How To Clean Your Mattress

Time needed: 30 minutes

Tools Needed: A spray bottle, a washcloth, and a vacuum with a hose attachment.
Materials: Baking soda, an essential oil of your choosing, water, dish soap, and an enzyme cleaner.

1. Strip the Bed & Wash the Bedding

   Remove all the bedding from the top of the mattress. Wash all the sheets, duvet covers, blankets, and mattress protectors. At this point, you can also decide to switch to a fresh set of sheets if you don’t want to return the original sets to your bed. Either way, fresh linens, and blankets are an important part of a freshly cleaned mattress.

2. Vacuum the Mattress

   Once the bed has been stripped, vacuum the mattress. This step is important because it removes all the loose surface dirt, dust, and lint. Doing this will also make it easier to do the following steps when you deep clean the mattress. Also, be sure to pay particular attention to any crevices, nooks, and crannies where dust bunnies might hide!

3. Deodorize with Baking Soda

   Sprinkle the mattress liberally with baking soda. This will help soak up any moisture on the mattress, as well as remove lingering odors that the mattress might contain. Adding a little essential oil in your favorite scent can also enhance the scent of the mattress and make it a little more pleasant to sleep on over time. Let the baking soda/essential oil stay on the mattress for at least 15 minutes before moving on to the next step.

4. Vacuum the Mattress Again

   Vacuum the mattress once again, this time paying particular attention to any crevices where the baking soda might have gathered. You want to be sure to vacuum thoroughly during this step. You don’t want to have baking soda or excess essential oils seeping into your pillows, sheets, blankets, etc. You may also want to vacuum in two different directions to be sure that you get everything.

5. Spot Clean the Mattress

   Using a mix of dish soap and warm water in a spray bottle and regular washcloth, clean spots that are excessively stained. If there are stains that are more severe you may want to use an enzyme cleaner designed for cleaning bodily fluids from textiles. You should know, however, that it is possible that you may not be able to get the stains completely out of the mattress depending on their severity. The idea with spot cleaning is to get it as clean as possible.

6. Flip or Rotate the Mattress – Repeat

   Cleaning the bottom of the mattress is just as important as the top, though it will likely be easier to complete the task. Most modern mattresses no longer require flipping or rotating, so the bottom of the mattress rarely gets much wear & tear. However, to ensure that you have a fully-cleaned mattress, you should repeat the first five steps on the bottom portion of your mattress.

7. Protect the Mattress

   Everyone should use a mattress protector for their mattress. If you already have a newer mattress protector, then you can reuse it, but an older one is probably not doing its job anymore, and you should replace it before proceeding. Proper mattress protection will help to keep the mattress clean longer and prevent it from getting stained over time.

8. Remake the Bed

   Now that you have a freshly cleaned mattress, and it has a protector on it, remake the bed with fresh clean sheets, blankets, comforters, and whatever else you like to have on your mattress. Congratulations, you’ve completely cleaned your mattress and the bedding, and you have a nice fresh bed on which to sleep!