Once your new mattress is set up in the bedroom, it’s not enough to just leave it as is over the years. In fact, simply washing your bedding and airing out the room isn’t enough to keep your bed clean and healthy.
When you're cleaning your home and your bedroom, don't forget your bedding.Regular mattress care is essential for removing dust, dirt, stains, and odors, as well as for preventing the spread of germs.
Here are some effective tips and tricks for disinfecting your bedding after you've dusted and cleaned it.
What is the difference between cleaning and disinfection?
Mattress care involves first removing dust, followed by cleaning, and finally disinfecting the mattress. But before we discuss mattress disinfection procedures, you need to fully understand the difference between cleaning and disinfecting.
Clean your mattress to remove dirt
In addition to eliminating odors, cleaning bedding helps remove all kinds of dirt: dust, stains, and marks caused by food, drinks, or sweat.
Cleaning products (or detergents) each have their own instructions for use, depending on the surfactants they contain. A distinction is made between bleaching agents, solvents, abrasives, and limescale removers.
To clean a mattress, you can prepare various solutions using products such as:
- white vinegar;
- grain vinegar;
- Marseille soap;
- black soap;
- essential oils;
- lemon juice;
- citric acid;
- baking soda, sodium percarbonate, or soda crystals;
- ammonia (mixed with hot water and, if desired, dish soap).
Even though it has been cleaned, your mattress is not necessarily free of germs.
Disinfect Your Mattress to Eliminate Germs
After cleaning your mattress, you should therefore disinfect it to eliminate pathogenic microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, yeasts, fungi, and dust mites). Do not confuse disinfecting with sterilizing: sterilization is an additional process that involves destroying the microorganisms’ ability to reproduce.
Mattresses are particularly conducive to the proliferation of dust mites, due to the dust, heat, and moisture that accumulate there, especially at night. Fortunately, indoor dust mites are not actually harmful to health. However, they can trigger allergic reactions in people who are more sensitive.
To disinfect a mattress, people often use products that are both cleaners and disinfectants.
How can you properly prepare your mattress for disinfection?
As mentioned earlier, it is essential to dust, remove stains, and wash your mattress before disinfecting it.
Dust on your bedding can disrupt your sleep and comfort. Dust consists mainly of numerous particles of textile fibers, pollen, pet hair, dirt, human hair, and dead skin cells. To thoroughly remove dust from your mattress, the best approach is to vacuum it at least twice a quarter, and every time you flip your mattress.
Next, you'll need to clean your mattress to remove stains, dirt, and sweat marks. To minimize dirt buildup and make it easier to care for your mattress, it’s best to place a mattress protector under your fitted sheet. Your mattress cover is likely removable, which makes cleaning even easier and faster—you can simply machine wash it.
No matter which cleaning method and products you decide to use, be sure not to pour too much water on your mattress, as this could damage it. Mix the ingredients you’ve chosen to make your cleaning solution, scrub your mattress with a sponge, cloth, or towel soaked in the solution, and then rinse it with a dry cloth or towel.
What products should you use to disinfect a mattress?
First of all, before choosing a product to disinfect your mattress, find out how to care for it. Depending on the composition of their core and cover (latex, foam, polyester, down, cotton, etc.), mattresses are more or less sensitive to disinfectants.
Choose natural and homemade cleaning products
Many consumers buy cleaning products sold in supermarkets, such as multi-surface disinfectants or all-in-one, no-rinse cleaners. It is not uncommon for these products to contain questionable ingredients. The list of ingredients may include undesirable substances that are allergenic, irritating, corrosive, and harmful to the environment. For these same reasons, bleach should also be avoided.
Feel free to make your own hand sanitizer using natural, more eco-friendly ingredients. Given the many tips and tricks shared online, you should be able to find all the information you need to make your own hand sanitizer.
How to Prepare and Use a Disinfectant Solution for Your Mattress
First and foremost, make sure you have one or more gloves on hand to protect your skin. If you’re disinfecting your mattress in a closed room in your home, be sure to leave the window open.
There are several ways to clean and disinfect your mattress. These include:
- a mixture of white vinegar and baking soda;
- a mixture of lemon (or tea tree) essential oil, hot water, and white vinegar (or baking soda);
- a mixture of water and sodium percarbonate.
To prepare the first solution, you'll need about 1 liter of white vinegar, to which you add the contents of a coffee cup of baking soda. Once thoroughly mixed, the solution will foam slightly. Using a sponge soaked in this disinfectant solution, scrub the entire surface of your mattress, then rinse it with a dry cloth or towel.
If you prefer to use a mixture made with essential oils, you’ll need to mix a few drops of lemon or tea tree essential oil with about 15 centiliters of hot water and 5 centiliters of baking soda or white vinegar. Ideally, pour the solution into a spray bottle and then spray it over the entire surface of the mattress.
As for the last natural solution made with sodium percarbonate and water, it is particularly effective and powerful thanks to the mixture of hydrogen peroxide and soda crystals from which the percarbonate is derived. Spray a solution consisting of about 1/3 sodium percarbonate and 2/3 water, then scrub and rinse the mattress using two separate cloths.
Once it has been dusted, cleaned, and disinfected, your mattress will need to dry completely: just because the surface is dry doesn’t mean the core of the mattress is dry as well. You can start by drying it with a hair dryer set to cold air only. However, it’s best to air-dry your mattress by exposing it directly to the sun so that it dries quickly and thoroughly. In fact, prolonged exposure to the sun can effectively disinfect a mattress.
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