While not the most glamorous topic to discuss, it's important to go over cleaning if you want to avoid any nasty surprises further down the road. Cleanliness with anal beads doesn't just involve making sure your butt is prepared. You need to take good care of the beads and ensure they aren't carrying anything nasty before you put them back into your body.
Cleaning Before Using Anal Beads
Anal beads go in your butt. While this shouldn't come as much of a surprise to you, it does mean that people can be a little squeamish about it. In particular, people tend not to like the idea of getting poop on their hands or their toy.
Luckily, this can be mostly avoided with a little preparation before you begin using your beads. Going to the bathroom at least an hour before you start ensures your bowels are nice and empty. Then, take a shower and pay special attention to the area around your butt to make sure it's squeaky clean. A final step for those wanting to be extra cautious is to use an enema to clean out the first few inches of your rectum of any remaining debris.
With these simple steps, you should be able to avoid most of the chance of touching poop. Despite being thoroughly cleaned, you should NEVER go straight from anal play to any kind of vaginal play with your toy. The bacteria found even in a clean rectum can cause all kinds of nasty infections to a vagina, so be sure to clean anything after removing it from the anus and before inserting it into the vagina.
Cleaning Anal Beads
When cleaning the actual beads themselves, the method you use to clean them will depend largely on what they are made of. There are two distinct categories you need to be aware of. These are porous materials and non-porous materials.
Porous materials are materials like rubber, jelly, and latex, and require a little extra care to be sure they are safe. Bacteria can stay in the pores of these materials, even after cleaning, so you want to make sure you remove as much of this as possible. The best way to do this is with warm water, not too hot as the beads might melt, and a good scrub. If you want to go the extra mile, you can pick up a specialized antibacterial cleanser designed for use with sex toys.
Even with the utmost care, a porous set of anal beads will never be truly clean. This is especially true if a string connects the beads, as the string will absorb even more bacteria than the beads. If you must use a set of porous anal beads, it is recommended to use a condom over them to stop any bacteria from spreading.
Non-porous materials include steel, glass, and silicone. These materials have much better surfaces, as there are no pores large enough for bacteria to make a home in. Even so, you still need to clean them after use to get any bacteria off of the surface of the beads. With non-porous toys, this can be done by simply boiling them if they are steel or glass, or with water as hot as you can stand with silicone. Again a good scrub is needed, and if you wish, you can make use of specialized sex toy cleansers.
Vibrating Anal Beads
If you've chosen to pick up a vibrating set of anal beads, you'll need to take a little extra care when cleaning them. You must remove any batteries from the unit to avoid the risk of electric shock. These should also never be fully submerged in water as the liquid may get into the electrical parts of the device, which could cause permanent damage.
Cleaning Anal Beads
However you clean your beads, it is important to make sure they are properly dried off before putting them away. You should also have somewhere appropriate to store them to prevent them from becoming contaminated between uses. Even so, another quick wipe before use is recommended to be sure that they are safe and ready to use.