A wetsuit that has gone stiff and smells sour is not worn out. Neoprene fails from three specific things, and all three are avoidable with about two minutes of care after each session. The mistake most people make is treating a wetsuit like a garment when it is closer to a piece of foam equipment.
What neoprene is
Neoprene is a synthetic rubber foam full of tiny closed gas cells. Those cells are the insulation. They trap gas, gas conducts heat poorly, and that is the entire mechanism by which a wetsuit keeps you warm.
The rubber is laminated to a thin fabric layer on one or both faces, usually nylon, and the panels are glued and blind-stitched together so the seams do not perforate the foam.
Everything that ruins a wetsuit ruins one of those three things: it crushes the cells, it degrades the rubber, or it breaks down the glue at the seams.
The three things that kill neoprene
Heat. Hot water, a dryer, a hot car, or direct sun all degrade the rubber and break down the seam adhesive. This is the fastest way to destroy a wetsuit and the most common.
Ultraviolet light. Sunlight breaks the polymer chains in neoprene directly. A suit dried repeatedly in full sun goes chalky and brittle within a season or two.
Folding and hanging badly. Sharp folds crush the gas cells permanently, and a suit hung by the shoulders on a thin hanger stretches under its own wet weight and loses its fit at the neck and shoulders.
Salt and chlorine are a fourth factor, and they mainly work by drying into crystals that abrade the rubber from inside every time the suit flexes.
What to do after every session
This is the whole maintenance routine and it takes two minutes.
Rinse in cool fresh water, inside and out, as soon as you can. Turn the suit inside out and rinse that side properly, because the inside is where the sweat and the body oil are and that is the side that smells.
Do not use hot water. Cool or lukewarm only.
Hang it to drip somewhere shaded with air moving.
That is it. A suit rinsed after every use almost never needs anything more.
Drying it properly
Hang it inside out first, so the inner lining dries before the outside. That is the side that holds the smell, and a suit turned the right way round while the inside is still wet is a suit that sours.
Use a wide hanger, or fold the suit over a thick rail at the waist. Never a thin wire hanger by the shoulders, which puts the entire weight of a wet suit onto two narrow points and stretches the neoprene there permanently.
Shade and moving air. Never direct sun, never a radiator, never a dryer.
Turn it the right way round once the inside is dry and let the outside finish.
Deep cleaning, occasionally
Once a season, or whenever the smell persists after rinsing.
Fill a tub or a bin with cool water and a wetsuit-specific cleaner. Ordinary laundry detergent is too harsh and strips the rubber, and it leaves residue that irritates skin under a tight suit.
Submerge, turn inside out, and let it soak for fifteen to twenty minutes. No agitation and no scrubbing.
Rinse thoroughly in clean cool water, twice, because residue is worse than the original problem.
Press water out gently. Never wring a wetsuit, which crushes the foam cells along the twist line.
Hang and dry as above.
What never to do
A washing machine. The agitation and the spin both crush the foam and stress the seams, and the spin is the part that does the real damage.
A dryer, at any heat.
Bleach, solvents, or any petroleum-based cleaner, all of which attack the rubber.
Leaving it in a car. A wet suit in a hot boot for an afternoon is heat, no airflow, and darkness, which is mildew plus heat degradation together.
Leaving it rolled in a bag overnight. This is how most wetsuits acquire the smell they never lose.
Storage between seasons
Completely dry first, inside and out.
Hang it flat on a wide hanger, or lay it flat. Never fold it, and never store it compressed at the bottom of a pile, because a crease in stored neoprene becomes a permanent weak line where the cells are crushed.
Cool, dark, and dry. A garage that reaches high summer temperatures is a poor choice, because heat degrades the seam adhesive slowly over months.
Zip it closed for storage so the zipper teeth stay aligned and the tape does not curl.
Rash guards and neoprene accessories
Rash guards are a different material, usually polyester and elastane, and they are far more forgiving. Cool wash, gentle cycle, no fabric softener, air dry in shade. The elastane in them takes the same damage from heat that a wetsuit does.
Booties, gloves, and hoods are neoprene and follow the wetsuit rules exactly, and they smell faster than a suit does because they hold more sweat in less volume. Rinse them inside out every single time.
The Long Beach part
Two local conditions matter here and they push in opposite directions.
The coastal salt is the constant. Cold water surfing and diving here is a year-round activity rather than a summer one, which means the rinse habit has to be a habit rather than a seasonal effort. Salt crystals left in neoprene abrade it from the inside every time the suit flexes, and the damage accumulates quietly over a year of unrinsed sessions.
The other is the marine layer. Coastal mornings here are damp and overcast, and a suit hung to dry in that air can stay wet all day, which is exactly the condition mildew wants. The answer is airflow rather than heat: a shaded spot with a breeze, or indoors with a fan, dries a suit far more safely than moving it into direct sun to speed things up. Sun is the thing you are trying to avoid.
Never dry a suit in a closed car to take advantage of the warmth. That combination of heat, ultraviolet through the glass, and no airflow does more damage in an afternoon than a season of use.
The rest of the gear
Wetsuits stay out of machines, but everything that comes back from a session with them does not. Towels, board shorts, and salt-soaked clothing need real water volume to get the salt out, and salt left in cotton is what makes beach towels stiff and scratchy.
The machines at our self-service laundry on East 7th Street move enough water per cycle to rinse salt and sand out properly rather than redistributing them through the load.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Nou wash-dry-fold service covers the everyday laundry.
The short version
Neoprene insulates with gas cells in foam rubber, and it is destroyed by heat, by sunlight, and by being folded or hung badly. Rinse the suit inside and out in cool fresh water after every session, then hang it inside out on a wide hanger in shade with air moving. Never use a washing machine, a dryer, hot water, or ordinary detergent. Deep clean once a season with a wetsuit cleaner and no scrubbing. Store it dry, hung flat or laid flat, never folded and never in a hot garage. And never leave a wet suit rolled in a bag or a car.
WaveMAX Long Beach is at 601 E 7th Street, easy to reach from Long Beach and the surrounding area. For the towels and clothing that come home salted, call us at 562-269-0509.