What you should never use on upholstery

Blog · Care & Cleaning

Most of the ruined upholstery I see was not worn out. It was cleaned to death, usually with something from under the kitchen sink, usually by somebody being conscientious.

So this is the list. It is worth more than any amount of advice on what to use, because the products below cause damage that cannot be undone.

The list

Baby wipes. The single most destructive thing in common use, on both leather and fabric. They contain surfactants and often alcohol, and they strip protective finishes a little at a time. People reach for them precisely because they seem gentle. By the point the surface starts looking dull or patchy, the finish has already gone.

Washing-up liquid. The classic home remedy and a poor one. It is designed to be rinsed off under a running tap, and upholstery cannot be rinsed. The detergent stays in the fibres, and detergent residue is sticky — the cleaned patch then attracts dirt faster than the cloth around it, so within weeks it looks worse than before you started.

Antibacterial and multi-surface sprays. Formulated for worktops. They routinely contain alcohols, bleaching agents and optical brighteners, none of which have any business on a dyed textile or a finished hide.

Bleach. Safe on solution-dyed acrylic, where the colour is locked into the fibre itself, and catastrophic on almost everything else. If you do not know for certain that your fabric is solution-dyed, you do not have bleachable fabric.

Solvents — white spirit, acetone, nail polish remover, surgical spirit. These dissolve dyes, finishes and, if they get through, the adhesives holding foam laminations together. They work immediately and permanently.

Silicone furniture polish. Looks marvellous for a fortnight and then cannot be removed. Worse, a leather with silicone on it cannot properly be recoloured later, so it closes the door on the repair you will eventually want.

Hairspray on ink. The most persistent myth in upholstery cleaning. It appears to work because it is mostly alcohol, and the alcohol is dissolving the surface finish along with the ink. You trade a small blue mark for a permanent bare patch.

Olive oil, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Oil goes rancid and darkens unevenly. Vinegar is an acid and will shift some dyes. Bicarb is a mild abrasive that lodges in the weave and never entirely comes out. None of these belong on furniture.

Too much water. On leather it leaves rings. On fabric it wicks outwards through the fibres and dries as a tide line at the edge of the wet area — which is why the mark is so often bigger and more obvious than the original spill. And on a cushion, water that reaches the foam stays there, and wet foam smells.

Steam cleaners. Fine on some robust synthetics, ruinous on others. Steam flattens and distorts pile permanently on velvet and chenille, and on leather it drives moisture through the finish. Never use one without knowing what the fabric is.

Stiff brushes, abrasive pads, razor blades. They remove the surface along with the mark. On any pile fabric they shave it flat.

An upholstery washing machine on the wrong cloth. Hire machines over-wet very easily. Natural fibres shrink, backings distort, and the piece can take days to dry properly.

If you remember one thing: stop using baby wipes on furniture. More upholstery is ruined by them than by children, pets and spills combined.

Read the code on the label first

Most upholstery carries a cleaning code, usually on a tag under a cushion or beneath the frame. It originated in American practice and is now printed on a great deal of what is sold here. It takes five seconds to check and it tells you the one thing that matters most.

• W — water-based cleaners only.
• S — solvent-based cleaners only. Water will mark this fabric.
• WS or SW — either is acceptable.
• X — vacuum or brush only. No liquid of any kind, professional or otherwise.

An enormous number of ruined sofas are S-coded fabrics that somebody attacked with a damp cloth in good faith. If there is no label at all, treat the piece as S until proved otherwise and test somewhere invisible.

The hidden-patch test is only half right

Everyone says test on an inconspicuous area first, and you should. But understand what that test does and does not tell you.

It tells you whether the colour lifts immediately. It does not tell you whether the finish is being degraded, whether a residue is being left that will attract dirt over the following months, or whether the fabric will shrink as it dries. Those show up later.

It is also worth remembering that a hidden area has had a different life — no sunlight, no body contact, no wear — so it may not respond the way the exposed surface will.

Treat it as a first filter, not a clearance.

What to do instead

• Start dry, always. Vacuum with a soft brush attachment. A remarkable proportion of what looks like staining is simply embedded dust, and dust is abrasive, so removing it is doing structural good as well as cosmetic.
• Blot spills, never rub. Rubbing drives liquid deeper and distorts pile and grain.
• Work from the outside of a mark inwards. This keeps it from spreading outwards into a bigger ring.
• Use as little liquid as the job allows, and feather the damp area outwards rather than stopping at a hard edge — a hard edge is what dries as a tide line.
• Dry evenly and at room temperature. No hairdryers, no radiators. Uneven drying is what creates rings.
• Know what your material is first. For leather, the water-drop test in how to look after a leather sofa takes two minutes. For velvet, see why velvet goes patchy, because it plays by different rules again.

The exception worth knowing: fresh blood, and cold water

Every upholsterer learns this the first time they put a needle through a finger and then straight into a customer's calico. It is one of the few genuinely reliable home remedies in the trade.

Cold water lifts fresh blood. Hot water sets it permanently.

The reason is worth knowing, because it generalises. Blood is protein, and heat coagulates protein — the same process that turns a clear egg white opaque and solid. Once it has cooked into the fibres it is bonded there, and no amount of later washing will shift it. A warm cloth on a fresh blood spot does not clean it. It fixes it.

So, while it is still wet:

• Cold water only. Not warm, not hot, no steam.
• Blot with a cloth wrung out in cold water, working from the outside of the mark inwards.
• Move to a clean part of the cloth constantly, so you are lifting the blood away rather than spreading it about.
• No soap or detergent to begin with — plain cold water first, and often that is the whole job.
• Repeat patiently rather than pressing harder. Rubbing drives it into the weave.
• Let it dry naturally, away from any heat source.

The same rule covers the other protein stains — milk, egg, sweat and pet accidents. Cold first, always, and never apply heat until you are certain the mark has gone, because heat at any stage locks in whatever is left.

One caveat, to stay consistent with everything above: this assumes a fabric that tolerates water at all. On an S-coded or X-coded cloth, even cold water will mark it, and a fresh blood spot on a viscose velvet is a job for a professional rather than a flannel. Check the label before the reflex takes over.

Why cleaning leaves a ring

Worth understanding, because it explains most disappointing results.

When you wet part of a fabric, the moisture spreads outwards through the fibres, carrying dissolved dirt with it. It then evaporates fastest at the edge of the damp patch, and everything it was carrying is deposited there in a line. You have not created a new stain — you have collected the existing soiling into a ring and left it at the perimeter.

Which is why cleaning a whole panel, or a whole cushion, gives a far better result than cleaning a spot in the middle of one.

When to call somebody

Professional upholstery cleaners have controlled-moisture equipment and, more importantly, they identify the fibre before they start. For anything valuable, anything with an X or S code, anything in viscose, and for ink, dye transfer and old set-in stains, that is the right call — and it is far cheaper than the recovering job that follows a bad attempt.

The rule I would give anyone: if you are not sure what the fabric is, you are not ready to put anything wet on it. Vacuum it, blot it, and find out first.