Amazingly, you can clean your glass pipes with household items many people already have stuffed in the cupboards! By combining isopropyl alcohol and course salt like kosher or table salt, you’ll have created a solution that is effective at cleaning a dirty pipe.
Let’s run through what you’ll need. As we’ve already said, you’re going to need isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol breaks down the resin and gunk that has built up in your pipe, and it also helps remove stains that the cannabis resin leaves behind. Your best bet is to use 91% isopropyl alcohol as it’s highly concentrated and will work at breaking down the resin faster than lower concentrations.
The salt works to help dislodge resin and gunk that has stuck onto the pipe; that’s why it’s so important to use course salt. In addition to the alcohol and salt, you’ll need a plastic sandwich bag and toothpicks or cotton swabs.
Now, let’s talk about the process to clean your pipe!
First, use your cotton swabs or toothpicks to dislodge as much of the residue that you can before you use any alcohol or salt. You can also run hot water through the piece to dislodge loose resin.
Once you’ve manually removed as much residue as possible, put your piece in a bag and cover it with the alcohol. Then, add about a tablespoon of your salt to the bag.
After you’ve added all these things to the bag, seal it and begin shaking the bag. You need to be careful that you don’t hit the bag or your pipe against anything that could break it. Additionally, be sure to get the salt inside of your pipe during the shaking process, as the resin will be mostly on the interior of your pipe.
Do this for a few minutes, all the while paying attention to the state of your pipe. Once it’s clean or mostly clean, you can either leave it in the solution to allow the remaining resin to further soak and break down, or you can remove it and use your toothpicks or cotton swabs to spot clean remaining amounts of resin.
Once the pipe is clean, rinse it out with hot water, let it dry, and enjoy!
For extremely dirty pipes, you may need to leave it in the solution overnight, or repeat the process multiple times.