You do not necessarily have to take out your bean before cleaning your bean bag, and in this post, I am going to show you ways at which you can clean your bean bag without removing the bean.
But first, you must see the sneak:
General ways you can clean your bean bag without removing the bean
- Spot Cleaning
- Wet Towel Cleaning
- Dusting
So I was at the gym the other afternoon to find that Medleys was not available to coach. Our buddy wasn’t just available for coaching, he wasn’t available for anything else.
I found Medleys standing in his small office, staring at his bean bag. It didn’t take much scrutiny for me to see what was wrong with the bag. There were red blotches on the beanbag.
One of his customers came in with kids and somehow got soy sauce and fruit juice on the fabric of the beanbag.
It’s just stain, right. Medleys should just take the bag out and, divest it of the beans and dump the covering in the washing machine, right. No, not necessarily.
I can’t emphasize this enough – make sure it doesn’t happen to begin with. They say prevention is better than cure. Keep drippy food away from beanbags.
Generally, there are about a handful of ways to clean your beanbag without removing the beans, and regardless of the fabric that your bag is made of. The tips I mentioned previously works for almost all beanbags:
Now let’s examine each way of cleaning the bean bag without removing the bean one by one.
Spot Cleaning
As the words suggest, this means focusing only on the stain, the blotch or the spill alone rather than a desire to see that the whole of the bag is cleaned. In most cases the stain on your beanbag is from food.
Follow this step for spot cleaning stains that have set in:
What you need: Dawn liquid soap, a clean towel.
- Apply Dawn Liquid soap to the stain.
- Leave it on for a ten minutes
- Dampen a clean towel with cold water
- Wipe on the stain in a circular motion
- Repeat with damp towel as many times as required to get the soap off the fabric
- Dry out in the open, or in front of a fan
Beanbags are adorable things, I personally love to sit in it to read my favorite book while I snack on cookies and drink apple juice.
If you are like me who also love to sit in your beanbag and watch TV, cuddle with your partner, or just relax and eat food with fillings in the middle, you have to confess you have at one time spilled something sticky on not just your clothes, but also your beanbag.
You don’t have to wash the whole bag every time this happens.
Wet Towel Cleaning
What you need: a clean towel, some water.
- If the stain is yet to set, dampen a clean towel.
- Wipe the towel on the stain in a scooping motion.
- Wash the towel free of the stain and squeeze the water out
- Wipe the damp towel over the spot till the stain is totally out
Some fabrics do not require cleaning with soap or other chemicals. They just need for you to identify the stained area on the fabric. Especially where the food material isn’t oily or greasy.
When I personally have not eaten in my beanbag I usually place a dishcloth over my lap when snacking on foods that may drip and stain.
Dusting
What you need: Dry and clean towel, professional vacuum cleaner.
How to do it:
- Take the beanbag outdoor, or an airy place
- Get yourself a dry and clean towel
- Wipe in a circular motion until the towel is thick with dust
- Blow out the towel or get a neat one to continue the task
- Take the bag back inside
- Vacuum clean the surface of the bag
There are millions of dust particles in the air. We breathe them every time we suck in oxygen, they settle on every surface in the home.
Nothing seems to escape them. If you travel on vacation for just a few days, there’s a film of dust on everything when you get back – you see them on the surface of the TV, the counter in the kitchen, and on the beanbag in the living room.
You know you do not have to wash the whole bag. Depending on the type of fabric, from cotton to vinyl, and also depending on how ingrained the dust settlement is, you may just need to dust it.
Special ways to care for your Bean Bag fabric
Specifically, beanbags come in various fabrics these days, and more new ones appear everyday. Consumers are always getting inventive with beanbags and using a variety of other fabrics.
Taste now rules the world of consumerism. Most consumers go for fabrics that highlight aesthetics, while others prefer durability in fabrics. Every fabric has its own cleaning methods.
Sometimes a beanbag may be sold along with instructions on care from the manufacturer. But in some cases, the beanbag is purchased second-hand and the customer has to decide how to care for his own bag.
Here we will highlight the major fabrics of beanbags and how to clean them without having to remove the beans from the bags. Please note that here also we refer to localized stains.
A general tip:
- If after you have applied all precautions but the inevitable happens, deal with the spill first by quickly scooping it off using a dry towel. Likely, this will leave a stain behind.
- Next, pour a little Dawn liquid soap on the stain, if you live in the UK however, you will need a Fairy liquid soap.
- Now here’s where the trick is. Some other person would say you should leave it on for thirty minutes but I recommend letting the type of fabric decide how long you should leave it on. I’d say do it by eye.
- Now you need a towel dampened with cold water.
- With this wet towel scrub by making circular movements on the stain gently till all the stains are off.
- Let the beanbag dry.
Vinyl
Vinyl fabric is one of the most popular fabrics used for beanbags and some of the easiest to clean without taking out the beans because they are waterproof.
Most families with kids or nursing mothers prefer vinyl beanbags. Food spills are easily cleaners off without having to divest the bag of the beans.
Cleaning dust off vinyl beanbag is as easy as other fabrics. Vinyl fabrics are weatherproof too, they do quite well outdoors, and can withstand pressure and rough handling.
In most cases, stains would clean off vinyl with minimum effort put into the work. In extreme cases though, more than just water would be required to clean stains off.
What you need: Baking soda, wet dishcloth, warm water.
- Prepare a paste using baking soda and warm water.
- Apply the paste to the spot on the vinyl beanbag fabric.
- Give it a second or two and wipe with a slightly wet cloth.
Faux fur
Faux fur is a synthetic fabric composed of acrylic and polyester fibers. Other blends of faux fur include cotton or wool. Basically, it is imitation fur. They make beautiful and comfortable beanbags because they are soft and warm.
Cuddling in faux fur is great. You can be tempted to sleep off in them while eating hamburgers thereby spilling ketchup on them. By the time you wake up and realize it, the ketchup is set in the fabric.
You may overlook this and get more on the fur as time goes on, in a few weeks time, your beanbag would have developed an unpleasant odor and is in need of total cleaning.
You don’ have to let it get to that point though. To clean a localized stain from faux fur, you need the following.
What you need: Attachment brush, upholstery cleaner, any bar soap, dry towel, fan, wide-toothed comb.
- Use an attachment brush to remove dirt from the fur
- Remember not to soak the whole beanbag in water so use an upholstery cleaner to clean out more thoroughly if need be.
- Use bar soap and a towel to clean out stains that have set in the fur. Rub around the spot repeatedly until you get all the stains.
- Use a dry towel to dry when all stains are out.
- Then fan dry in order to get fur back to its formal texture.
- Finally use a wide-toothed comb to brush the fur.
Leather
Leather beanbags are perhaps the most preferred of all beanbag fabrics because they are so easy to maintain and to clean. Most leather beanbags do not require removing the beans before cleaning for this reason.
All that is required is constant dusting with a dry cloth whenever it is dusty. And when on occasion food material like jam gets on it we just need a few things to get the job done.
The following should get most stains off a leather beanbag.
What you need: dry towel, warm water, Bar soap.
- You may need to do a preliminary wipe off the stain with a dry towel
- Then apply soapy water on the towel
- Wipe the remaining stain, if any, thoroughly.
- Clean the excess water off the fabric with a dry towel
- Let the bag dry.
Faux Suede
Another word of suede beanbag is comfort. Suede beanbags are some of the most comfortable bags on the market. They are slick and stylish.
They make nice additions to bedrooms, porches, and even children’s rooms.
Dump yourself in a suede beanbag and you’d not want to get out of it. This is why it is quite common to get stains on it. The care for suede is almost similar to that of faux fur.
But as a rule of thumb, dumping suede beanbag in water will destroy the fabric. And it is advised to be selective of the kind of fabric you use to clean it too.
Most suede beanbags have a label showing the kind of cleaning material required.
What you need: Terry towel, vinegar cleaning solution, metal suede brush, water-resistant protective spray.
- For non-grease stains, scoop the mess off the fabric with Terry toweling.
- For grease stains or hard stains, make a solution of two parts water and one part vinegar.
- Use a metal suede brush to clean the stain in a circular solution.
- Then spray water-resistant protective spray.
Olefin
Many outdoor beanbags are made of olefin fabric. They are UV resistant, water-resistant, moldy, and mildew resistant, they have low static which means they are less likely to shock while sliding on floorboards. They are stain-resistant too.
Maintenance of olefin beanbags is not difficult. For spot cleaning, they require the following tools.
What you need: mild detergent, water, dry towel, small bleach.
- For mild stains, rub stains off with a damp towel
- Dry out
- For oily stains, apply diluted bleach on the towel
- Rub the stains with the damp towel till satisfied
Corduroy
Yes, it’s the same fabric, the same corduroy fabric that your shirt and trousers are sewn with. Interesting, right? Right. They make very durable beanbags, that fabric. And they are beautiful too.
Corduroy gives the same comfort much like suede and fur with a distinct hardness about them on account of the cords in them, which is where the fabric got it’s name from.
They can get dirty easily so if you have kids in the house, or pets then get ready to always clean your beanbag. If you are careful with the use, you may not often need to wash the whole bag.
Spot cleaning food and drinks off the bag is not as strenuous. It is important to know that you must not use bleaching substances or other chemicals to clean your corduroy bag.
Using such substances may cause color change or overall damage to the fabric.
What you need: Warm water, bar soap, soft brush, dry towel
- Apply warm slightly soapy water to the towel
- Rub on the stain and try to get the water into the cords
- Use a soft brush to get the stains out
- Use a dry towel to clean the fabric gently.
Just like every piece of furniture in the home, beanbags deserve all the care we can give them. After all, they support us – literally – when we need them too.