How To Clean Beanie Babies For Sale, Display, & Play

How to Clean a Beanie Baby for Sale or Display

Whether you want to display your Beanie Babies at home or sell them to a Beanie collector, you’ll need to be very careful in how you clean them. Using techniques that are too harsh (like a washing machine) can damage your stuffed animal and lower its appraisal value, and we can’t have that now, can we?!

Here’s how to clean and surface wash a Beanie Baby for sale or display:

1. Protect the TY Tag

If you’ve read our Beanie Babies value guide, you’ll know the TY tag is vital to determining the rarity and value of your Beanie Baby. If the tag is lost or damaged, the value of your Beanie Baby will plummet.

To ensure the tag is preserved during cleaning, simply cover it in plastic wrap or cellophane. Don’t be afraid to wrap the tag multiple times to ensure no water gets through!

There are also custom solutions that you can buy to preserve these delicate tags, like packs of TY tag protective covers from sites like eBay. Definitely pick these up if you intend to sell, as buyers will appreciate the added layer of protection.

2. Vacuum Dust and Surface Dirt

Now that the tag is protected, it’s time to give your Beanie Baby a quick vacuuming to pick up loose bits of dust and dirt. Use the hose and any small attachments you have to gently vacuum over the surface of the Beanie Baby, making sure to get into every nook and cranny.

Just be careful if you’re using a hose that’s big enough to suck up your Beanie. That would be an unfortunate setback.

At this stage, if your Beanie Baby doesn’t have any visible stains, you don’t need to do any more washing. Congratulations!

However, if a stain is still visible, move on to step three and get ready to break out the big guns.

3. Spot Clean With a Damp Cloth

NEVER wash your Beanie Baby under running water. They’ll never forget what you did, and they’ll never forgive you.

Instead, use a damp cloth to gently rub small stains away. Be careful that you only moisten the surface of the Beanie Baby, because if it gets saturated down to the stuffing – see bolded statement above.

If the stains don’t budge with this method, then do the following:

• Place a few drops of liquid soap in a spray bottle, then fill it with water.
• Shake the bottle to dissolve the soap.
• Spray a small amount on a damp cloth and gently wipe each stain, allowing the cleaning solution to work.

Once the stains are gone, go over each area with a dry cloth to eliminate any excess moisture. After that, all you have to do is wait for your Beanie Baby to dry completely before exposing the tag again. Leaving the tag protector on is also an option, and it’s what we would recommend.

4. Restore the Fur

When your Beanie is completely dry, use a soft brush or comb to smooth out the fur and restore the original nap and look. A lint brush or an old toothbrush will work fine as long as it’s clean. Take your time here, this is their favorite part!

5. Place in a Plastic Container

To avoid having to clean your Beanie Baby again (and risk lowering its value), place it inside a plastic protective container like this one from our affiliate partner Entertainment Earth. Of course, make sure the container has been cleaned thoroughly before placing your precious Beanie inside.

You can find Beanie Baby-sized plastic containers for under $10 online. This is a worthwhile investment if you’re serious about protecting your collectibles!

How to Wash a Beanie Baby in the Washing Machine

If your Beanie Baby is missing tags or isn’t rare enough to be worth trying to sell or display, or if you’re some kind of monster, you can just throw it in the washing machine. While this isn’t the best method for preserving your Beanie Baby, it will at least ensure that it’s safe and clean for kids to play with.

Follow these steps to clean a Beanie Baby in the washing machine:

1. Place Inside a Zippered Pillowcase or Lingerie Bag

Place the Beanie Babies you want to clean inside a zippered pillowcase, lingerie bag (we know you have one), or another type of washing bag. This will help prevent your Beanies from being thrown around the washing machine and getting damaged. It won’t stop them from holding a grudge, though.

2. Put on a Gentle Cold Water Wash

Use enough laundry detergent for a small load (and not a drop of fabric softener) and start a gentle cycle. Once the machine is about one-quarter filled with water, add your bag with the Beanie Babies. If you must include other items in the wash, ensure they aren’t brightly colored, as they could bleed through the fur of your Beanie Babies, giving you an unintentionally tie-died Beanie.

But hey, if you’re putting them in the wash anyway, you probably don’t care about that, do you? Tsk tsk.

3. Allow to Dry

As soon as the wash completes, quickly remove the Beanie Babies, place them on a surface (like a shelf or table), and let them air dry. If you must use the dryer (please don’t, hasn’t it been through enough already?), use the lowest setting.

Once your Beanie Babies are fully dry, they’re ready to play with again!

(Mini-Guide) How Do You Get the Musty Smell Out of Beanie Babies?

If your Beanie Baby has a funky smell, it likely has some mold accumulating on or in it. At this stage, it probably isn’t worth trying to sell or display in a case, but you can still follow this method to remove the smell:

1. Vacuum or brush the Beanie Baby to remove excess dust and dirt.
2. Place the Beanie in a large plastic bag with ½ a cup of baking soda.
3. Close the bag and shake hard to get the Beanie coated. 
4. Leave the bag to sit overnight.
5. Take out the Beanie Baby and gently vacuum off the baking soda with an upholstery attachment.

And just like that, you’re back in business!

Need more advice on washing stuffed animals? Here’s what we found on Reddit:

With that, you should have a pretty good idea of how to keep your Beanie collection clean and happy! For more Beanie Baby content and all things 90s, you can follow Rediscover 90s Toys on Instagram, Pinterest, and our other social media pages.

This article may contain affiliate links. If you use one of our links to make a purchase, we may earn a commission.

Peeps Ask!

How do you keep Beanie Babies clean?

The best way to keep Beanie Babies clean is to store them in a clear plastic display case. While they may look adorable sitting on your shelf, without the proper protection, they’ll accumulate dust and household odors that will decrease their appraisal value.

How do you make Beanie Babies soft again?

If the fur on your Beanie Baby feels a little rough, use an old toothbrush to gently smooth out the gristly areas.

Why can’t you machine wash Beanie Babies before selling them?

The machine washing process can damage or shrink the delicate fabrics of your Beanie Babies. Machine washing can also damage the tag, which is a key indicator of value. Hand washing is the only way to clean your Beanie Baby without compromising its aftermarket value.

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Mike Alexander

Mike is a video game enthusiast, a chronicler of the 90s, and a collector of many things. Born in the mid-90s, he was able to catch the wave of some of the best things the decade had to offer, like Power Rangers, Pokémon, Bagel Bites, the list goes on. Despite the amount of time that has passed, he still enjoys many of those things today! If he’s not writing or gaming, he’s probably wondering why Warriors of Virtue didn’t take off the same way Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did.

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