Tips of the Trade

Dear Jenny: Cleaning Upholstery

Dear Jenny: I noticed in this post, you mentioned you used outdoor velvet on your new upholstery. How amazing must that be! I wondered if the linen on your new gray sofa was also indoor/outdoor? If not, I would love to know what cleaning supplies you use on the upholstered pieces in your house. I…

Dear Jenny:

I noticed in this post, you mentioned you used outdoor velvet on your new upholstery. How amazing must that be! I wondered if the linen on your new gray sofa was also indoor/outdoor? If not, I would love to know what cleaning supplies you use on the upholstered pieces in your house. I have four children and I feel like there might be something to those clear plastic covers they used to put on everything back in the 50s!! Ha!!

Thanks,
Kelly P

Hi Kelly! I am the HUGEST (and completely un-sponsored) fan of Folex upholstery and carpet cleaner. It is so incredibly easy to use. Basically you dose the stain with the spray, let it sit for a sec, and then sort of rub it in with your finger. The stain will disappear before your eyes and won’t damage your carpet or fabric! The best part is there is no rinsing required at all. You can blot up the cleaning liquid with a towel if you want though. Fast and so easy!!

Want to see it in action? I got this adorable little kids settee at a flea market last year. I love the chippy guilding on the frame.

The upholstery is really old, but it’s still in good shape. I’m waiting to change out the fabric until I have the other fabrics in the girls room nailed down. So really, I hadn’t done anything to the piece other than clean it since buying it last year. It held up well for a while, but then recently we had some play dates at our house and there were a couple of messes on the piece:

Pen is always the hardest thing for me to get out of fabric. Here’s the ‘during’ shot, after a couple sprays of Folex. You can see the black ink is starting to disappear:

About 20 seconds later, the pen was completely gone.

The whole piece cleaned up beautiful (with almost no smell) in about five minutes.

It was wet for a couple hours, but the stains were totally gone after the cleaner dried.

I’m glad it cleaned up so well so we can keep using it until it’s reupholstered. It really is one of my favorite little pieces of furniture. It’s just the right scale for a kids room and is a perfect prop for impromptu photo shoots of sisters (that love each other a lot).

Do you readers have any tried and true upholstery/carpet cleaning tools or products to share with Kelly?

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65 thoughts on “Dear Jenny: Cleaning Upholstery

  1. Your thinking toward the respective issue is awesome also the idea behind the blog is very interesting which would bring a new evolution in respective field. Thanks for sharing.

  2. I just see the post i am so happy to the communication science post of information’s.So I have really enjoyed and reading your blogs for these posts.Any way I’ll be replay for your great thinks and I hope you post again soon.

  3. Folex works exactly like Jenny stated, I’ve used it for years and it’s amazing.

    Doug
    San Antonio, TX

  4. Thank you! I just bought a bottle for a couch I thought was hopeless – this stuff is awesome – I steamed cleaned the couch the week before and didn the make a dent – this stuff rocks! Thanks for the tip!

  5. Hello colleagues, how is everything, and what you wish
    for to say on the topic of this article, in my view its actually remarkable
    for me.

  6. I have read your blog about Rug cleaning and trust me it was all worth written. You have mentioned everything really well. Thanks for sharing

  7. Thanks for sharing.
    Acquire the best service for Upholstery Cleaning in Melbourne from Go Cleaners. We ensure that the germs and bacteria are completely removed from the fabric and you will get the reliable results. Visit the link for more details.

  8. I have a linen fabric couch it had a stain and I tried to clean it with a little detergent. It wound up leaving a water mark which made the spot worse. Do u think Folex would help that problem?
    Thanks for any advice.

  9. This product is absolutely fabulous. Fortunately I had it on hand when major spill occurred. To this day I am still in shock every drop instantly evaporated. Will never be without FOLEX.

    1. I sprayed Folex on my couch last night to remove stains. The stains were removed but the Folex left a large water mark in each area I sprayed. How do you get the water mark/ring out?

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