If you’ve been following our Instagram stories lately, you know that we recently bought an upholstery cleaner. We’ve had our eye on the Little Green Proheat cleaner by Bissell for a while, so when we noticed it on sale on Target (thank goodness for those personalized ads that you get on social media, or we probably wouldn’t have noticed!) we figured it was time to buy it.
We have always been big fans of Bissell products. When we first adopted our dog, Sadie, we realized it was time to add a carpet spot cleaner to our cleaning arsenal (things happen). Then, we bought a stand-up carpet cleaner when we wanted to wash the 8×10 rug in our living room. And now, we’ve realized a need for an upholstery cleaner so we can deep clean furniture pieces like our couch.
Full disclosure, we initially considered hiring a professional to clean our couch. It wasn’t that dirty per say, but we just didn’t think cleaning it ourselves was an option (the pros can do it better, right?). We got a quote from a local company for $199 to clean our sectional couch, which is actually a very reasonable price. However, when we saw that the Little Green machine was on sale for $113, it just made sense to invest in something that we could use over and over again. It basically paid for itself after just one use!
Prepping your couch for cleaning
- Remove all extras from the couch like throw pillows, blankets, etc. It might be a good time to wash your pillow covers and blankets while you’re at it.
- Vacuum your couch. Remove as much pet hair, crumbs, etc. by thoroughly vacuuming all parts of the couch. Don’t forget to vacuum underneath the cushions.
- Remove the couch cushions. We decided to take all the cushions off and clean the base of the couch first. Then, we moved onto the cushions. It helps to break your cleaning project into parts to make it less overwhelming!
How to wash your couch with the Little Green cleaner
With any new appliance, it’s always a good idea to read the instruction manual first. This gives you a run-down of how to properly assemble and operate your new cleaning tool. This upholstery cleaner was very easy to set up, it only had a few pieces that literally clicked into place. It even comes with a small bottle of cleaning solution to get you started.
- First, fill the clean water tank with very hot water (as hot as your tap water will get, but not boiling!) to the designated water line. Then, pour in the Bissell cleaning solution to the next line. I love that everything is easily marked on the tank!
- Grab a spare bath towel and place it on the floor to catch any overspray or drips. This is a must – our towel was soaked by the time we were done cleaning.
- Turn on your Little Green cleaner and spray your first section with cleaning solution. Make sure to hold the wand pretty close to the couch to minimize overspray.
- Using the cleaning attachment, go back and forth on the area you’re cleaning to loosen dirt and suction up the water. I recommend scrubbing in two different directions for a deeper clean. Tip: if you tilt the cleaning attachment backwards, it will suction less and focus more on scrubbing with the bristles. Do this first until you’re ready to clean up the water.
- Suction up as much water as you can. Press down with the attachment to release more water from the fabric, and don’t be afraid to spend extra time on this step. Remember that the more dirty water that’s removed, the cleaner your couch will look, plus it will dry faster!
- Move on to the next section of your couch and repeat.
- Let your couch air dry. Our couch fully dried in about 2-4 hours. A lot of the reviews I read online said it dries overnight, but we felt it was much quicker than that!
How to spot clean your couch
While we’re on the topic, we wanted to share what we do to spot clean our couch when things like spills or muddy pawprints happen. The Little Green cleaner can also be used for spot cleaning smaller areas, and it even has separate lines marked on the clean water tank for that purpose. However, we usually just use one of these two methods for 99% of our spot cleaning needs:
- Dawn dish soap + warm water
Blue dawn dish soap is a great universal cleaning product. To clean our couch with it, we add a couple drops of dish soap to a bowl and add in a little warm tap water to make a solution. Using a clean toothbrush (doesn’t everyone have a designated cleaning toothbrush?) lightly scrub the area with the cleaning solution until the stain disappears. Wipe the area with a clean dish cloth afterwards to remove excess water. - Folex carpet cleaner
Have you ever tried Folex?! It’s literally magic in a bottle. I’m not entirely sure what’s in it, but it’s clear, odorless, leaves no residue, and removes dirt and stains like a champ. Simply spray your stain with Folex and scrub the area with a clean, white dish cloth until it’s clean. You’ll notice the white dish cloth getting dirty as the stain lifts. It’s amazing!
The results!
Remember when I said that our couch wasn’t that dirty, it had just been lived on for a few years (by two adults + one dog)? Well, I take back what I said earlier because these pictures are worth a thousand words:
As you can tell, the Little Green cleaner really works! It lifted away so much dust, dirt, etc. that now we have peace of mind knowing that our couch is truly clean. It only took us a few hours to clean our whole couch, so it’s reasonable to say that we wouldn’t mind doing this every 6 months or so. We even used it on other things like our upholstered bed frame and the doormat in our sunroom. And when the warmer weather comes, you better believe we’re going to use it to wash our cloth car seats!
