Blog / The yoni egg guide
Yoni egg care and sterilizing
Five minutes of attention that keeps a stone yours for years. Most women come to treat it as the opening of the practice rather than the tidying up at the end.
Care of the egg is the least discussed part of this practice and the one that determines whether a stone lasts a decade or a season. It is also, done properly, one of the more pleasant parts.
Sterilizing in boiling water
The core method, used before the first use and after every session.
Bring a small pot of water to a gentle boil. Not a rolling one, a gentle one, since a stone knocking against a metal pot in vigorous water is a stone getting chipped. Some women put a folded cloth in the bottom of the pot for this reason.
Lower the egg in on a spoon. Leave it three to five minutes.
Lift it out with the spoon and set it on a clean cloth. Then leave it alone until it reaches room temperature by itself.
Do not run it under cold water and do not put it in the fridge to hurry it. Stone dislikes a rapid change in temperature, and thermal shock is the most common way a well made egg develops a fracture. The slow cool costs you ten minutes of patience and buys you years.
Make it part of the practice
Next time the egg is cooling on its cloth, do not leave the room. Stand there for the two minutes it takes and let that be the beginning of the session rather than an interruption before it.
Women who do this describe the whole practice differently afterward. The care and the practice stop being two separate things.
Between sessions
Warm water and a plain unscented soap. That is the whole method.
Wash it thoroughly with your fingers, paying attention to the narrow end where a hand tends to skip. Rinse completely, since soap residue is the thing most worth avoiding here. Then dry it fully with a clean cloth.
Avoid anything scented, anything antibacterial, anything with alcohol, and anything sold as a crystal cleaning product. None of them improves on plain soap and several leave residue you would rather not introduce anywhere.
Storage
Dry, wrapped, and somewhere you will see it.
A small silk or cotton pouch is ideal and most eggs are sold with one. A soft cloth folded around the stone does the same job. What you are avoiding is the stone sitting loose in a drawer where it knocks against other things, which is how chips happen.
Make sure it is completely dry before it goes away. A damp stone in a closed pouch is not what anyone wants.
And keep it somewhere visible rather than tucked out of sight. The most common fate of a yoni egg is not damage, it is being forgotten in the back of a cupboard, and a stone on a shelf where you notice it is a stone you use.
Softer stones need a little more
Nephrite jade is tough and forgiving. Rose quartz and several other popular stones are softer and appreciate a lighter touch.
Handle a rose quartz egg as something that can chip, because it can. Keep it away from hard surfaces, do not let it share a pouch with another stone, and be especially careful about temperature changes. The gentle boil matters more here, not less.
Check the surface with your fingertips regularly, whatever the material. You are feeling for anything that catches. A well finished egg is smooth everywhere with no seam you can detect, and it should stay that way.
When to retire a stone
A well cared for egg lasts years and many women use the same one for a decade. There are two situations where a stone has finished its working life, and both are easy to check for.
The first is any chip, crack or crazed line in the surface. Run your thumb over the whole egg after every wash. What you are feeling for is anything that catches, and a stone that catches has a place that cannot be kept properly clean.
The second is a change in the finish, a patch that has gone dull or rough where the rest is still polished. That usually follows a drop you had forgotten about.
A retired egg does not have to be thrown away. Many women keep them on an altar or a windowsill, which is a rather nice second life for something that has been through a few years of practice with you.
Energetic clearing
Separate from cleaning, and neither replaces the other. Boiling water handles one job. Clearing handles another.
Moonlight, sound, breath, earth and intention are the five common methods, and clearing and charging your yoni egg covers each in detail. Most women settle on one quick method for regular use and one deeper one for occasions that call for it.
Keeping the routine small
All of this takes about five minutes a session, and the women who keep it are the ones who never let it become elaborate.
Boil, cool, use, wash, dry, put away. That is the whole cycle and it does not need improving. A simple routine performed every time is worth considerably more than a beautiful one performed occasionally, and the same is true of the practice it surrounds.