification.
Sex toys porousity is not a binary system. You’re not either “non-porous” or “porous”.
Instead, it’s easiest to think of porosity as a spectrum. On one side, we have “porous”. On the other, we have “non-porous”. Your sex toy material’s porosity falls somewhere on that scale.
Silicone, wood, glass, stainless steel, plastic, and ceramic are considered “non-porous”. They have smaller pores. These pores are small enough that you can still sanitize their surfaces to prevent most bacteria or STIs from hanging around….but those pores still allow gases to stick around. ;)
Jelly, PVC, TPE, TPR, rubber, and elastomer are considered “porous”. They have much, much bigger pores. You can’t sanitize them. Those pores are so honkin’ that bacteria and STIs can hang around with zero issue, and gases basically have a free-for-all.
Okay, But Why Do I Care?
You care because big-ass pores are what allow the ass smell to stick around.
The larger the pores on the toy, the more that this noxious gas can stick around in the sex toy, even after you cleaned the outermost, viewable surface with soap and water after use.
Gas is just a smaller boi, and it can fit into much smaller spaces (like those pores!), allowing it to hide and escape from the cleanser when you clean your sex toy.
Your toy may look clean, and it may be (literally) squeaky clean when you touch it, but at a molecular level, these butt smell gases are still hanging around in the pores.
But I Have Silicone! Why Do I Have a Silicone Butt Plug Smell?!
This is where things get annoying. Silicone, glass, metals, plastics, and ceramics are all billed as “non-porous”. But they aren’t without pores. They just have fewer of them, and they’re smaller.
As the body-safe silicone sex toy manufacturer Tantus explicitly states, “Since silicone is porous, it is possible for it to retain an odor – even after washing – by absorbing the gases that smell.”
Which, uh, sucks. It sucks a lot.
BUT THERE IS HOPE!
That is, we can use the time (and power!) of water to help rinse away the smell when your sex toy has limited pores. This is for you, too, person who has a silicone butt plug smell.
This trick won’t necessarily work on all sex toy materials (i.e. your rubber or jelly plug might be too well absorbed for this to work), but I have yet to have it fail me on silicone and metal sex toys.
I’ve been doing it for over a decade when trying out solutions for how to clean the ass smell off of a butt plug, and it has been working for over a decade.
I promise, it’s super easy.
Non-Powered Butt Plug: How to Clean the Ass Smell Off
Since water can’t really bother non-motorized toys*, we have a simple way to get that ass smell off. Non-motorized toys don’t have motors or electronic functions of any sort. That’d be things like non-vibrating dildos or plain butt plugs.
To clean the silicone butt plug smell off:
- Pick a time when your toy can sit out for at least 8 hours.
- Fill up any container with warm or hot water.
- Place the sex toy into the water.
- Go slowly (as the sex toy is going to displace water, and you don’t want to spill water all over your countertop).
- Allow the sex toy to sit in the water for those 8 hours.
- Pull the sex toy out of the water, dab it dry, and smell it. Does it still have the smell? If so, dump out the water, pour another glass of water (hot tends to work best), and repeat.
I know, it sounds stupidly simple. But it works. Every time we’ve had an issue, just letting the offending smelly butt plug hang out in water has fixed it. Letting it soak gives time for the water to make its way into all of those little pores, providing an ultra-thorough rinse.
There have been a few times where play was, uh, messier than expected. Those days, I usually have to rinse and repeat this process a few times.
But even when the anal sex toy reeked on day one, after day 4 of this, I can’t smell anything even when I hold it under my nose.
*This does not apply to inflatable toys. Inflatable toys have air holes in the surface of the toy. Getting water into this air hole will cause the interior to mold. The air intake valve of any inflatable toy should never be submerged under ANY water.
Motorized Butt Plug: How to Clean the Ass Smell
If your sex toy has a motor, we have to be a bit more careful. (Motor = it vibrates, provides movement, connects to an app, or otherwise has some sort of electronic features in it)
If your toy is motorized, it must be waterproof to use this water-based trick.
Even if it’s waterproof, waterproof “capabilities” are tested with a very specific time limit in mind. Your toy might be 100% waterproof in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes, but we’re trying to leave it in water for a lot, lot longer. Waterproof capabilities may not save you here.
Doing this with your motorized butt plugs does have a higher risk level. Imma be honest. BUT I’ve, again, been doing this for decades on many of mine, and I have yet to kill one over it.
If you want to try how to clean the ass smell off a butt plug and your toy has a motor in it, it needs to have a few things:
- Have most of its “water-precarious” area on one side. If 80% of your toy is an insertable shaft that’s covered in a single layer of silicone, but it’s a charging port and buttons are on a handle that only exists on one side, we can probably assume that the area most at risk for water is this handle and charging port. We can leave that area outside of the water.
- Be partially waterproof – at least water resistant/splashproof.
- Be careful with inflatable/air intake toys. Those air intake valves are often located in weird areas on the toy. If you get water inside of an inflatable toy, that’s the death of the toy. Mold will grow in there, and you’ll never be able to clean it.
If your motorized sex toy meets those demands, you can try to use water to get your smelling butt plug a bit less…smelly:
- Pick a time where your toy can sit out for at least 8 hours.
- Fill up a pint class/cup/mug/vase with warm or hot water. We want the container to be upright to allow the toy to stay upright.
- Place the sex toy into the water, keeping all water-suspicious parts outside of the water.
- If your toy isn’t waterproof, go slowly, leaving the NOT waterproof end out of the water. Err on the side of caution. As you put the toy into the water, water will displace, causing the water level inside the cup to rise. If your toy isn’t waterproof, you may need to dump out water to make sure no water touches the not waterproof end.
- (If your sex toy has a flared base, this is even easier. As shown in the photo, you can see that used the flared base to anchor the Edge 2‘s electronic bits outside of the water.)
- Allow the sex toy to sit in the water for those 8 hours.
- Pull the sex toy out of the water, dab it dry, and smell it. Does it still have the smell? If so, dump out the water, pour another glass of water (hot tends to work best), and repeat.
Did the Ass Smell Stick Around?
Like I said, I’ve never had this fail me for silicone and stainless steel dildos.
It has failed me for rubber and PVC toys.
Especially for porous toys, the workability of this “sex hack” also gets worse the longer the ass smell has been in the sex toy. It wouldn’t matter if I dropped my two-years-long-stinky-rubber-butt-plug into an ocean; it would retain the smell regardless of how long it was in the ocean.
Porous toys just have really large pores. They allow a lot of contaminants to hang out “in” the surface of your toy – even without your permission. That includes ass smell. It may not be possible to get that smell out of a porous toy – especially if it’s been there for awhile.
If that’s the case, you might need to replace it. I’m sorry. :(
I have some tips on how to choose the best cheap sex toys (because we all still gotta make rent) to help. On the bright side, silicone has gotten a lot cheaper over the years, and nowadays, if you shop for a generic silicone plug, it can be the same cost as a rubber one. And silicone is sanitizable, odor-free, scent-free, and free of phthalates.
*Products shown in the feature images: The black one with the long base is the Lovense Edge 2, the blue one is the b-Vibe Snug Plug in Size 2.
Updated: May 2026, March 2026.
