Can you believe Summer is just about over? Pretty soon it will be Fall, and
most of the country will be experiencing cooler weather and autumn colors. In
Florida, we are looking forward to the times when we can actually be outside in
the afternoon without sweating.
Before the Fall season sets in though, I usually like to do a very thorough
deep cleaning of the car. So many things accumulate in there during the year,
not to mention icky crumbs, wadded up napkins, and who-else-knows-what shoved
under the seats. It can be pretty scary sometimes!
But I was determined to clean absolutely everything, right down to the
nooks-and-crannies.
In searching for some cheap DIY cleaners in one of my favorite homemaking
books, I was excited to find recipes to clean the upholstery, and vinyl
interior.
The vinyl cleaner required a few supplies I didn’t have, so rather than buy
them, I just used hot water and rags to scrub off the dust and crumbs. It worked
great!
For the upholstery cleaner, I found it was super easy to throw together,
and you probably have most of the ingredients right in your home. It really
works too – it totally fixed a chocolate stain. Have no idea who that might
have been…ahem.
How to make your own diy car upholstery cleaner
You actually only need 3 ingredients :
- 6 tbsp soap flakes
- 2 tbsp borax
- 2 cups boiling water
First, grate a bar of soap to make 6 tbsp of soap flakes.
Then mix the soap flakes and borax together, add in the boiling water, and
stir to dissolve.
The only pain about this recipe, is you do have to wait for everything to
cool before you use the cleaner, but you should probably clean out the rest of
the car first, and shampoo the upholstery as the very last thing anyway.
When the cleaner is completely cool, whip it into a foamy consistency and
it’s ready to use!
I started by brushing the cleaner onto the car upholstery with a bristle
brush. You should only work on one seat at a time, because you don’t want the
soap to just sit on the fabric and start to dry.
At this point, the recipe told me to wipe the soap away with a damp sponge,
but I disagree. It only smears the soap and makes a worse mess!
A wet rag that you can keep rinsing in a bucket of water is the way to go,
and worked wonderfully.
Ready to see the before and afters?
You might not be able to really tell from the pictures, but this cleaner
did an absolutely amazing job! I couldn’t stop commenting about it for a
straight week after we had cleaned the car.
As for the leftover upholstery cleaner, I couldn’t really reuse it because I kind of left it out in the Florida sun and it turned to a gak-like substance. I’m not even sure they make that stuff anymore, but it was kinda gross.
