How to clean a sofa at home

Each apart­ment has a cozy soft sofa where the whole fam­i­ly gath­ers in the evenings. But the joy of own­ing this com­fort­able piece of fur­ni­ture quick­ly dis­ap­pears when var­i­ous stains begin to appear on it, spoil­ing the appear­ance. You can, of course, invite a dry-clean­er to your house, but this is not cheap. There­fore, many house­wives have a nat­ur­al ques­tion — is it pos­si­ble to clean the sofa on their own with­out resort­ing to the ser­vices of pro­fes­sion­als? We will answer right away — it is pos­si­ble, and it is not as dif­fi­cult as you think. From this arti­cle you will learn what are the sim­ple and effec­tive meth­ods for clean­ing uphol­stered fur­ni­ture from var­i­ous con­t­a­m­i­nants.

Household chemicals will help clean the sofa quickly, efficiently and without streaks

If you want to clean the sofa with min­i­mal effort and get excel­lent results, you need to buy a spe­cial prod­uct that says “For clean­ing uphol­stered fur­ni­ture” on the bot­tle. There are a lot of such drugs on the mod­ern mar­ket of house­hold chem­i­cals, they have a dif­fer­ent com­po­si­tion and prin­ci­ple of action. There are sim­i­lar liq­uids in stores for almost any bud­get. Con­sid­er­ing that you will not need to clean every day, it is worth spend­ing mon­ey once and buy­ing such an “assis­tant” in the house. We list the most pop­u­lar and pop­u­lar means with which you can eas­i­ly clean the sofa:

1. 
   Van­ish Gold Oxi Action. Cleans from any stains, does not leave streaks, the absolute leader in the rat­ing of stain removers. There are dif­fer­ent release for­mats — pow­der, spray, liq­uid. To clean the sofa, it is bet­ter to use a liq­uid deter­gent.

2. 
   Bis­sell car­pet and uphol­stery aerosol. This is the best clean­er for clean­ing sofas from dirt and pet hair. The bot­tle is equipped with a con­ve­nient brush. Suit­able for the treat­ment of water-repel­lent fab­rics, it is com­plete­ly non-tox­ic and dries very quick­ly with­out leav­ing marks.

3. 
   Bugi Shti­honit. Effec­tive­ly removes dirt from the uphol­stery, removes for­eign odors, and has a dis­in­fect­ing effect. Avail­able in a spray bot­tle.

4. 
   Hoover plat­inum col­lec­tion car­pet & uphol­stery deter­gent. This tool is con­sid­ered the “gold stan­dard” in the field of pro­fes­sion­al clean­ing in the fur­ni­ture indus­try. Users are attract­ed by the large vol­ume — 1500 ml, but may not be sat­is­fied with the high price and the fact that clean­ing can take a lot of time.

5. 
   Nord­land. This is a foam that has a very pleas­ant aro­ma and helps to elim­i­nate the over­whelm­ing num­ber of con­t­a­m­i­nants. Since it can be used on any sur­face, not just sofa uphol­stery, it can be count­ed among the uni­ver­sal house­hold helpers.

6. 
   Aston­ish fab­ric stain remover. This prod­uct is con­sid­ered the best if you need to remove fresh stains on sofa uphol­stery as soon as they form. Quick­ly and effec­tive­ly elim­i­nates pol­lu­tion, does not require post-treat­ment, is not test­ed on ani­mals and has an afford­able price.

7. 
   Ecos stain and odor remover. This is one of the best fur­ni­ture clean­ers that have an eco­log­i­cal com­po­si­tion. It is made from nat­ur­al enzymes and plant com­po­nents, which does not pre­vent it from eas­i­ly cop­ing with greasy and oth­er house­hold stains, as well as elim­i­nat­ing odors from any type of tex­tile — from uphol­stery fab­rics for uphol­stered fur­ni­ture to car­pets and car uphol­stery.

8. 
   Dr beck­mann car­pet stain remover. The best stain remover for uphol­stery and car­pets, equipped with a brush for easy removal of dirt. Per­fect­ly copes with such stub­born stains as traces of red wine, blood, grease.

9. 
   Aston­ish stain remover soap. This is an unusu­al clean­er for almost all types of fab­rics, avail­able in the form of soap. This envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prod­uct is suit­able for those who do not want to buy large bot­tles of house­hold chem­i­cals. The prod­uct has no obvi­ous smell, is not test­ed on ani­mals, it has a great price. As an added ben­e­fit, Aston­ish stain remover soap can be used as a stain remover for cloth­ing and is very handy for areas such as cuffs and shirt col­lars.

This is only a small part of house­hold clean­ers for uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, pre­sent­ed in the assort­ment of sta­tion­ary and online stores. These tools will help you quick­ly and eas­i­ly clean the sofa with­out the involve­ment of dry clean­ing spe­cial­ists, and will also save you mon­ey that could be spent on the ser­vices of pro­fes­sion­als.

How to choose the best remedy

Con­sid­er­ing that the range of spe­cial­ized prod­ucts for clean­ing the uphol­stery of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture is quite wide, many users are lost and do not know how to make the right choice. In gen­er­al, here you can give a rec­om­men­da­tion — decide on the price cat­e­go­ry and choose a uni­ver­sal rem­e­dy, start­ing from such fac­tors:

1. 
   Fab­ric typewith which your sofa is uphol­stered, as well as the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the clean­ing agent with just such mate­r­i­al. In par­tic­u­lar, those liq­uids that are allowed to be used to clean cot­ton, linen coat­ings may not be suit­able for leather and suede, velor.

2. 
   The com­po­si­tion of the drug. It is bet­ter to give pref­er­ence to clean­ers that are made on the basis of sub­stances of nat­ur­al ori­gin. For exam­ple, let’s take oxy­gen stain removers, they are main­ly made on the basis of com­po­nents that are safe for nature and human health, which can­not have a neg­a­tive effect on most fab­rics used in sofa uphol­stery.

3. Data on the care of a piece of fur­ni­ture indi­cat­ed in its data sheet. When buy­ing a sofa, it should have come with an instruc­tion man­u­al and oth­er doc­u­men­ta­tion. Look, it may be indi­cat­ed there, with what means you can clean the uphol­stery. For exam­ple, man­u­fac­tur­ers rec­om­mend using water-based prod­ucts for some mate­ri­als, anhy­drous prod­ucts, pow­ders, foams, wet wipes, etc. for oth­ers.

4. Prod­uct reviews on inde­pen­dent the­mat­ic forums and spe­cial­ized sites on the Inter­net. By read­ing the sto­ries of peo­ple who have already used one or anoth­er uphol­stery clean­er, you can make a more con­fi­dent choice.

What­ev­er prod­uct you choose, before clean­ing the entire sofa with it, test it on a small and incon­spic­u­ous piece of uphol­stery, for exam­ple, at the back of the fur­ni­ture, if it is backed against the wall. If with­in 5–10 min­utes there are no neg­a­tive reac­tions to the clean­ing agent from the side of the fab­ric, if it does not begin to shed right before our eyes, then the prepa­ra­tion can already be used on a full scale.

Using a vacuum cleaner

If you have a wash­ing vac­u­um clean­er with noz­zles for clean­ing fur­ni­ture, con­sid­er that you have reached the lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al clean­ers. Such a device will help get rid of dirt and stains on fur­ni­ture in a mat­ter of min­utes. Just vac­u­um the piece of fur­ni­ture from all sides or brush it with a dry brush to remove large par­ti­cles of dirt and dust. Then treat the stains with any stain remover (spe­cial­ized or pre­pared accord­ing to the recipe, which will be described lat­er in the arti­cle), and then wet clean the sofa. If your appli­ance does not have a wet clean­ing func­tion, you can still use it before apply­ing house­hold stain remover to remove most of the dust and dirt.

Using a steam generator or steam cleaner

A steam clean­er or sim­i­lar device is just as use­ful a house­hold appli­ance as a wash­ing vac­u­um clean­er. With the help of a steam clean­er or steam gen­er­a­tor, you can not only clean the uphol­stery of the sofa, but also elim­i­nate unpleas­ant odors, dis­in­fect the fab­ric, and get rid of var­i­ous par­a­sites (fleas, ticks, bed­bugs, etc.). It is rec­om­mend­ed to use the steam gen­er­a­tor as fol­lows:

1. First, the prepara­to­ry stage — dry clean­ing the uphol­stery of the sofa in any way pos­si­ble. Remove dust and large par­ti­cles of dirt with a brush, broom, vac­u­um clean­er.

2. Treat areas with obvi­ous and very vis­i­ble stains/dirt with a clean­ing agent or stain remover.

3. Pour water into the steam gen­er­a­tor tank. It is desir­able that it be puri­fied dis­tilled water, in which case scale will not form inside the device, and stains with clear­ly defined bound­aries will not form on the uphol­stery of the sofa.

4. Start pro­cess­ing from the clean­est areas, move con­sis­tent­ly over the entire area of ​​the sofa. Treat the most dif­fi­cult stains sev­er­al times if nec­es­sary. Wipe the treat­ed areas with a clean microfiber cloth. Try not to get steam on the hard sur­faces of the sofa, made of plas­tic, pressed wood, met­al.

5. Uphol­stery in hard-to-reach areas is car­ried out using spe­cial noz­zles, which should be includ­ed with the steam gen­er­a­tor.

In gen­er­al, a com­bi­na­tion of clean­ing prod­ucts + wash­ing vac­u­um clean­er or deter­gents + steam gen­er­a­tor is the best way to clean the sofa at home with­out resort­ing to the help of spe­cial­ists. But some­times it hap­pens that there are no house­hold chem­i­cals at hand, no spe­cial wash­ing and clean­ing equip­ment, and you need to clean the fur­ni­ture urgent­ly, as there are notice­able stains on it, and there are guests or rel­a­tives “on the thresh­old” and you need to put the house in order very fast. In such a sit­u­a­tion, folk recipes will come to your aid, suit­able for remov­ing var­i­ous stains and dirt from the sur­face of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture.

Using improvised means

Deter­gents made accord­ing to folk recipes have some advan­tages:

1. They are made from the sim­plest and most afford­able com­po­nents, which often do not even need to be bought, since they are already in the kitchen or in the med­i­cine cab­i­net.

2. They turn out to be quite effec­tive, since pro­fes­sion­al tools often include the same com­po­nents.

3. They do not con­tain aggres­sive sub­stances that can adverse­ly affect the uphol­stery mate­r­i­al, harm the envi­ron­ment or human health.

4. They cost much less than the most inex­pen­sive house­hold chem­i­cals.

5. They can be used sequen­tial­ly — if one rem­e­dy does not fit, you can apply anoth­er.

If you need to clean it urgent­ly, you can use cit­ric acid, vine­gar, soda, hydro­gen per­ox­ide, alco­hol, even ordi­nary laun­dry soap. We will tell you more about the recipes lat­er in the arti­cle.

Folk recipes for cleaning the sofa at home

The eas­i­est way to remove ordi­nary dirt from the uphol­stery of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, includ­ing a sofa, is to use a deter­gent made from laun­dry soap and soda. It is bet­ter to take soda ash, as it has more pro­nounced cleans­ing prop­er­ties than reg­u­lar bak­ing soda. At the same time, cal­cined is no more dan­ger­ous to the envi­ron­ment or health than ordi­nary, it sim­ply under­went heat treat­ment (cal­ci­na­tion), which con­tributed to the evap­o­ra­tion of excess mois­ture. To pre­pare a clean­ing gel, a quar­ter of a bar of laun­dry soap is ground on a grater or with a knife, mixed with about the same amount of soda, the pro­por­tions do not have to be exact, you can mea­sure it “by eye”. And then this mix­ture is poured with hot water. You need to take enough liq­uid to get a gel of a con­sis­ten­cy that is com­fort­able for you, liq­uid or thick, it will work one way or anoth­er. If after clean­ing the sofa and pos­si­bly oth­er uphol­stered fur­ni­ture you still have excess deter­gent, do not wor­ry, it will not need to be dis­posed of, it is uni­ver­sal. It can be used for wash­ing, clean­ing, wash­ing dish­es and for any oth­er “clean­ing” pur­pos­es.

How to use laun­dry soap gel to clean a sofa:

1. Dilute the gel with water, beat a strong foam.

2. Clean the fur­ni­ture of dust and dirt using a brush or broom.

3. Moist­en the area to be treat­ed with clean warm water.

4. Apply foam to the uphol­stery, rub it into the fab­ric with a soft sponge. If you want to apply not only foam, but also a soapy liq­uid, rub with a sponge as care­ful­ly as pos­si­ble. Let the cloth soak and let the stain or dirt dis­solve.

5. After 15–30 min­utes, take a new sponge or a clean white cot­ton cloth, soak it in water, start blot­ting and wash­ing the uphol­stery. Keep doing this until the foam and soap are com­plete­ly gone.

6. Paper tow­els, tis­sues, or toi­let paper can be used to quick­ly dry the treat­ment area. In extreme cas­es, you can use a hair dry­er, but you should not keep it too close to the uphol­stery of the sofa.

In addi­tion to a solu­tion of soap and soda, you can use oth­er impro­vised means to clean the sofa:

1. Dish deter­gent (one table­spoon to two cups of cool water).

2. Laun­dry soap and vine­gar. The soap is dis­solved in a glass of water, then two tea­spoons of ordi­nary vine­gar are added to it. The mix­ture is applied to the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion for 5–10 min­utes.

3. Soda dilut­ed with water to the con­sis­ten­cy of gru­el. The sub­stance is applied to the uphol­stery in a thick lay­er and left to dry com­plete­ly, after which it is washed off the fab­ric with a soapy solu­tion and a clean cot­ton cloth.

4. Lemon juice or cit­ric acid dilut­ed with water will help get rid of stains that smell bad.

5. Per­ox­ide, water and soda. We take 250 ml. liq­uids, 100 grams of soda and 150 ml. per­ox­ides, mix, wait for dis­so­lu­tion, pour into a spray bot­tle, apply to a con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sur­face, wipe with a clean cloth or sponge.

As with pro­fes­sion­al clean­ers, any home­made solu­tion should be test­ed on a small, incon­spic­u­ous area of ​​the sofa. Aggres­sive com­pounds on mate­ri­als such as velor, suede, leather should not be used at all.