Most swimmers treat wetsuit care as an afterthought, something squeezed in between peeling the suit off at T1 and hanging it over a shower rod. That habit costs money. Neoprene breaks down through a few specific mechanisms that most triathletes never think about, and the cleaning routine you follow, or skip, decides whether a suit holds up for two seasons or six.
This isn't about picking the right bottle of soap off a shelf. It's about what's physically happening to the rubber, the lining, and the seam glue every time you swim, and why a quick rinse only solves part of the problem.
What's Actually Inside the Rubber
Yamamoto neoprene, the material used across Blue70 wetsuits, is a closed-cell rubber foam made from limestone rather than petroleum. Inside that rubber sit millions of microscopic gas-filled cells, and the finer and more uniform those cells are, the more the suit stretches with your stroke instead of fighting it. Higher cell-count grades, like the 40-cell neoprene used in Blue70's most flexible panels, pack in smaller and more numerous cells than lower grades. That's the reason a race suit feels dramatically different at the shoulder than a suit built for daily laps.
Here's the part most care instructions leave out. Those cell walls are vulnerable to two things beyond ordinary wear and tear. UV light breaks down the rubber's polymer chains, leaving the foam stiffer and less springy over time. Chlorine and salt attack the same cell walls through repeated contact, speeding up that stiffening. A suit that's gone rigid at the shoulders after a season of pool sessions probably wasn't torn or overstretched. The neoprene simply aged faster than it had to, and a shower rinse never addressed the reason why.
Chlorine and Salt Go Deeper Than the Surface
A fast rinse clears whatever's sitting on top. It doesn't clear what soaked in during a 60- or 90-minute swim. The interior lining, whether it's a smooth-skin panel or a jersey lining like the one inside Blue70's Thermal Reaction, is a woven fabric with far more surface area than the rubber itself, and that weave holds onto salt and chlorine long after the suit looks clean.
This is why a suit rinsed every day can still turn musty or feel gritty at the wrists a few weeks in. Salt crystallizes in the fibers as the fabric dries. Those crystals are mildly abrasive, and every time you flex the neoprene at a stress point, the underarm, behind the knee, you're grinding tiny salt particles into the cell structure. It happens slowly. It adds up. And it shows up months later as stiffness exactly where you need flexibility most.
The fix is soaking, not just rinsing.
- Soak the suit in cool fresh water for 10 to 15 minutes after ocean or heavily chlorinated swims.
- Open the zipper fully and turn the suit partway inside out so water reaches the lining.
- Agitate the suit gently by hand. Scrubbing adds friction the neoprene doesn't need.
Why Water Temperature Changes Everything
Hot water feels like it should clean better. With neoprene, it works against you. Heat speeds up the breakdown of seam adhesive, and it can strip the rubber of its shape memory, meaning the suit stops springing back to its molded form after a stretch. It's the same process that ruins a suit left in a car trunk on a hot afternoon, just playing out on a smaller scale every time the water runs too warm.
Keep rinsing and soaking water cool or lukewarm. If you're trying to lift sunscreen residue, don't reach for warmer water to speed it along. You'll get the sunscreen off a little faster and pay for it at the seams.
Sunscreen's Quiet Effect on Seam Adhesive
Triathletes are told, correctly, to wear reef-safe or wetsuit-friendly sunscreen. What gets skipped is that oil-based formulas and certain chemical UV filters can interact with neoprene adhesive, softening the seam bond with repeated exposure over a season. A suit that develops seam separation at the shoulder after a summer of sunny open-water racing has often been affected as much by sunscreen chemistry as by the physical strain of the stroke.
Don't skip the sunscreen. Apply it to skin before the suit goes on, give it a few minutes to absorb so it's not sitting wet on the surface, and rinse contact points, neck, shoulders, wrists, thoroughly right after the swim instead of waiting until you're home.
Drying in the Shade Isn't Optional
Direct sun ages neoprene faster than almost anything else, and it's exactly where most suits end up post-race: draped over a car hood, hung on a fence in full light while transition breaks down around it. UV exposure breaks down the rubber's molecular structure the same way it cracks tires and rubber gaskets left outdoors.
Dry the suit inside out first, in shade, on a wide hanger rather than a thin wire one that creates pressure points at the shoulders. Once the lining is dry, flip the suit right-side out to finish drying the exterior, still out of direct sun. This two-step order matters. A suit hung right-side out from the start traps moisture against the lining, and that's exactly where mildew and odor take hold.
The Seasonal Deep Clean Weekly Rinsing Can't Replace
Rinsing after every swim handles surface chemistry. It doesn't touch what builds up over a full season: skin oils, sunscreen residue, and mineral deposits that work their way into the lining fabric over dozens of swims. A thorough seasonal clean, using a neoprene-safe cleanser rather than standard laundry detergent, pulls out what weekly rinsing leaves behind. Ordinary detergents carry enzymes and brighteners built for cotton, not rubber, and repeated use wears the foam down.
This is also the moment to actually inspect the suit instead of glancing at it.
- Run your fingers along every seam, checking for early separation.
- Check the zipper track for salt buildup that could cause it to bind mid-swim.
- Check high-flex zones, behind the knee and inside the elbow, for surface cracking.
Catch a small seam issue early and it's a five-minute repair with neoprene cement. Miss it, and it's a foot-long tear by the next race.
Off-Season Storage Matters as Much as In-Season Care
A wetsuit folded into a bag and left in a hot garage for the off-season comes out stiffer than one hung loosely in a cool, dark closet, even if both were cleaned the same way beforehand. Folding creates permanent crease lines in closed-cell foam, because the compressed cells along the fold never fully bounce back. A wide-shouldered hanger, kept away from heat and sunlight, protects flexibility better than any cleaning step can fix afterward.
The Suit You Choose Still Plays a Role
Blue70 is upfront that its thinnest, most flexible race neoprene will wear out faster under frequent training use than a suit built for durability, like the Reaction or Fusion. That trade-off between flexibility and longevity is real, and it's worth weighing when you decide which suit is for racing and which one takes the daily training load. But within any given model, cleaning habits are the variable you control every single week. A suit soaked in cool water, dried in shade, and deep-cleaned once a season will outlast an identical suit rinsed carelessly and folded into a hot bag, no matter how many swims either one has logged.
One more thing worth knowing if you're relying on warranty coverage: a one-year warranty against manufacturing defects doesn't extend to wear and tear, heat or chlorine damage from neglect, fingernail punctures, or heel tears. Good habits keep a suit inside the kind of wear it was actually built to handle.
A Simple Routine Worth Building
None of this takes much time.
- Soak instead of rinse after ocean or chlorinated swims.
- Keep the water cool, never hot.
- Dry inside out first, in shade, then flip and finish.
- Deep clean once a season and inspect the seams while you're at it.
- Store the suit hanging, not folded, somewhere it won't bake.
The difference between a suit cared for this way and one that isn't won't show up after a single swim. It shows up two seasons later, in flexibility you either still have or don't. If you've got questions about caring for a specific model or want a hand with a seam repair, Blue70's Expert Support team can walk you through it.
Happy swimming.
