Does your favorite hat have sweat stains, greasy fingerprints and maybe a little funk? If you’re not sure, it’s probably worse than you think.
Just like your clothes and shoes, hats get dirty, absorbing oils and sweat from your hair and scalp, dirt, dust and grime from the environment and who knows what else. We all know it’s a bummer when your favorite lid isn’t looking (or smelling) as fresh as it once did.
It can be tempting to just toss it into the washing machine, but that can end up ruining it. So what’s the best way to clean your hat effectively without damaging it?
Until now. Grab your dirtest hat and let’s get to cleaning.
A Step By Step Process for Cleaning Your Hat
If you want to take it a little slower here is the step-by-step walk through.
1. Tools: cleaning station, soft toothbrush, hand towels and cleaner(s). For cleaners, we recommend a mild detergent, Oxiclean or even your Epic Cleanse Shampoo, avoiding any cleaners with bleach.
2. Set up your station. Can be a bucket or sink but you need to have a container for water and your prefered cleaning products.
3. Bring your hats into the cleaning station for examination.
4. Thoroughly examine your hats. Sweat stains will come out while soaking, which we’ll cover shortly. What you are looking for here are deeper stains: hot sauce, grease, fingerprints, anything darker than a sweat stain.
5. Once you’ve located the deeper stains, pre-treat these spots with your cleaning product and a soft toothbrush. Apply the cleaner to the area and give it a brush to saturate the area. If you are cleaning a wool hat be careful on how much pressure you apply, taking care not to damage the wool.
6. After you have pre-treated your problem areas let the hat sit for 10-15 minutes.
7. Fill the bucket with lukewarm water and add your detergent sparingly.
8. Submerge the hats in the bucket, stirring the solution. Work the hats thoroughly with your hands to ensure the detergent is penetrating the material completely. Let the hats soak for 30 minutes.
9. After 30 minutes examine the hats and see how the sweat stains and pre-spot stains are looking. If further cleaning is needed work the area with your toothbrush. Submerge the hats back in the bucket and let sit for an additional 10-15 minutes.
10. After 10 minutes has elapsed make a final inspection confirming all spots are clean.
11. Rinse the hats with cold running water to remove all remaining detergent held in the hat.
12. Once all detergent is fully removed take your towel and pat dry.
13. With the excess water removed, place the hat in a sun lit area to air dry. If you have extra smaller towels you can bundle them up into a sphere shape and let the hat rest on that, helping absorb the moisture.
14. Let the hats air dry. We highly recommend avoiding a clothes dryer, which can change the shape and size of the hat. Air dry is your safest bet. If you are in a hurry you can use a blow dryer to help speed up the drying process.
15. Your hat should be clean, dry and ready for wearing. So rock that fresh lid and keep LETIN’ IT RIDE!
The Best Hats For Guys With Long Hair
What makes a great hat for guys with long hair?
Being hat guys, we’ve worn a lot of hats. As our hair grew long long for the first time we had a chance to see how our hats fit and performed in the process.
After six decades of combined research, we’ve concluded the following characteristics make the best hats for guys with long hair.
High Profile
Important because a high profile creates vertical space for your hair, while lower profile hats deliver a “mashed” appearance.
Structured Crown
The crown provides structure for a higher profile, where an unstructured crown tends to give you a pancake head. A high profile with an unstructured crown would be tall but saggy.
Six Panel
Six panel construction offers a wider shape at the top, where the high profile and structured crown meet, creating open space within the cap. Fewer panels join closer together at the top, making you look like a conehead. These can also prevent the hat from resting upon the ears, allowing flyaways to escape below the hat rim. Not acceptable.
Snapback
As our hair grew longer, we found our fitted hats would no longer fit, where snapbacks can be re-adjusted to the changing dimensions of our locks with accurate, repeatable sizing.
Flat(ter) Brim
Stylistically, a flatter brim tends to harmonize with the previous desirable hat characteristics, which is not to say completely flat, but suitable for subtle curvature.
Wait, Who Are You Guys?
And why do you know all this?
We’re The Longhairs, and we’re not hat salesmen. We do actually sell hats but that’s not the point of this.
This is a Place For Guys With Long Hair
If you’re one of them, you’re one of us.
We’re guys with long hair. We advocate, educate and celebrate men’s long manes with hair whips and high fives.
We invite you to join the community. You’ll get our best content, connect with other longhairs—we’ll even show you the secret handshake. Just for joining we’ll juice you up with a coupon for 20% off your entire first purchase—including hats and beanies.
That’s a great deal, but far more important is the fact you’ve found The Longhairs.
El Moreno is the Co-Founder & President of The Longhairs. Since embracing his mane in 2012, he has authored over 140 insightful articles and featured in numerous videos and podcasts, becoming a pivotal voice in the long hair community. He shaved his head and donated all his hair at The Great Cut in 2019 and again in 2024. Beyond his flowing locks, El Moreno is a devoted husband and father with a passion for adventure with his loved ones.
GO TO THE LIDS