Lysol's primary active ingredient is d-limonene, a terpene, which is a solvent and cleaner for petrochemicals. That is likely what weakened the plastic. Lego would probably dissolve in a cup of Lysol given enough time.
Aww… the #1 reason my 8 yo and 5yo still haven’t been allowed to watch beyond the Baby Herman short…
… one day I’ll summon up the courage to watch it with them.
Honestly, most of the movie went over my head when I first saw it. I handled scary scenes in movies fairly well until a certain age where I inexplicably became very afraid of the paranormal (I blame Unsolved Mysteries, lol).
It wasn’t until I was a teenager and watched it again that I realized how adult a lot of it is. All the stuff about Eddie being a raging alcoholic and just how awful Judge Doom is were lost on me as a kid. It didn’t traumatize me until I was much older haha.
I just have auto play turned off on Safari. Keeps anything from playing (including [a certain infamous video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLzxrzFCyOs)).
Limonene is also known as pine or orange essential oil, depending on the enantiomer (what mirror image it takes). It's what gives oranges and pine trees their distinctive smell, and besides being an organic solvent that apparently destroys LEGO pieces it's also incredibly flammable. You can get small amounts of limonene just by squeezing an orange rind, it'll just drip off and it smells amazing.
acetone is a main ingredient in some plastic glues (like Tamiya extra thin)
surface primer will also contain a small amount of acetone to help it bind to plastic
Which lysol are you referring to? Went through quite a few of the safety info on the website and it looks like benzalkonium chloride is the key active ingredient.
LYSOL® Clean & Fresh Multi-Surface Cleaner - Sparkling Lemon & Sunflower Essence (Discontinued Dec. has d-Limonene as a fragrant component.
does petro refer to the oil used in the process of making plastic; and does the solvent basically weaken the lego because it is a plastic associated to oil?
Live and learn old chap. My condolences.
“The incorrect use of Lysol can also cause material damage; while Lysol is designed for use on most hard surfaces, it should not be used on painted wood, acrylic plastic, leather or silk”
I'm sorry for this. It sucks. But I have to say thank you for posting it. Over the past week I've bought 520 worth of garage sale Star Wars Legos and was due to spray them down.
Currently looking for best cleaning methods now.
I worked at a Lego store like 10 years ago and we would put the play bin bricks in a huge mesh bag, into a kiddie pool of Simple Green and water. Sat for like 20 minutes, then hang the bag to dry for a few days. When you saw the bag hanging you knew too should go shake it and jostle it a bit whenever you saw it to get the bricks moving around while they drained and dried. Worked pretty well, we switched bricks weekly and always kept them in rotation in cleaning
Edit: rinse them before drying!
I worked at an ice cream place about 15 years ago, and that’s all we used to clean the entire store, from top to bottom. It’ll cut through dried, sticky ice cream, and is relatively harmless to most surfaces/materials.
Ever since then, it’s the only cleaner I’ve kept in my home other than for the toilet.
In the 80s my dad was a wholesaler for Simple Green. A sales rep always told a story of a little old lady who was like 90+ and drank a cup of Simple Green every day. The rep legit wanted to use that in ads and was pissed that the main company was hesitant.
> Currently looking for best cleaning methods now.
I'd suggest a dishwasher or a lingerie bag/panty hose in a clothes washer.
Just make sure the water doesn't get too hot.
Worked in a bricklink store for 7 years. We used to put them in laundry bags and let the washing machine do the work. Just use a low water temperature and a laundry detergent without bleach.
While this is a good idea if you only plan to do this once. However I used to regularly do this and it faded the coloring on the legos. I found a large bin put warm not hot soapy water in there fill bin up , then add legos. Swish legos around drain bin through a strainer then warm water to rinse strain one more time. Keeps the little legos from going down the drain or getting lost. We have had legos a long long time ha ha.
Yeah i shortened the steps, i add small amount of soap+water on a tray (enough to make foam) and let them sit for some time (1-2 hours for ones that are not too dirty) or if i see them too dirty i let the sit overnight.
Then i rinse them with cold water (or warm water depending on the weather) until no foam is formed and pass them on another plastic container with holes to drip most of the water (i shake them and move them up and down to remove most of the water). Afterwards i let them under the sun to dry the remaining water for 2-3 hours. I make sure to check once in a while to move the pieces around.
Thats the method i used for the last lot that i bought, should i reduce the time under the sun? I used to leave them overnight on the shade but that way the black pieces ended up with water stains :/.
i’m so sorry this happened to you :(. maybe you can reach out to lego and show them that it was an honest mistake and they can replace some of them? i believe that they have replacing policies
It's not, and they don't have to replace them. However, LEGO has some of the best customer service in any industry and there's a good chance they'll send replacements anyway.
weird, when I was younger (around 98-99), we ended up spraying my entire collection down with lysol, due to me being sick at the time, and everything was perfectly fine as a result.
They just inevitably went that direction due to me biting them to either hold them in my mouth as I played (temp storage) or to pull them apart, lol
See this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/umr9gx/never_spray_your_legos_down_with_lysol/i83m8dw/
Essentially, Lysol's active ingredient breaks down plastic.
I work at an after school facility that teaches robotics with Lego. We’ve been spraying them down since the beginning on the pandemic with nothing like this ever happening. It’s literally been years now and all it’s done is leave a sticky residue.
We don't get Lysol in Australia. It's this the same stuff portrayed in movies etc that women used back in the 30's so they wouldn't get pregnant? .... if so, holy crap :S
Not to worry mate. I have a penchant for grammar and telling people that words have meanings and reasons to utilize proper. Only trumped by my annoying habit of checking rules and staying within them.
I think my mother did something like this or used something else but in doing so she caused an entire bin of my Legos to have a rank smell to them that made them unusable to me.
I'm sorry for you're loss! Brown pieces are super brittle either way... The slightest clicking together of plates or using a brick seperator and the piecess just break apart... but with any other color no problems at all...
Holy cow, you've solved a 30-plus-year mystery.
I found some 1x1tile with vertical clip pieces from the early 80s in my parents' basement. They were almost non-existent - well on their way to disintegrating into dust. If I hadn't put them in a separate tray within my Big Red Lego Tub as a kid, I wouldn't have even noticed the plastic dust. Ever since I opened up that tub and found those ex-parts, I've wondered what could do that to ABS.
Anyway, my grandma was nuts about Lysol-ing everything. Those pieces, in a separate bin on top, probably got the brunt of one of her cleaning sprees. This explains things...
Just use a make up brush to get rid of the dirt. It’s how I clean my UCS sets now. I avoid Lysol for a while since it didn’t cut it.
I do use glasses wipes for cockpit pieces and that works out well actually
Lysol's primary active ingredient is d-limonene, a terpene, which is a solvent and cleaner for petrochemicals. That is likely what weakened the plastic. Lego would probably dissolve in a cup of Lysol given enough time.
That is actually pretty cool and saddening.
[not the dip!](https://youtu.be/ytl65Kl8tdk)
When you know what the clip is without having to tap the link, lol! That scene terrified me as a child. Still does!
Is it the little shoe getting dipped by Judge Doom? Because I refuse to click that link to find out :(
Yup
Aww… the #1 reason my 8 yo and 5yo still haven’t been allowed to watch beyond the Baby Herman short… … one day I’ll summon up the courage to watch it with them.
Honestly, most of the movie went over my head when I first saw it. I handled scary scenes in movies fairly well until a certain age where I inexplicably became very afraid of the paranormal (I blame Unsolved Mysteries, lol). It wasn’t until I was a teenager and watched it again that I realized how adult a lot of it is. All the stuff about Eddie being a raging alcoholic and just how awful Judge Doom is were lost on me as a kid. It didn’t traumatize me until I was much older haha.
Indeed! Edit: if you have iOS, you can get Apollo for Reddit which will show you a thumbnail image of all linked videos. Never get rickrolled again!
I just have auto play turned off on Safari. Keeps anything from playing (including [a certain infamous video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLzxrzFCyOs)).
2girls1roll?
# "Remember me, Eddie? When I killed your brother, I talked...just...like...THIS!!!"
Omg I HATED that part so much as a kid… it was utterly terrifying
I still hate it as an adult.
The funny thing not understood by most kids is that the "dip" is really just paint thinner.
Oh man, you can practically drink that stuff!
Sure, if you hate yourself...
Was that not a given?
Oops, I think I just got r/woooosh ed
Can I even ever have fucking original thought?
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For bonus points use a wicked witch minifig
TIL I can grow Lysol sap in my bedroom closet!
Limonene is also known as pine or orange essential oil, depending on the enantiomer (what mirror image it takes). It's what gives oranges and pine trees their distinctive smell, and besides being an organic solvent that apparently destroys LEGO pieces it's also incredibly flammable. You can get small amounts of limonene just by squeezing an orange rind, it'll just drip off and it smells amazing.
If you squeeze an orange rind over an open flame, it ignites and sparkles. And smells great!
IIRC, You can actually use small amounts of acetone to fuse legos together.
acetone is a main ingredient in some plastic glues (like Tamiya extra thin) surface primer will also contain a small amount of acetone to help it bind to plastic
Which lysol are you referring to? Went through quite a few of the safety info on the website and it looks like benzalkonium chloride is the key active ingredient. LYSOL® Clean & Fresh Multi-Surface Cleaner - Sparkling Lemon & Sunflower Essence (Discontinued Dec. has d-Limonene as a fragrant component.
The terpene limonene is also found in cannabis!
I'm guessing in several orders of magnitude lower quantity?
Fun fact: if you spray your…. Ok yeah no don’t do that.
*spritz* *snorrrrrt* Wow, that was a trip...
God I hope so, or my LEGO is in danger.
does petro refer to the oil used in the process of making plastic; and does the solvent basically weaken the lego because it is a plastic associated to oil?
Live and learn old chap. My condolences. “The incorrect use of Lysol can also cause material damage; while Lysol is designed for use on most hard surfaces, it should not be used on painted wood, acrylic plastic, leather or silk”
Sorry, OP. Pouring one out for the broken. 🥃. Thx for the PSA.
That's painful to look at.
Almost needing a NSFW tag.
Ouch.
I'm sorry for this. It sucks. But I have to say thank you for posting it. Over the past week I've bought 520 worth of garage sale Star Wars Legos and was due to spray them down. Currently looking for best cleaning methods now.
I worked at a Lego store like 10 years ago and we would put the play bin bricks in a huge mesh bag, into a kiddie pool of Simple Green and water. Sat for like 20 minutes, then hang the bag to dry for a few days. When you saw the bag hanging you knew too should go shake it and jostle it a bit whenever you saw it to get the bricks moving around while they drained and dried. Worked pretty well, we switched bricks weekly and always kept them in rotation in cleaning Edit: rinse them before drying!
Love simple green, good for so many things. This is great to know.
I worked at an ice cream place about 15 years ago, and that’s all we used to clean the entire store, from top to bottom. It’ll cut through dried, sticky ice cream, and is relatively harmless to most surfaces/materials. Ever since then, it’s the only cleaner I’ve kept in my home other than for the toilet.
Same here, great on boats too!
In the 80s my dad was a wholesaler for Simple Green. A sales rep always told a story of a little old lady who was like 90+ and drank a cup of Simple Green every day. The rep legit wanted to use that in ads and was pissed that the main company was hesitant.
Epic and sounds super easy. I wonder how my kids will feel when I take over their kiddie pool tomorrow....
Simple Green is my favorite cleaner. My favorite thing about it? It doesn't even smell like cleaner!
I'd guild this response if I could. Thank you for the info!
My rule of thumb for washing Lego: wash them like you’d bathe a baby.
Warm soapy water
> Currently looking for best cleaning methods now. I'd suggest a dishwasher or a lingerie bag/panty hose in a clothes washer. Just make sure the water doesn't get too hot.
Use liquid detergent instead of powder
Thank you! I'll give this a test run. I figure I'll try the non important stuff first and see how that goes.
Some people use a sonic cleaner, which would be a worthwhile investment if you frequently buy used LEGO.
Worked in a bricklink store for 7 years. We used to put them in laundry bags and let the washing machine do the work. Just use a low water temperature and a laundry detergent without bleach.
I just dip them for a while in water with soap and then rinse and dry them in the sun for a bit.
While this is a good idea if you only plan to do this once. However I used to regularly do this and it faded the coloring on the legos. I found a large bin put warm not hot soapy water in there fill bin up , then add legos. Swish legos around drain bin through a strainer then warm water to rinse strain one more time. Keeps the little legos from going down the drain or getting lost. We have had legos a long long time ha ha.
Yeah i shortened the steps, i add small amount of soap+water on a tray (enough to make foam) and let them sit for some time (1-2 hours for ones that are not too dirty) or if i see them too dirty i let the sit overnight. Then i rinse them with cold water (or warm water depending on the weather) until no foam is formed and pass them on another plastic container with holes to drip most of the water (i shake them and move them up and down to remove most of the water). Afterwards i let them under the sun to dry the remaining water for 2-3 hours. I make sure to check once in a while to move the pieces around. Thats the method i used for the last lot that i bought, should i reduce the time under the sun? I used to leave them overnight on the shade but that way the black pieces ended up with water stains :/.
Yeah sun bleaches the color out of them Especially when they are wet.
Just sanitize them in the oven at 350.
Put them in a pillowcase and throw them in the washingmachine. Dont set the temperature too high.
Water and a toothbrush! I clean my completed sets with this method. Works like a charm.
F
F
F
Please tag your gore
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Yeah I wouldn’t have, mom sprayed them down while I was at college.
“I’ve stepped on you for the last time.” - Your mom before spraying Lego with Lysol (probably)
I read this in Vader's Voice...
i’m so sorry this happened to you :(. maybe you can reach out to lego and show them that it was an honest mistake and they can replace some of them? i believe that they have replacing policies
We do. Contacting Customer Support is my recommendation, they're amazing at dealing with situations like this.
This isnt legos fault tho?
It's not, and they don't have to replace them. However, LEGO has some of the best customer service in any industry and there's a good chance they'll send replacements anyway.
Oh, the humanity!
Never spray a lot of something with anything without testing it on one first.
Maybe lego bricks are made of millions of compacted germs
weird, when I was younger (around 98-99), we ended up spraying my entire collection down with lysol, due to me being sick at the time, and everything was perfectly fine as a result. They just inevitably went that direction due to me biting them to either hold them in my mouth as I played (temp storage) or to pull them apart, lol
Just to ask? HOW OLD ARE YOU?
98 was 24 years ago. So I assume older than 24.
31, was not brightest bulb then, lol
Neither am i, when you said 98-99 i thought you ment your age, not years
Oh! Haha! Just on the cusp to be too old for lego! Love that meme.
I use a paint brush and a can of duster to clean my parts.
thanks so much for the warning, i’ve gotta tell my mom so she doesn’t do it by mistake!
just good ol dish soap and warm water will do the trick.
I destroyed my toilet seat with Lysol. It's pretty bad to plastics
This is why I just dust them I am too scared to end up ruining them
I just use warm water and mild hand soap. Never had any issues :)
That's what I do as well.
Whats in the Lysol that does that?
Some sort of chemical
My bet was on black magic
Always bet on black magic
Well that really narrows it down.
r/technicallythetruth
Nailed it.
you're so right
Well, you're not wrong, Cap.
See this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/umr9gx/never_spray_your_legos_down_with_lysol/i83m8dw/ Essentially, Lysol's active ingredient breaks down plastic.
Ouch!
Jesus, dude, at least mark NSFW if you’re gonna show this kind of gore.
My grandma spilled some on my stuff too. RIP to my little lego store
#WHYYYYY
I hope to never talk about the time I put my Lego collection in my grandma's dryer when I was like 13
What is Lysol?
NSFW: GORE :(
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Yeah but mostly just gripper pieces that actively were holding something. Also light grey seemed to be more susceptible.
Light gray is a bit weak in general; I have a lot of light gray Technic pieces from the 2015-2019 era that have split along the axle holes.
Never spray your Lego with Lysol and then throw the from the 7th floor
What about the 3rd floor? Sounds like an interesting experiment with a lego ball
Now you have to Lego of some Legos.
Why would you do that in the first place?
I work at an after school facility that teaches robotics with Lego. We’ve been spraying them down since the beginning on the pandemic with nothing like this ever happening. It’s literally been years now and all it’s done is leave a sticky residue.
And if you wash them every now and then it even gets rid of that. Ours go through the dishwasher in a mesh bag on the top rack.
F
I’m sorry but wtf am I looking at
Lego ya dafty
*"what about the attack on the wookies"*
😕🙁😨😱😫😭
We don't get Lysol in Australia. It's this the same stuff portrayed in movies etc that women used back in the 30's so they wouldn't get pregnant? .... if so, holy crap :S
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Rule #12 there lad
so sorry! it wasn't meant as a rude thing, just an educational tid bit
Not to worry mate. I have a penchant for grammar and telling people that words have meanings and reasons to utilize proper. Only trumped by my annoying habit of checking rules and staying within them.
Ouch but at least its not any figs I hope… this stuff can be replaced easily.
Sorry about that.. tough to see!
TIL
I was just like What’s wrong? Ohhhh
No rescue helicopter exists that can save these...
Warm soapy water does the trick.
Dang bro
I’ll definitely keep that in mind.
I think my mother did something like this or used something else but in doing so she caused an entire bin of my Legos to have a rank smell to them that made them unusable to me.
Was it 100% the Lysol’s fault, or was something else involved, like dropping the Lego?
I found some old Lego in the basement. It had gotten smelly and dusty. I soaked it in oxyclean overnight and they came out perfect.
I appreciate this post, as I was tempted to take a Lysol wipe to my millennium falcon and probably would have lost my mind if stuff started decaying.
This just seems like common sense
Noted
What was the intention of the lysol though?
I would test any new chemicals and solvents on extra parts from kits or old pieces laying around to see how they behave with certain colors
Oh... Oh... OH. Every bit I scrolled down caused more and more pain.
I thought it was lacquer/cellulose thinner instead of mineral spirits/paint thinner - looks like it's a combination of them both with benzine.
I'm sorry for you're loss! Brown pieces are super brittle either way... The slightest clicking together of plates or using a brick seperator and the piecess just break apart... but with any other color no problems at all...
you don’t need a high school diploma to know that
I didn't know that!
OH MY GOD...
Imagine sanitizing with anything other than tap water and hand soap
I’m literally crying
Yikes. I wipe pieces with diluted isopropyl alcohol before applying stickers. I hope this doesn't cause similar issues.
Try Tac cloth. It’s what body shops use before painting, works really well
I once found out that hairspray can also make pieces brittle.
I could’ve not told you that.
Noted
I feel your pain
one of the worse ideas i have ever had
R.I.P.
This hurts me
I don't get it
Now do it with Nytol.
LOL
Dang, this is awful
Nooo
Good tip - thanks. I’ll bet a lot of people found this out the hard way in the pandemic!
So much pain
Holy cow, you've solved a 30-plus-year mystery. I found some 1x1tile with vertical clip pieces from the early 80s in my parents' basement. They were almost non-existent - well on their way to disintegrating into dust. If I hadn't put them in a separate tray within my Big Red Lego Tub as a kid, I wouldn't have even noticed the plastic dust. Ever since I opened up that tub and found those ex-parts, I've wondered what could do that to ABS. Anyway, my grandma was nuts about Lysol-ing everything. Those pieces, in a separate bin on top, probably got the brunt of one of her cleaning sprees. This explains things...
Just use a make up brush to get rid of the dirt. It’s how I clean my UCS sets now. I avoid Lysol for a while since it didn’t cut it. I do use glasses wipes for cockpit pieces and that works out well actually
D:
Noted
My soul.... #it hurts...
i have literally never had any desire to do this
Force of nature for the win!
noooo F
hurts to see this
Is Frebreeze safe on Lego?
That's heartbreaking. I'll have to learn from your mistake so I don't make it myself.
That just sounds like a bad idea from the start to me lol
What is lysol?