Can a phone case that has turned yellow be cleaned? We are testing different methods

If you don’t want your phone to end up with scratches or worse, putting a case on it is the most effective solution. There are many types, but the clear silicone ones are the most popular (some manufacturers even include one in the box). In addition to being cheap, they reveal the design of the mobile. All the benefits…at least until the lid turns yellow over time.

If you have had a cover of this type, you will have experienced the transition from this clean, transparent material to a slight yellowish tint which, if left for a long time, eventually becomes almost brown. a disgust A Google search returns countless results with dozens of recipes that They promise to leave our silicone case looking like new. We tested some of the methods that we think might be more effective. Will we have managed to remove the horrible yellow tone from our case?

Three lids, six cleaning methods

To prepare for this experiment, we first did a search to see what were the most popular methods on our beloved internet. There are dozens, dare I say hundreds, of articles and videos describing different ways to accomplish the same task, most of questionable effectiveness.

After investigating the most repeated ones, we decided to use a total of six different methods to see if any of them managed to surprise us. Some we have directly copied, but others are of our harvest. For the test, we use three transparent silicone lids with varying degrees of yellow. We will first see what the process was in each method and finally the results.

Method 1: Grandma’s Recipe

No, my grandmother didn’t clean phone cases, but for the first recipe, I selected a mix of ingredients that I saw her use to clean stains that seemed impossible. Here are the steps I followed:

Ingredients: baking soda, lemon juice, vinegar and an old toothbrush.

1. Mix the ingredients to form a paste.
2. Scrub with an old toothbrush into all the nooks and crannies of the blanket.
3. Place the lid with the cleaning paste in a container and add more vinegar.
4. Leave for 1 hour and rinse.

Method 2: The TikTok virus

If you’re looking for how to clean a yellowish case on TikTok, there are countless videos with methods as crazy as freezing it (seriously), but we’re left with the method in this video that it seems almost magical.

Ingredients: toothpaste, salt, washing-up liquid and vinegar.

1. Place the lid in a container or in the sink.
2. Add the ingredients to the lid (a dash of each and a good pinch of salt).
3. Cover with water and let stand for 15 minutes.
4. Rinse well.

Methods 3 and 4: bleach can’t fail us, and the degreaser?

In this section, I am attaching two methods because one of them came to mind when I opted for bleach. Next to her was a bottle of industrial degreaser that my mother swears it removes all grease stains. Now the mobile is not big, but I didn’t lose anything trying it and since I had several covers I was able to try it without problems.

The degreaser on the left, the bleach on the right, after one hour of immersion.

Ingredients: bleach or degreaser and water.

1. Place each lid in a container and cover with a mixture of 50% water and 50% cleaning ingredient.
2. Leave for 2 hours and rinse.

Method 5: Mercadona’s Magic Sponge

From what I’ve tried so far, I can say that Mercadona’s Magic Scrubber lives up to its name. Few stains resist, so I decided to put it to the test with the ugly yellow color of phone cases. The process is very simple:

1. Cut a piece of the magic scouring pad with scissors.
2. Moisten it and drain it until it does not run
3. Rub vigorously.

Method 6: the most effective (or so we thought)

There is a method for whitening yellowing plastics that works and looks like magic. It is typically used to whiten electrical appliances, old consoles, and even shoe soles with amazing results. Will this also work on our yellowish case?

Ingredients: 40 volume hydrogen peroxide cream, gloves, a brush and a transparent plastic bag or kitchen film.

1. Put on the gloves and apply the cream to the blanket using a brush. Be careful not to let it touch your skin or it could burn you (I speak from experience).
2. Put the cover well impregnated with cream in a transparent bag or wrap it in food film.
3. Leave it in the sun for several hours. In our case, it lasted a total of 5 hours during which we flipped it over so the light would affect the entire blanket as well.
4. Rinse well to remove all traces.

Results: a big disappointment

Simple: None of the methods we tried worked, and all three sleeves remained yellow after the experiment ended. Also, we had three cases and tried six cleaning methods, which meant they went through the “car wash” twice and we still couldn’t get them back to transparency. At first glance I would say that they have not cleared up at all, the only visible change was after soaking one of them in bleach that the finish was a bit matte instead of shiny like before, but the yellow was still there.

Of course, even if the yellow did not disappear, they were all very clean and disinfected to the maximum. If what you are looking for is to get rid of germs and the greasy film that remains by constantly handling it, any of the systems described above can serve you, but if you are looking to leave it like when you took it out out of the box, unfortunately you won’t make it.

Why do clear covers turn yellow?

The basic mistake is to believe that the yellow tone of the cell phone shell is a stain. As the housing manufacturer Burga explains, the material of the transparent housings is not originally transparent, but yellow. What they do is add a blue tint to it to create a see-through effect.

Over time and exposure to the sun, the material degrades and that yellowish tone that we want so much to eliminate begins to appear. It’s not dirt, even if it looks like it, but the process of degradation of the material.

Knowing this, I was hoping the oxygenated cream and sun exposure method would work, but after five hours of waiting, it was still the same color as when it started. Maybe with more hours of exposure the effect will be noticeable, but personally I think it’s not worth all the effort (and even more so without a guarantee that it will work).

So what do we do ?

We would have liked to find the method that would leave the cell phone casing looking like new, but after experiencing it, it’s safe to say that there is no silver bullet. If you want to get rid of the yellowish cast iron, you’ll have to get a new case, there is none left. What you can do is consider a few things to prevent this from happening again with your next coverage.

The transparent shell of the iPhone XR, after one year of use. Credits: Applesphere

First of all, not all clear covers are yellow. The cheap ones, the silicone ones, we have already seen that they do it a lot, but there are types of polymers that are not affected such as thermoplastic urethane, such as those made by Apple. You can get one of these materials if you still want a transparent one, although they are also more expensive.

If, on the other hand, you don’t care if it’s transparent, you can get an opaque cover and preferably dark in color. Here you won’t notice that ugly yellowish effect and you can endure it longer. Of course, whatever your case, remember to clean it regularly because while it may not look ugly, none is immune to dirt and germs.