Home LivingWellnessSleepGet stains and smells out of your mattress using this common kitchen cupboard ingredientThis cleaning hack uses minimal effort, and you have what you need in your kitchen alreadyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingWellnessSleepGet stains and smells out of your mattress using this common kitchen cupboard ingredientThis cleaning hack uses minimal effort, and you have what you need in your kitchen alreadyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
This cleaning hack uses minimal effort, and you have what you need in your kitchen already
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Getty)
(Image credit: Getty)
Cleaning a mattress is not a straightforward process. They’re big and bulky, and won’t fit in a washing machine. It’s not an ideal situation, because as numerous stats outline, mattresses harbour distressing volumes of sweat, dead skin and the like. Of course your first step should be to invest in adecent mattress protector, which provides a barrier for sweat and spills to soak into, and whichcaneasilybe chucked into a washing machine on high (this is also a good idea forgetting rid of dust mites).
Even with a good protector, at some point you’re doing to need to freshen up your mattress, though. We have dedicated articles onhow to clean your mattressandhow to clean a memory foam mattress, but there’s one technique we’ve found that requires minimal effort, promises to effectively remove odours from your mattress, and has been known to work wonders on stains too. More good news, you probably already have what you need: baking soda. Or, if you’re in the UK, that’s bicarbonate of soda. Here’s how to clean a mattress with baking soda…
1. Sprinkle your mattress with baking soda
To remove odours, the process is simple. Strip your mattress (this is a good opportunity to wash yourbed sheets, which you probably aren’t doingas often as you should be, in any case). Then sprinkle baking soda / bicarbonate of soda all over the sleep surface. You’re going to need a fair bit – perhaps between one and three cups (let’s say 200-600g). If there are areas that more smelly than others, concentrate a bit more soda in these places. If you want, at this point you can massage the soda into the fabric to help it work.
2. For stains, make a paste
3. Leave the baking soda to work
Now you need to leave the baking soda to work its magic. Ideally, you want to leave it on there for a full 24 hours, although if that’s not practical because you need somewhere to sleep, just leave it as long as you can. A minimum of 20 minutes is a good idea. Leaving it longer than 24 hours isn’t going to do any damage either, but it’s also not going to help – after this long, the baking soda will have absorbed as much of the odour as it’s going to.
During this time, it will help if your mattress is exposed to bright sunlight – the UV light helps kill off bacteria in a natural way. If possible, shift your mattress next to a window. Or if you’re really committed and it’s definitely not going to rain, take it outside.
4. Vacuum it off
After you’ve left the baking soda for as long as you can, it’s time to get rid of it. The easiest way to do this is to hoover it off. Use the crevice tool on your machine to really get into the seams and make sure all the powder is gone (here’s our guide to thebest vacuum cleaners, if you’re in the market for a new one). That’s it for the freshening up part – your mattress should now smell good as new. If you have stubborn stains, however, check out step 4…
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If your mattress is beyond saving, and you’ve decided it’s time to invest in a new one, head to ourbest mattressguide for our tried-and-tested recommendations. It might not even be as expensive as you think, because there are goodcheap mattress sales and dealsall year round.
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