Do you sneeze whenever you sit on your sofa or rest on your couch? Do you ever feel difficulty in breathing when you sit on your chair? If yes, you must need upholstery cleaning because your furniture is a hub for dirt, dust, and allergens.

Upholstery cleaning must be on our to-do-list, and you should do it often. If you can’t afford the professional cleaning services, you must regularly do it on your own. Because if you wait for the whole year to pass and then do it by yourself, it wouldn’t be possible for you.

In this article, we will discuss the benefits of professional upholstery cleaning and why it is important. We will also discuss some problems that appear while cleaning the upholstery and give you some tips on maintaining your upholstery.

Why Upholstery Cleaning Is Important

Nothing is more important than our physical well being. And you can not achieve this by living in an untidy place. Yes, if your upholstery is full of dirt, it means you are living in a lousy environment even if your floor is mopped regularly. 

Upholstery cleaning is essential because we are in contact with them every time. Now imagine if you could see the dirt and germs with your naked eye, would you spend your day sitting or lying on it the same way? 

Of course not. Because in the end, we can’t compromise our health. So what about these invisible dirt particles, germs, and allergens that are adhered to your upholstery for a long time and you are not noticing them. 

Upholstery cleaning not only keeps these germs and dirt away from you, but it also gives a positive vibe of living in a cleaner place. Moreover, if you don’t pay attention to these stains and dirt at the right time, you may need to replace them very soon, which will cost you more.

Tips For Maintaining Upholstery

Here are some tips that may help you in maintaining your upholstery.

1. Vacuum your Furniture

If you have a habit of regularly dusting your furniture and do not let the dust sit on it for a long time, then your upholstered furniture can last for a longer time. A quick vacuuming even once a week helps you keep your upholstery clean and does not let the dirty stuff embedded on the fabric surface. 

In the case of the leather sofas, a wipe with the damp cloth removes the dirt. 

You can use the bristle brushes that quickly remove the dirt and dust from the couches for fabric sofas.

2. Rotate Cushions

At this point, you may feel a bit irrelevant, but I would recommend you to try it for once. Rotating the cushions means changing the cushion’s sides, and the chair or sofa seats do not prevent it from the dirt and dust. 

But if you do so, you are saving your cushions for a longer time. Flipping away the sides of the pillow prevents the uneven wear on its surface. So rotating the cushion helps you in preventing it from the dents.

3. Wipe The Spills As Soon As Possible

It is nearly impossible for you to keep your upholstery safe from spills unless you are a clean greek. But no matter how careful you are with your upholstery, sometimes the guest drops something on your furniture, or your pet cat spills the milk on the sofa.

So, first, you should absorb the spill with a white absorbent cloth. Don’t rub the spill, absorb it at first. Rubbing at first is not recommended as it may damage the fabric material. So you must be cautious in rubbing the fabric.

4. Fabric Cleaner

For quick cleaning, the homemade vinegar and water mixture works best to remove dust and stains from the upholstery. 

But for the deep and tough stains, purchase a heavy-duty fabric cleaner that immediately cleans the stains. If you regularly clean the upholstery, you may not need to get professional upholstery cleaning services.

5. Apply Fabric Protector

Taking care of your upholstery before getting damaged is ideal for running it for a long time. It doesn’t require any professional skills; you can apply an upholstery protector by yourself. 

Several upholstery protectors are available in the market; you can get any of them depending upon your need and requirement. Some upholstery protector sprays are also single, so make sure to read the instructions before applying.

6. Use Steam Mop

Steam mops are suitable for upholstery cleaning. First, try it at the hidden place that does not appear in the front to test the steam mop. 

Steam mop works best at the lower setting for the upholstery cleaning. Just one or two rounds of steam mop are enough for upholstery cleaning. Avoid using it on the silk fabric.

7. Take Care While Cleaning Leather Sofas

Leather needs special attention and care as it may get damaged with little scratch or negligence. 

For cleaning leather furniture, you must use a dry cloth and regularly clean it for dust. Secondly, the UV rays may damage the leather fabric and fade its color if kept in direct sunlight.

8. Avoid Fabric Softeners

Air drying is the best option for even the most durable fabric. It allows the upholstery to dry in the air without damaging the fabric. When doing the upholstery cleaning, you must be aware of your fabric washing requirement and check for whether you should wash it in a machine or not. After air drying, if you find a crease on your upholstery, you can remove them by ironing. 

9. Remove The Foul Odours

It is difficult to remove the smell of your pet and smoke from the upholstery. There is only a solution to let the furniture stay in the fresh air for some days to remove these smells. 

After that, sprinkling baking soda all over the surface and then vacuuming it may lessen the scent. Moreover, you can use some fabric cleaner to remove the smells and challenging stains.

10. Professional Upholstery Cleaning

As there are different fabrics used for the upholstery, the upholstery cleaner must use such cleaning techniques that don’t cause damage to the furniture.

These professional upholstery cleaners not only clean the upholstery with detergents and brushes, but they also have specialized equipment that entirely cleanses the surface and removes the smell and stains. 

In professional upholstery cleaning, there are two basic methods; dry cleaning and wet cleaning. Wet cleaning includes hot water extraction and washing up the upholstery with water, solvent, shampoo whereas dry cleaning includes dry extraction and cleaning with some dry powders.

Professional Or Home Upholstery Cleaning? Which One Is Best?

So you have complete freedom whether you want your upholstery cleaning by sending it to a professional upholstery cleaner or calling them home for your upholstery cleaning. Or if you don’t want to spend on upholstery cleaning, you prefer doing it yourself.

The experts recommend that you call professionals for your upholstery cleaning because you can easily see the difference between the cleaning by yourself and the professional cleaner. 

Professional cleaning is economical, but it saves your time, and above all, there is no fear of damaging your upholstery. 

Benefits Of Professional Upholstery Cleaning

1. Improve The Appearance Of Your Furniture

With time, we often feel the need to replace our furniture. We don’t like our furniture’s appearance because of daily use, and it does not give us good vibes. 

Moreover, you often have noticed that when your furniture gets old, you don’t get attracted to it anymore. And you start looking for new furniture. But what if you hire a professional upholstery cleaner. 

They clean your furniture to the extent that it seems like a completely new one. Sometimes, the same sofa you were about to replace in a few days, upholstery cleaning gives it a completely new look. 

2. Freshens The Air

Sometimes the uncleaned upholstery also damages the air quality of your home or office. The bad air quality due to the uncleaned upholstery may also cause you breathing problems, especially if you already have breathing problems. For that, you need a professional upholstery cleaning. 

Hiring experienced upholstery cleaning technicians can help you in professional cleaning using eco-friendly solutions that freshen and improve your indoor air quality. 

3. Removes Dirt And Germs From The Furniture

Professional upholstery cleaning helps to remove all the dirt and germs that got stuck to your furniture in the last few months. 

It is challenging to keep the furniture safe from dirt and dust as these are unavoidable. How much you take care of it will find the dirt and dust over it after some time.  

4. Safer Cleaning Practice

Cleaning upholstered furniture on your own is difficult and more tiring. Or even it requires more expertise to get it properly cleaned. Professional upholstery cleaning by the service providers ensures the safety of your furniture.

5. Extends The Life Expectancy Of Your Furniture

Professional upholstery cleaning not only cleans your furniture but if I say it gives your furniture a new life it wouldn’t be wrong. 

The same furniture you were planning to replace for quite some time, but when you get it cleaned by the professional, you must be surprised by its appearance. 

Moreover, it also increases the life expectancy of your furniture by keeping it fresh and clean.

6. Removal Of Dirt And Stains

Professional upholstery cleaning gives your furniture a new life. It helps remove all the dirt away from it. These professional cleaners have specialized equipment that cleans the dirt and stains even if they are old and tough.

7. Promotes Better Health 

Getting professional upholstery cleaning not only makes your furniture look clean and increases its lifetime, but it also promotes the better health of the people who are using that furniture. 

The upholstery catches the dirt that decreases the quality of life when we inhale it. So getting a professional cleaning is also beneficial for your health.

Problems In Upholstery Cleaning

Whether you are doing upholstery cleaning by yourself or getting it from professional cleaners, there are some problems that you may face, especially if you are doing it yourself. 

1. Dye Stain

Stain removal sometimes becomes so difficult for us, especially if our upholstery fabric is not colorfast. 

Moreover, there are chances that your upholstery color may change while using any detergent or solvent. If dye transfer occurs, it sometimes gets very difficult or impossible to correct it. 

2. Invisible Stains

If accidentally something falls over your furniture and it is colorless, at that time you may not notice any stain on your furniture. But later after some time, you will see a dark and ugly color on your upholstery, and you wonder when you had that spill. 

The colorless stain appears after some time due to oxidation. And when it appears after a long time, it is tough to remove them. Oil and grease stains may also disappear when they spill, but they reappear after some time, and they are hardest to clean. 

So if you want to avoid any such problem in the future, you must inform your cleaner about all the stains that your upholstery had even if they are invisible at the moment. 

3. Difficult Stains

There are times when your upholstery gets some difficult stains that you initially didn’t take seriously, but now when you are doing the upholstery cleaning, you came to know these stains of paint, ballpoint, and other such stuff that are very difficult to remove, and sometimes even they do not remove. 

4. Chemical Stains

All the other types of stains may not cause much damage to your upholstery that a chemical stain does. The most common damage by the chemical is the discoloration of the upholstery. And now you know better than me that we can not place discolored furniture in our living room, so we need to change it soon. 

Chemical stains from medications, fertilizers, insecticides, detergents, solvents, bleaches, may cause severe damage to the fabric dye. 

These stains can appear suddenly, but sometimes they appear after a while. When the oxidation or other such reaction takes place, then you could identify these stains. 

Benzoyl peroxide is a potent chemical agent that causes severe decolorization of fabric. It is present in most skin care medications and pet shampoos. 

Similarly, the hydrochloric acid spill also causes severe discoloration of the fabric, and it is even dangerous if spilled over the skin.

Final Words

Upholstery cleaning is necessary and should be done at regular intervals to improve our furniture’s lifespan and make a healthier environment around us. 

Upholstery: A Complete Course