Today we will answer a practical question about upholstery velvet, namely how to clean it if, by accident, a greasy, liquid, earthy or other soil has arrived, leaving an unsightly stain. Upholstery velvet is part of furnishing fabrics: we consider the field of decoration and furniture, not clothing. Indeed, cleaning its crushed velvet curtains, velvet sofa, velvet furniture bench, velvet headboard, and any other large velvet product for the home is not as simple as for pants, or a skirt, which we would slip into the washing machine.

Clean upholstery daily

As much as possible, we avoid wetting the velvet. A little blow of the clothes brush or the vacuum cleaner with the small dust nozzle, it’s perfect. Obviously, this applies to hair and dust; employing more excellent means for the tasks will be necessary.

Dry cleaning upholstery

To avoid wetting the upholstery of your blackout curtains, sofa or other, you can try the following two things:

Cleaning with talc

To remove minor stains, try using talc. It is sprinkled on the affected area, left on for several hours (ideally overnight), and the talc is removed the next day (with the vacuum cleaner).

Cleaning with soil from Summiteers

For more serious tasks, there is the famous soil of Sommières, a long-known ecological stain remover. Discovered near Montpellier (in Sommières!) at the beginning of the 19th century, the soil of Sommières is currently extracted in Morocco, known as Fez soap. It is a kind of clay with excellent absorbency. It is used to dry and remove greasy stains (oil, butter, sauce, make-up, etc.) and fragile surfaces (like our upholstery velvet! But also particular floors such as carpet or terrace stone, furniture marble, granite, wood, etc.). You can buy it, among other places, in a DIY store, and you should use it again for many other purposes (including cleaning filthy hands, for example, if you have just tinkered with your car or changed the chain of your bike !).

How to use Summiteers clay?

To dry clean with Sommières earth, it’s straightforward, sprinkle the powder in a generous layer on the stain, then let it act for 1 to 3 hours (depending on the extent of the damage) without touching it or rubbing. As with talc, you can sprinkle it in the evening, leave it on all night, and vacuum it in the morning.

With stains, it’s always better to act as quickly as possible, but the soil of Sommières can also be applied to old stains.

 

If the stain persists, it is sometimes a good idea to make a second application… You can also rub the powder with your hand covered with a glove or a brush, but don’t get wet. This trick concerns dry stains and especially greasy stains; no water stains.

Store your Sommières soil away from humidity and direct sunlight, away from children and pets (even if this natural product is not harmful).

Wet cleaning of upholstery

To clean a sofa, curtains, bench, headboard, or other upholstery velvet, with a wet method (wet the velvet on a place that cannot be seen to test before), prepare a mixture of soapy water (black soap or Marseille soap) and white vinegar. Apply without soaking the fabric too much when cleaning. Rinse with a washcloth, a natural sponge or a small terry towel, and dry with a terry towel.

And finally, discover the anti-stain velvet.

To decorate an interior with velvet without apprehension about stains, MesRideaux.fr offers an anti-stain velvet fabric produced by Casal, available for tailoring to make all the decorative textile products you need. This is the unstainable Amara aqua clean velvet, a thick, matte, soft fabric woven with a chenille yarn giving a velvet effect. It has been tested with every stain the imagination can conceive: mud, blood, chocolate, sauce, wine, ink, markers, sweat the list is almost endless.

The stain does not penetrate on this anti-stain velvet because the fabric has received a hydrophobic (repels aqueous stains) and oleophobic (repels greasy stains) treatment. Therefore, it is sufficient to absorb the excess of the stain by dabbing in the event of a small puddle and then passing a damp cloth or paper towel to remove the stain instantly. Neither seen nor known!

Without worrying, you can have an aperitif with friends on the velvet sofa or near the velvet curtains!

Amara aqua clean unstainable velvet also exists in a “fire-retardant” version, i.e. meeting strict specifications in favour of safety in the event of a fire (fire-retardant fabrics do not spread flames).

Amara aqua clean unstainable velvet is linked on our site to the “stainless fabrics” search filter in the search criterion by “property” of fabrics. It can be found in many colours (greys,  blues, yellows, greens, beige velvet curtains etc.) alongside the Pure unstainable fabric from Jab, which is not velvet but a plain linen effect.

Here you are ready to clean stains on your velvet furnishing products without panicking  (dry or wet) and informed about velvet’s existence, allowing you to avoid stains and reduce its intervention to a slight blow—damp cloth. Enjoy beautiful moments at home, accompanied by the unique softness of velvet curtains!