Clean upholstery / carpet with soda

I just found out something new: I recently got chairs for free via a porcelain link, wood chairs with upholstered seats in the 80s style.

The upholstery looks similar to velor carpet, terry cloth or even older-generation sofas.

The previous owner was a smoker and therefore there are also small burn holes in the upholstery.


Apparently, the upholstery was never or last cleaned very recently, they were very dirty / yellowed and there were gray spots next to the burn holes, as if there had been something dirty on it.

So nothing, where you want to sit on it. I had planned to get the upholstery with new fabric, but for the time being to make it usable.

So TheFruitAndFlowerBasket.com opened and rummaged in the tips. I have tried: alcohol glass cleaner, RZ spot cleaner, chlorine cleaner. And when that did not help, I came up with my idea because I've been using soda for my laundry for a while now.


  1. For cleaning the upholstery I used liquid soda (available from Heitmann, for example), as the upholstery was very dirty undiluted.
  2. I wet and wrung a soft, clean cloth with warm water, then put some liquid soda on the cloth and rubbed the pad with it.
  3. In between the cloth repeatedly moistened with the soda and clean spots on the cloth newly selected.
  4. Then I rinsed the dirt from the cloth and again rubbed damp and rinsed the rest of dirt from the cloth again.

The discoloration disappeared almost immediately, the gray spots with a little more force also. The bright spot on one of the chairs is no longer visible, because the upholstery is just as bright again.

The only thing that did not disappear was the burn marks, so I have to try it with onion ...

Another side effect: the upholstery smells better than before. When applying the soda, rubber gloves or the like should be worn best to protect the hands. I had to treat my hands afterwards with greasy cream.

How To Clean Sofa With Baking Soda and Lemon! | March 2024