Using a fabric conditioner and laundry detergent from the Neutral 0% range will make your bedding soft & clean, and will help reduce the risk of skin irritation. It’s the perfect combination for sensitive skin, making it ideal for washing baby blankets. Use water or any cleaning products sparingly to prevent saturating your mattress. A diluted dish detergent can be used to remove general stains on your mattress – always test on a small inconspicuous area first. If you find your washing machine is not big enough for your duvet, pop to your local launderette where they tend to have bigger machines. If you have skin allergies, choose a gentle detergent specially developed for sensitive skin, like Neutral 0% Liquid Laundry Detergent, which contains 0% colourants or perfume, both of which could irritate sensitive skin. Getting a good night's sleep is important for your mental and physical health, and clean bedding and mattresses are key to ensuring good sleep and good health.
According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, regular and deep sleep is essential to learning, memory, and overall health, while poor sleep can lead to a greater risk for chronic disease, as well as impaired judgment and reaction time. Cleaning your bedding and mattress can have a significant impact on your quality of life. Here are some helpful tips for how to clean your mattress and bedding, and find the right mattress stain remover. How to Clean Your Mattress A clean and comfortable mattress is essential for a good night’s sleep. While stains, odours, and dust mites are inevitable consequences of daily mattress use, regular cleaning can help to minimise these discomforts. To keep your mattress clean, follow these 3 essential tips: Vacuum both sides of your mattress about once a month. Vacuuming your mattress helps to remove dust and dust mites, which can cause allergy reactions and irritation. If possible, air your mattress every few months by placing it outside in a sunny spot.
This will prevent any accumulating moisture that can lead to mould, and will also banish any lingering odours. You can also air your mattress when changing the sheets and bedding. After removing the sheets, wait for a few minutes to let your mattress breathe. Ideally, open a window to let in fresh air and sunlight. How to Clean Stains on a Mattress Cleaning stains off your mattress may seem like an unpleasant task, but here are some tips that will help you clean a variety of stains. Be sure to check any instructions on your mattress tags – including any wash symbols – before you begin, and do not apply too much water or mattress stain remover to your mattress. For simple or unidentified stains, clean your mattress with a citrus cleanser or diluted dish detergent. Spray the cleanser and let it sit for five or ten minutes. Blot the mattress repeatedly to remove excess liquid, and remember not to apply too much water. For blood or urine stains, first try applying a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to the affected area.
Blot the stained area with a clean cloth just after application. If this does not work, apply a small amount of laundry detergent directly onto the stain. This will help break up the proteins found in bodily fluids. Brush the spot vigorously. Remember to clean bloodstains with cold water only, as hot liquids will set these stains for good. (This article on getting rid of period stains - a common cause of blood on your bedding - has some more useful advice on how to get blood out of sheets.) For particularly stubborn stains, try applying baking soda after detergent. Let the baking soda set, perhaps overnight, and vacuum the area the next day. 5 Top Tips for Cleaning Bedding, Bedspreads & Sheets Cleaning bedding is usually as easy as washing your clothes, though it is important to pay careful attention to the wash symbols on your blankets, sheets, and pillowcases to make sure that you don’t shrink, stain, or damage your bedding. Remember to wash your sheets and pillowcases about once a week, and your duvet or blanket about once a month.
In general, it is a good idea to pre-treat spots or stains on your bedding with spot cleaners before throwing them in the wash. Simply spray the soiled area with a stain remover and allow to sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before you begin your wash. Be sure to follow the wash symbols on your bedding. Consider washing your bedding with a detergent specifically designed for sensitive skin if you or any of your family members have allergies or sensitive skin. For example, you could try Neutral 0%, an unscented laundry detergent that’s gentle on skin and fabrics. Do not wash your sheets in hot water, as this will set any stains that have not yet been removed. For duvets, quilts, and comforters, remember to wash them in a machine large enough to provide plenty of space for movement. This may mean that you will have to find somewhere else to wash these large items! A good sleeping environment could mean a better night’s sleep – give these tips a try, and sleep soundly with fresh, fragrant bedding and a clean mattress.
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Check the Squalor Archive for assistance. Are you still dirty? Okay, well, this is crazy, and I'm still a little shocked right now. I just woke up in the act of wetting the bed for the first (second? time in my adult life. I'm not afraid of cleaning up urine, and I think I even know some things to do: The sheets are already off so it wouldn't soak into the foam mattress, I found some odor spray, and I'm soaking up the liquid as fast/best I can. Here's the twist, though: It's not my bed. I'm at my girlfriend's mother's house ... and said mother is SITTING IN THE DINING ROOM AT 5 A.M.!!!!! Currently, I'm hoping she's awake because she's going out early, in which case I can spring into action (?). But meanwhile, you popped into my head, and I thought I'd ask for advice on the best way to ninja-clean my way out of this while everyone's asleep. Damage so far: two sheets, some underpants I can throw in the trash, and a little urine on my (fast-drying) shirt.
It says a tremendous amount about me that it wasn't until my third reading of this question that I thought to myself, "You know? It's a little weird that a stranger thinks of me first in the face of wetting the bed." I mean, I get it. obviously get it—and I entirely love it—but every once in a while, I catch myself taking a step back and looking at this life I've created for myself and am just like, "Hm. Existential ramblings aside, this is a not-uncommon thing to have happen. Wicked embarrassing, to be sure, but not uncommon. Please take solace in that if it happens to you! In an ideal world, this kind of thing happens when it's just you in the bed. In an ideal world, this doesn't happen at all, but you know what I mean.) If it happens when there's someone else in the bed, though, you gotta 'fess up. Mostly because you have to get the sheets off the bed in order to clean them and prevent the pee from seeping into the mattress, and stripping the sheets is a thing that the other person in the bed will notice is happening.
In this particular case, I would suggest enlisting your girlfriend to help with the awkward mother issue—have her throw the sheets in the wash and tell her mom she got her period unexpectedly. You may owe her one, but for whatever this is worth: If it were me, I would absolutely no doubt rather lie to my mother about a period accident than tell her that my boyfriend wet the bed. If you really, absolutely cannot get to the washing machine, head into the bathroom to do a little hand-washing triage. If there's a tub, that's probably going to be your best bet, since hand-washing a section of bed linens is a bit of an awkward affair. So: Run the pee-pee part of the sheet under cold-to-lukewarm running water to flush out as much as you can. Use a small amount of whatever soap you can access most easily (hand soap, bar soap, liquid laundry detergent if it's around, whatevs) and rub the material against itself to create suds and coax out the piddle. Then rinse thoroughly under running water and wring out as much water as you can.
Next, grab a towel and roll the wet part of the sheet up in it, which will extrude more water. The final step in this stealthy, MacGyver-esque sheet-washing process is to turn a hair dryer on the remaining wet spot until it's dry enough to go back on the bed. But really, don't do that. Just stick with the period lie and launder the sheets in the machine.In this case, the mattress was spared, because our bed-wetter woke up as the wetting was happening. But more often than not, that isn't the case, so I'm including general mattress-cleaning instructions here, because I'm a giver. The biggest thing to remember when treating stains on a mattress is to use as little liquid as possible—if you saturate it, it will take forever to dry. Of course, in the case of wetting the bed, the mattress will already be fairly wet, so the first step should be to soak up as much of the urine as you can using either a towel (that you will later launder, natch) or paper towels. Since urine is a protein stain, you'll want to use something enzymatic on it.
If you have pets in the house, go ahead and use whatever product you've got for cleaning the messes they make off your floors, carpets, furniture, whatever. Something like Nature's Miracle would be just grand. If you don't have that, a laundry pre-treatment spray like Shout or Zout will also work. Give the soiled part of the mattress a light misting, then give it a li'l scrubbing with a towel or sponge, then bear down on the area with a dry towel to absorb as much moisture as you can. You may want to perform a few light applications for maximum effect. Once you feel confident that the mattress is clean, allow it to air-dry before putting the sheets back on. (Turning a standing fan toward the mattress will speed that process up.) If, for whatever reason, there's still a lingering odor once the mattress has dried, sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda on the affected area and allow it to sit for 30 or so minutes before sweeping or vacuuming it up.There are your "Oh no no no no no, I wet the bed!" instructions.