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On average, we spend 26 years of our life asleep! Astonishing isn’t it when you put it like that? But yes, a third of our lifetime is spent sleeping, so it’s understandable that over time our mattress is exposed to a variety of situations where inevitable stains will occur. But it’s important to clean any spills and stains as soon as possible, to avoid long term staining and help your mattress to last longer too.
Because you can’t just throw your mattress in the washing machine and be done with it (unfortunately), you need to manually clean any stains that occur and depending on the type of stain, you’ll need to use different cleaning solutions and techniques. So we’ve put together a collection of our cleaning tips for a variety of stain types so you can get your mattress back looking as good as new again.
Prepare Your Mattress For Stain Removal
Before delving in to tackle any stains, it’s important to follow these steps to ensure you’re best prepared for removing the stains from your mattress.
1) Remove any bedding and mattress toppers from the mattress so you can clearly and cleanly approach the removal of the stain.
2) Next up, it’s a good idea to vacuum your mattress first to ensure any loose particles or debris aren’t accidentally rubbed into the stain. Attach the upholstery attachment to your vacuum to help ensure everything is picked up.
3) Then before starting to clean any stain, it’s important to check any care labels for your mattress to see if there are any specific instructions or restrictions. This is because some mattresses may require specific cleaning solutions are used or will warn against chemicals or techniques being used to clean it.
How To Get Urine Stains Out Of A Mattress?
Accidents happen, especially when little ones and pets are involved. Luckily, urine stains are one of the easier stains to remove, but like most stains, it’s important to act fast, as urine stains will become more difficult to remove over time.
So if you can, look to clean up the urine as soon as possible to avoid the stain and smell from setting in. This is especially true of memory foam mattresses as foam is known to soak up liquids quickly! It’s also important to note that the cleaning process differs somewhat between human and pet urine. Animal urine smells stronger than human urine and as such, it’s recommended that you use an enzyme cleaner as they’re even more effective at cleaning strong stains and smells.
Cleaning Human Urine From A Mattress
When cleaning the human urine stain from your mattress, there’s a couple of techniques you can use. If you’re cleaning it almost immediately, it’s a good idea to blot the urine with paper towels to soak as much of it up as possible. Avoid rubbing though, as this can cause the urine to soak deeper into the mattress.
Then create a cleaning solution that’s equal parts water and distilled white wine vinegar and put that in a spray bottle if you have one under the sink. Lastly, add in 1-2 tablespoons of laundry detergent too. Then simply spray generously, wait 15 minutes for the solution to soak into the mattress and blot away the cleaning solution with paper towels again.
Cleaning Pet Urine From A Mattress
When cleaning animal urine, it’s a good idea to follow all the steps outlined above, but as touched upon earlier, use an enzyme cleaner instead of the water and vinegar solution we suggested above. This is because an enzyme cleaner is specifically designed to neutralise pet urine and the white vinegar in our recommended solution for human urine can actually cause some pets to look to mark their territory so to speak, leading to even more urine stains for you to clean in the future!
How To Get Urine Stains That Have Set In From Your Mattress
If you can’t clean the mattress straight away because it’s either the middle of the night or something else comes up, there are two solutions to remove the urine stain from your mattress.
First of all, you can use the same water and vinegar solution we described above, however this time you’ll want to leave it for much longer and may need to repeat the process a few times until the stain is finally removed. Once the stain appears to be gone, this time use a wet dishcloth to blot where the stain was, this will help to remove any lasting residue and help to reduce any lingering vinegar odour.
The second technique you could use is utilising the natural bleaching agent, hydrogen peroxide in a cleaning solution. This can help to remove dried in, stubborn stains, however be careful when using it as it can damage foam or latex mattresses. So be sure to start with a little bit at first if your mattress contains either of those materials and only use as much as you actually need. As a bleaching agent, it can also discolour fabric, so be sure to avoid spraying it on your carpet or any bedding too.
To create the cleaning solution, mix 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide, 3 tablespoons of baking soda and a few drops of washing up liquid or liquid laundry detergent and then once again, ideally put all this into a spray bottle. You’ll need to spray enough solution to dampen the stain and then look to leave it to air dry. You’ll notice as it’s drying, the baking soda in the solution will actually form a residue on the treated area, this is normal, so don’t worry.
Once the area is completely dry, vacuum the area to pick up all the residue and hopefully the stain should be gone. However if it remains, look to repeat all the steps until it fades. You may well need to repeat the steps multiple times for a stain that’s set in deeply.
How To Get Urine Smell Out Of A Mattress
When it comes to the smell of urine, you’ll also want to eliminate that as soon as possible. The above techniques we talked about to remove the stains may well have reduced or removed the smell of urine entirely, but if they haven’t, create a baking soda paste to remove the urine smell.
You’ll want to create this solution over the sink or bath as it can create a lot of foam and mess! Mix equal parts vinegar and baking soda in a bowl to make a paste. Then spread a thick layer of this paste to the affected area on your mattress. Then grab a scrubbing brush or even an old toothbrush and get to work scrubbing the paste into the mattress.
Then leave this to dry, which could take anywhere from an hour to a few hours to dry fully depending on the size of the affected area. Once dry, vacuum up all the residue and check to see if any urine smell lingers. If so, once again repeat the steps until you’re happy the smell has disappeared.
How To Get Blood Stains Out Of A Mattress?
Unfortunately, blood stains are one of the trickier stains to remove from your mattress as it binds to fibres over time, making it super important to clean any blood stains from your mattress as soon as possible. But of course, sometimes a blood stain may be due to an accident and in those cases, it’s much more important to ensure everyone is safe and sound, your mattress can wait. Especially because there are ways to remove dried blood stains too, which we’ll cover further below.
Interestingly also, blood stains set in deeper if you try to wash them with hot water or use heat to dry them, this is because the hot water breaks down the proteins in your blood which causes it to set into your mattress. So cold water is the way to go.
How To Get Fresh Blood Stains Out Of A Mattress?
As stated above, it’s important to use cold water to tackle any fresh blood stains on your mattress and if you can, act quickly for the best results.
All you need to clean fresh blood from your mattress is a clean cloth and potentially some salt and laundry detergent. First of all, you’ll want to make the affected area on your mattress wet, a good way to do so would be to soak the clean cloth and then wring it out over the stained area. Next, start to dab the area with the clean cloth and if the stain is still present after a while and the cloth has got dirty, repeat the process again with a new cloth.
If cold water alone isn’t cutting it, it’s time to involve salt in the process. Simply add a few pinches of salt directly to the stain and moisten the mattress again. After five minutes, wipe the stain and check the results. If this still hasn’t worked, it’s time to grab some laundry detergent and repeat the same approach, but with detergent instead.
If you act quickly, fresh blood stains should actually be pretty easy to remove from your mattress. Just remember to use different parts of your cloth as it gets more bloody for the best and quickest results.
How To Get Dried Blood Stains Out Of A Mattress?
If you don’t manage to clean your blood stain quickly and it dries into your mattress, you’ve got a tougher job on your hands. Unfortunately, at this stage, there’s no guarantee that the stain can be removed, but by following these steps, you can increase your chances of removing any stains.
We recommend using a combination of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to remove dried blood stains from your mattress. Once again, we must stress to be careful with hydrogen peroxide as it can stain fabrics. Always look to test the solution in a small area before diving in to clean the stain.
To create the cleaning solution for dried blood stains you’ll want to mix together 8oz of both hydrogen peroxide and cold water with two to three drops of washing up liquid. If you can, you’ll want to put this into a spray bottle for ease of application.
Before spraying it onto the stain, add a thin layer of baking soda over the blood stain, letting it sit there for at least 15 minutes before vacuuming it up. Next, spray the bottled solution over the stain, ensuring to dampen the entire stain. Once again, sprinkle more baking soda over the stain and let the two of them work their magic for a few hours or overnight if possible.
Next, you’ll want to break up the baking soda using a brush, before vacuuming up the baking soda and using a damp cloth to wipe the stain. Hopefully, the stain should at least be lighter in appearance, however if it’s still noticeable, you can look to repeat this process again. Just remember that it may be impossible at this stage to completely remove the stain as the blood has dried.
How To Get Sweat Stains Out Of A Mattress?
Everybody sweats, so these types of stains are probably the most common stains you’ll be looking to clean out of your mattress. Especially if you don’t use a mattress topper to protect it. But why do these stains accumulate in the first place?
Well, whilst everybody sweats, the frequency and amount of sweating someone does of course varies person to person and this can be further affected by the temperature of the room and the materials used in the mattress. Your natural body oils seep into your mattress through your sweat as you sleep and these oils slowly oxidise over time, turning the sweat stain into yellow or rusty coloured stain.
Luckily, sweat stains are easy enough to remove if you utilise the right technique…
We recommend using a mix of the following to treat yellow sweat stains on your mattress; cool water, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. First of all, combine 8oz of cool water and 8oz of hydrogen peroxide with 2 to 3 drops of washing up liquid. Once again, add this to a spray bottle if possible to aid cleaning.
Before applying this to the stain, you’ll want to sprinkle a thin layer of baking soda over the entire stained area and let it sit for 15 minutes or more. Then clear away the baking soda before spraying the solution on top of all the sweat stains. Do this until the mattress feels damp, but not soaking wet.
Then apply more baking soda and allow the two of them the time to clean the stain, ideally overnight, but if that’s not possible, at least for a few hours. Then grab a stiff brush or toothbrush and go over each of the stains, aiming to lift out the stain by working in the baking soda. Then grab your vacuum cleaner and suck up the loose baking soda particles before wiping down the stain with a damp cloth.
If after drying the stain with a dry rag there’s still some baking soda present, vacuum it up. Hopefully at this point, the sweat stain has been removed, however if it’s quite a persistent yellow stain, we recommend repeating the steps until you see an improvement.
Get Your Mattress Stain Free Today
As you can see, there are a variety of techniques that can be used to remove different types of stains from your mattress. Whilst many of the techniques involve similar ingredients, the way in which they are used differ depending on the type of stain you’re tackling.
Hopefully the tips we’ve shared today can help you to remove tricky stains from your mattress and return it to its former glory. However, if the stains are too ingrained and you’re not happy with other aspects of your mattress’ performance, we have a range of new mattresses to choose from.