Pad stink: the bane of many glamorous rollergirls. 
You may look hot when you're sweaty and flushed... but let's face it: we spend a lot of hours in our gear. The ugly truth is that while a sheen of sweat looks great in photos, the resulting olefactory ramifications are not usually described as great.  Especially after you chuck your gear in your bag after every practice and then let it fester in your trunk until the next one!  But don't throw your pads away yet.  There are a few things you can do to fight the stench.

Step One: AVOID THE STINK. Sweating is healthy and necessary, especially for athletes.  So if you can't avoid sweating, you can at least avoid stinking up gear that's hard to wash by putting in a layer that is:

PAD CONDOMS - aka arm socks / knee gaskets, etc
Its funny, I got into roller derby in the first place because I was painting a picture of a roller derby queen when I decided to start a team.  In the picture, my queen is standing, in pads & skates, holding her helmet.  And since I'd just seen Tank Girl, she's wearing tube socks under her elbow guards.  Too bad it was almost a year later before it occured to me to cut up some tube socks and wear them under *my* pads!!!

Now every time I wear out a pair of skate socks, they get the toes cut out and a hole cut for my thumb, and they become arm socks.  Please believe this makes a huge difference in the heat of summer in the desert!  And the bonus is that damp pads may not dry overnight if you practice days in a row like we do - but if you have a fresh pair of arm socks, you're in good shape. 

You can buy fancy arm socks at places like Hot Topic or Claire's - but they're like $10 and that's just ridiculous.  I made little wristies out of 2/99c bootie socks that I found at a discount clothing store just by cutting a thumb hole in the heel and chopping the toe off.  They are not as "cool" as Hot Topic patterned arm socks, but hey - they're 50 cents a pair and I don't care when I lose one.  So it works out for me.  Peachy does the same with those ladies knee-high panty hose because her pads are snug and that works great, too. It only takes a shred of material in between!

I tried cut tube socks under my knee pads with less luck - because I have big ole derby thighs.  If you're slim, that might workfor you.  But what I like better is shirt sleeves - every time I cut the sleeves off a shirt in the summer, the sleeves make their way to my skate bag and eventually under my knee pads. 

The beauty is that I rarely, if ever have to wash my pads because I always wear gaskets, so they don't stink in the first place.  The socks do!  But socks are easy to wash.

Same goes for my skates; I use 2oz miracle insoles and change them out about every other month or so. And Dish wears a hanky on her head so her helmet doesn't get sweaty, too.  I have a lot of hair so I don't bother... my helmet hasn't stunk yet, fortunately.

Step Two: CLEANING YOUR PADS

The VINEGAR AND WATER METHOD
Let's say your pads already smell horrible.  I have heard lots of remedies including cat-pee deodorizers and febreeze - but what always worked for me in my pre-sock year was to soak them in the kitchen sink with half water and half white vinegar, then put them on a rack outside to dry.  The other stuff might also work, but this worked great for me, and as a bonus, you can buy vinegar in big jugs at the grocery store for dirt cheap.  Don't worry, after they were dry, I never really noticed the vinegar smell, either.

I never put my pads in the washer because the spin cycle breaks down the protective foam inside and tends to fray the canvas outside - so you'll get a lot less wear out of them, and if you're spending money on good pads, that's definitely a consideration.   

Other common sense ways to fight the stink:
* air out your bag after skating
* don't leave your shit in the trunk of your car after practice
* put an air freshener in your skate bag

Anyone else have good advice to share with the rest of us sweaty bitches?