How to Clean LEGO Safely: Bricks, Stickers and Hauls

By William · Updated 14 November 2026

Wash LEGO by hand in warm water no hotter than 40°C with a little washing-up liquid, rinse it in clean water and let it air-dry on a towel, indoors and out of the sun. Keep it out of the dishwasher, the washing machine and the tumble dryer. Stickered parts, electrics and cloth never go in the soak: they get a damp cloth instead.

That covers a box of bricks that has got dusty. A built set gathering dust on a shelf is a different job again: it usually needs a soft brush rather than a soak, and my guide to displaying LEGO sets covers dusting and keeping dust off. A second-hand haul is a different job, because you do not know where it has been, and not everything in the bag should get wet. So this guide does two things the quick answers skip. It sorts every kind of part into one of three groups (soak, wipe or keep dry), and it sets out the routine I would follow with a bag of used bricks: sort, check, wash, dry. There is a free printable checklist of both further down, and an honest answer on yellowed bricks at the end.

Which LEGO parts can go in water?

Most LEGO is plain plastic and can soak in warm soapy water; stickered, chrome and cloth parts should only be wiped; and anything electric, metal or paper must stay dry. LEGO’s own cleaning advice draws the line at electronic components and pieces containing metal, which get a cloth moistened with water and a mild detergent without perfume or oil. The rest of the table comes from what goes wrong for people who soak everything: stickers that lift, prints that rub off and water left inside hubs.

If you are not sure which group something belongs in, wipe it. A part that only needed a wipe has lost nothing; a sticker that has been soaked may not go back down.

How to wash LEGO by hand, step by step

A bowl or a plugged sink, warm water, a little washing-up liquid, a soft toothbrush and a clean-water rinse are all you need. These steps are for the soak pile.

1. Block the plughole. Use a washing-up bowl, a sink strainer or a zipped mesh bag. Small parts slip down plugholes.
2. Run the water warm, never hot. LEGO’s limit is 40°C; higher temperatures may affect the quality of the bricks. A simple test is your hand: if the water feels hot, let it cool.
3. Add a small squeeze of washing-up liquid. You want a few bubbles, not a bath foam.
4. Soak for 15 to 30 minutes. Leave very grimy plain bricks overnight, but never printed parts or minifigures.
5. Brush the awkward places. A soft toothbrush gets between studs and inside the tubes underneath, where most dirt hides.
6. Rinse in clean water until there are no bubbles. A colander, or lifting the mesh bag in and out of a second bowl, makes this quick.
7. Wipe the wipe pile while the soak pile drains: a damp cloth with a little soap, then a dry cloth straight after.

Work in batches the size of your colander rather than tipping the whole haul in. The first batch is drying by the time you finish the last, and parts are less likely to escape.

How to dry LEGO without warping or spotting it

Shake or spin off the water, spread the parts in one layer on a towel with bricks on their sides, and leave them indoors, out of direct sun, for at least 24 hours. LEGO’s advice is not to dry bricks in an oven, a microwave or with a hair dryer, or in direct sunlight, because hot bricks may change shape and stop fitting. A tumble dryer is a heat source too, and it bashes parts together.

• Get most of the water off first. A salad spinner, a handful at a time, removes far more than shaking.
• Turn bricks on their sides and shake the water out of the tubes under bricks and plates, where it hides longest.
• Use moving air, not heat. A fan in the room is fine. A radiator shelf is not.
• Give a big haul two to three days before it goes into bags or drawers. LEGO’s storage advice is to keep bricks dry, and water trapped in a sealed bag stays there.
• White spots on big plates? That is usually hard-water residue rather than dirt. A final rinse in distilled or de-ionised water stops it.

What not to do when cleaning LEGO

No dishwasher, no washing machine, no water above 40°C, no bleach, no solvents on prints and no heat to dry. Each of these has its fans online, and each has a reason to skip it.

Most shortcuts work until the one time they don’t, and a warped brick never clicks again.

Cleaning a second-hand LEGO haul: sort, check, wash, dry

With a bag of used bricks, check before you wash: some of what is in there should not get wet, and some of it is not worth washing at all. Lots from online auctions tend to arrive dirtier than parts from specialist part sellers, which are often washed before they are sent, so plan on doing the full routine.

1. Sort

Tip the haul onto an old sheet or a tray, not the carpet. Take every model apart, right down to single parts, and take minifigures apart too: hair or hat, head, torso, legs. Pull out anything that is not a building part, from sweet wrappers to coins and other toys. Then make the three piles from the table above.

2. Check

• Cracked, split or chewed parts: put them aside. Washing will not save them.
• Pen, paint or glue: put those parts aside too. Solvents that remove marker can remove factory printing and soften the plastic, so decide part by part, on a spare piece first.
• Peeling or curling stickers: into the wipe pile. Older paper stickers are the ones that curl; newer vinyl stickers hold up better.
• Battery boxes: open every one and take the batteries out. White crust or green on the contacts means a battery has leaked. That is a repair job with a cotton bud and care, not a wash.
• Odd shades: LEGO makes bricks in batches and uses some recycled material, so two parts of the same colour can differ slightly. That is not dirt. Yellowed white or grey parts are a different matter (see below).

3. Wash

Follow the hand-washing steps for the soak pile and wipe the wipe pile. If you want to disinfect a haul with an unknown history, soap and water does the cleaning; for more, some families use a cold-water sterilising solution of the kind sold for baby bottles, made up as the label says, on plain parts only, followed by a clean-water rinse.

4. Dry

Spread out, on their sides, out of the sun, for two to three days if it is a big haul. Only then is it ready to sort into your collection. Our guide to how to store and sort LEGO picks up from here.

Yellowed LEGO: what can and can’t be done

Yellowing will not wash off, because it is a change in the plastic itself rather than dirt on the surface; the realistic fixes are prevention and replacing the parts that matter. LEGO lists direct sunlight, cigarette smoke and big swings in temperature as the things that gradually change a brick’s colour (LEGO help: why bricks change colour). It shows most on white, light grey and transparent parts, and a part that sat under another brick often stays white where it was covered.

Newer white is not immune. In a twelve-month outdoor test published in 2026, The Rambling Brick put LEGO’s standard white and the newer, more opaque 426 White side by side in the sun, and both yellowed by a similar amount. A builder known online as Nate the LEGO Guy left one white baseplate in his garden for a year and kept its twin indoors; the garden plate ended up closer to tan than white.

What about whitening treatments?

The popular fix, known among retro-computer collectors as Retrobright, soaks yellowed plastic in hydrogen peroxide and leaves it in strong sunlight or ultraviolet light for hours. I am not going to give a recipe, for four reasons:

• It does not last. People who have done it report the yellow coming back within months, sometimes worse, even when the parts are then kept in the dark.
• It can damage what you are trying to save. Other colours can be over-bleached, nobody can promise what it does to printing and stickers, and there are concerns that it weakens plastic that is already degraded.
• It is not a job for children. It means a tub of bleaching chemical left out in the sun for hours.
• The strong stuff is regulated. Under the UK’s rules on explosives precursors, members of the public in Great Britain need a Home Office licence to buy or keep hydrogen peroxide stronger than 12% (gov.uk guidance).

What I would do instead

• Prevent it: keep white and grey sets away from sunny windows and out of smoky rooms.
• Ask LEGO if a set has extremely discoloured pieces: its colour help page asks you to get in touch. One collector who asked about yellowed white bricks got an explanation but no replacement parts, so keep your expectations modest.
• Replace the parts that show, such as the white tiles on a display model, with new ones, and keep the yellowed parts for the inside of builds where no one will see them.

Free printable LEGO cleaning checklist

Brick haul cleaning checklist (PDF, A4, 2 pages). Page 1: the sort, check, wash and dry routine as tick-boxes. Page 2: which parts soak, which get wiped and which stay dry, plus the never list. Free, printable, no sign-up. Stick it inside the cupboard door where the washing-up bowl lives.

Download the checklist (PDF)

© Garrould Limited · licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). Share freely for non-commercial use with a link to this page.

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What I’d use

You do not need special kit: a bowl, washing-up liquid, an old toothbrush and a towel will do. Two things make a big haul easier. Availability was checked on 14 November 2026 and can change; I will re-check the links each year. As an Amazon Associate, Brick Imagination earns from qualifying purchases.

Once everything is dry, the bricks need somewhere to live: see our LEGO storage box review and the storage and sorting guide.

Cleaning LEGO: questions people ask

Can you put LEGO in the dishwasher?

No. LEGO's care advice is not to put its pieces in a dishwasher, because bricks that get really hot can change shape and stop clicking together. Plenty of people do it anyway and report no harm, but hand-washing in water no hotter than 40°C is not much slower and takes the heat risk out of it.

Can you wash LEGO in the washing machine?

LEGO advises against it, and I agree. Even in a mesh bag or a pillowcase, the bricks are tumbled hard; bags split, loose parts can damage the machine, and at least one owner found a piece came out dull and blotchy. A sink, a bowl and a mesh bag do the same job.

What is the best thing to clean LEGO with?

Warm water no hotter than 40°C with a small squeeze of washing-up liquid, a soft toothbrush for the studs and tubes, and a clean-water rinse. That is all most bricks need. Electrics, stickers and cloth parts get a damp cloth instead of a soak.

Does water damage LEGO?

Not plain plastic parts in warm water, as long as you rinse them and let them dry fully. Water does damage electrics, paper instructions and sticker sheets, and can lift stickers, so keep those out of the soak.

How do you clean LEGO with stickers?

Wipe stickered parts with a damp cloth and a little soap, then dry them straight away. Do not soak or scrub them. If a sticker has already lifted, LEGO's replacement-pieces service sometimes has sticker sheets for a set; search by the set number.

How do you clean LEGO minifigures?

Take each figure apart into hair or hat, head, torso and legs, and wash the plastic parts gently in warm soapy water. Clean around printed faces and torsos rather than across them, and keep alcohol, nail-polish remover and bleach well away from the print. Cloth capes are rinsed by hand and laid flat to dry.

How long does LEGO take to dry?

At least 24 hours spread out on a towel, and two to three days for a big haul before it goes into bags or boxes. Shaking the parts or spinning them in a salad spinner first, laying them on their sides and running a fan all speed it up.

Can you clean LEGO with vinegar or bleach?

Skip the bleach: it can fade colours, and it does not belong anywhere near printed parts. Vinegar is not needed for ordinary dirt; washing-up liquid does that job. If white hard-water spots appear on large plates after drying, a final rinse in distilled or de-ionised water deals with them.

Can you fix yellowed LEGO?

Not by washing, because the yellowing is in the plastic. Bleaching treatments with hydrogen peroxide and strong sunlight can whiten parts for a while, but the colour often comes back within months, other colours can be over-bleached, and stronger peroxide is a regulated chemical in the UK. I would keep white parts out of the sun and replace any that matter.

Should you clean second-hand LEGO?

Yes, before it joins the rest of your collection. Second-hand bricks, especially job lots from online auctions, often arrive dusty or grimy. Sort and check the haul first, then wash, then dry fully before storing.

Written by William for Brick Imagination · Updated 14 November 2026. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this site. Other product names belong to their owners.