“How do you clean a plush?” is a broad question. It depends on how dirty it is, and what kind of “dirt” you’re dealing with.
You can divide this into 3 categories:
- Dry dirt like dust and hair (remove with lint roller/sticky stuff)
- Small surface stains (surface wash with soap and water)
- Big, deep or persistent stains (deep/full wash, soaking, unstuffing)
Dry Particles
Removing dust is easy, I use stickers because they’re free for me but lint rollers work just as well!
Surface Washing
But anyway, for surface wash the way I do it you need:
- Bowl of warm water
- Laundry detergent/soap
- Soft brush (I use a soft, clean toothbrush)
- Cold water to rinse.
- Dry cloth and paper towels
First, remove dust and hairs and stuff. Dust is easy to get rid of as long as it’s dry, but once it gets wet it sticks and gets in the fabric.
Then, take the bowl of warm water and put in a little detergent/soap. You don’t need a lot.
Dip your [tooth]brush in the water and gently rub the soap-water on the spot you want to clean. Don’t soak the plush, but don’t be afraid to use as much as you need, either. The outer layer of fabric getting wet is no problem, but for bigger plush, you’ll want to avoid soaking the stuffing (dont want mold and such)
Gently rub the spots you need to clean in a circular motion with your brush, clean the brush in the soap water as much as you need. Once the fabric is as clean as you want, take the cloth and gently press it on the wet spots to absorb the water from the fabric.
Then, get rid of the soap water, clean your brush and take a bowl of clean water. Can be cold, doesn’t matter. Again use the brush to [gently] rub water on the spots you cleaned, to remove as much of the soap as you can. Press (paper) towels on the wet spots to dry them, apply clean water, repeat 2-4 times until you’re sure most of the soap is gone.
Then, simply dry the spots you cleaned with the cloth and paper towels, and leave your plush to dry for the rest.
Looks like a whole load of text but it’s really not difficult to do.
I’ll say though, natural skin oil/sweat stains are not so easily removed with a surface wash. Surface wash is great for stuff like dust spots, spilled food and drinks, make up and stuff like that.
I do a deep clean about once a year for the sleepy Eevees. I’ve washed Vap with the stuffing inside once, but it took 3 days to dry. In the middle of a heatwave in summer, so yeah.
Ever since I just unstuff them, and only wash the outer layer of fabric.
Deep Washing
What you should do is:
- Unstuff, put the stuffing in a bag or pillowcase or something. Stains like skin oil aren’t very deep so you usually don’t need to wash the stuffing.
- Soak the fabric in warm water, laundry detergent, and baking soda. Baking soda works wonders!
- Let it soak for an hour or two, then rinse the fabric with clean water. Repeat step 2 and 3 if necessary.
- Put the fabric in a protective bag/pillowcase and wash in the washing machine on low temperature (DO NOT PUT IT IN THE DRYER) [machine washing is optional, soaking in detergent and baking soda also works well but if I make the effort to wash, I want to clean them as well as I can. Doesn’t take much extra effort at this point]
- Let the fabric dry completely, can take a day
- Once dry, put the stuffing back in its place and close the seam with a ladder stitch
- Cuddle your now clean and fresh smelling plush : )