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Watch and Learn How to Clean Your Yoga Mat

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A quick clean after each practice helps kill microbes before they multiply, plus it removes the mealy floor dirt that inevitably gets tracked onto the surface and grinds into your palms during salutation and warrior poses. Here, ܳٲassociate managing editor Aleta Burchyski shows us strategies to disinfect plastic, rubber, and microfiber mats. Read the full article here.

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Video Transcript

ALETA BURCHYSKI: Hi, my name is Aleta. I'm here at ϳԹ magazine, and I'm going to show you how to quick clean a yoga mat. So to get started, you'll need a few materials. In front of me, I have a velvet lint brush, a little tiny vacuum cleaner, some white vinegar, a spray bottle, some water, and some essential oils. So first I'm going to show you how to make your own mat cleaner.

So to start the mat cleaner, I'm going to take 3/4 of a cup of water and I'm going to add one fourth cup of white vinegar. This is a nice diluted mix that helps kill all the nasties. And then to that, I'm just going to add a few drops of essential oil to make it smell nice. I really like Clary sage and French lavender. It's sort of a nice, mind-clearing blend.

And then I'm just going to pour it straight into this nice brown bottle. I think it's all right if it's not all the way full. And there's my mat cleaner. So this is my Manduka Pro Mat. It's my absolute favorite, because it's so easy to wipe down with a microfiber and mat cleaner. So I'm just going to give it a few sprays. And then I'm just going to wipe it down.

And this'll take off all the dust, lint, grit, germs, everything, done. So this is a Prana rubber mat. And I find these a little challenging to use a microfiber on, because the rubber just kind of sticks and grabs to the fabric. So one thing I like to do, is use a small vacuum with a little brush attachment to sort of give it a little wipe down first.

[WHIRRING VACUUM]

So that's taking care of all the lint and dust and cat hair and my hair that are on the mat, which means that now all I have to do, is de-germ. So I'm just going to give it a spray with the mat spray. Get all over the surface. And now, because I have not used the microfiber to remove that moisture, I'm going to just let it air dry for maybe an hour.

So this is my Lululemon travel mat. It's got this beautiful plush fabric top on it. And that also is really difficult to wipe down with a microfiber. So for this kind of surface, I really like to use a velvet lint brush. And that's just going to pull off all, again, the cat hair, my hair, lint, dust, all that good stuff. And so once that's done, I again, can just give it a little squirt to de-germ and then let it air dry.

So I've got one more tip for you, and that is the taco fold. A yoga teacher showed me this, and it's a great way to keep all the nasties that are on the floor side of your mat from getting on the practice side of your mat. So when you're ready to put your mat away, just take the end, match it up with the other end, and then roll it away. So those were the basics on how to quick clean your yoga mat. Thanks so much for watching. Namaste. So I'm just going to give it a few sprays. Oh, no, we should have primed the pump.

[LAUGHTER]

And also opened it. Great.

Basics