Three Natural Products to Keep in Your  Carpet Cleaning Arsenal

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If I had it my way, our house would have no carpet. We’d stick with hardwood and tile! But, I don’t have it my way right now and we have some carpet in our house. With four children, it’s inevitable that the carpet gets dirty even though we have a no eating or drinking policy on the carpet, try to vacuum it often, and ask people to remove their shoes at the door as often as possible.

Three Natural Products to Keep in Your  Carpet Cleaning Arsenal

Carpet cleaners tout their services as necessary for prolonging the life of carpet. But is carpet cleaning safe? Traditional carpet cleaning can be toxic. The chemicals (particularly trichloroethylene or TCE) that some carpet cleaning products rely on are suspected in leukemia outbreaks and ground water contamination.

While some carpet cleaners use chemical cleaners, others just use water. Water is better than chemicals, but you want to make sure all the water is effectively removed from the carpet so the pad doesn’t grow mold!

It’s a good idea to ask carpet cleaners what type of cleaning compounds they use so you can avoid the toxic chemicals and how they get all the water out. I know I don’t want my toddler breathing in and ingesting nasty chemicals or mold from my carpet. In addition to polluting indoor air quality and causing other health concerns, some cleaners, especially high pH products, can actually promote stains because they leave behind counter-productive residues.

How to Clean Carpet without Using Chemicals

So, how do you keep your carpets clean and safe without the harsh chemicals? Luckily, a lot of safe household products work really well at removing stains and odors. I always have three items on hand for cleaning carpet without chemicals:

  1. Baking Soda
  2. Salt
  3. Hydrogen Peroxide

Not only are they helpful for cleaning carpets, but they’re also frugal as well!

Baking Soda Helps Clean & Deodorize Carpet Naturally

We recently deodorized our carpet with a big box of baking soda. We smeared the box into the carpet, let it sit overnight, and then vacuumed it up the next morning. It worked really well! And the best part, that box of baking soda cost under $4!I also spilled red wine on my carpet a few days ago. I know – I need to follow my own no eating or drinking rules, eh? Of course, it was a nice big spot in a very conspicuous area on my carpet. I acted very quickly and the spot is gone! First, I dumped a huge amount of salt on the carpet. I left the salt there overnight and vacuumed it up the next morning. It looked like Kool-aid the next morning because it absorbed quite a lot of the spilled wine. I should have taken pictures…

The salt didn’t get the whole stain out, though, so I turned to hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is a trick I learned from our home birth midwives. It’s also effective at getting blood out of fibers (but you want to test it out first to make sure it doesn’t discolor your carpets or fabric). I just dumped some HP on the carpet and scrubbed with a brush. The hydrogen peroxide did the trick and there is no big red wine spot on my carpet anymore! Yay!

salt on a table

Other household products that work well for carpet cleaning in addition to the hydrogen peroxide, salt, and baking soda are corn starch, vinegar, club soda, and borax. Next time you pick up a package of one of those products, look at the directions. You might be surprised how many ways they can be used around your house!

How do you keep your carpets clean without chemicals? For more information, read this information from Healthy Child, Healthy World here, here, and here.

For more Green Cleaning Tips, check out these posts:

Decrease Toxins with 4 Frugal Cleaning Supplies

How to Clean Porcelain Sinks without Bleach

DIY Fruit & Veggie Wash

Do You Know What’s in YOUR Home Cleaning Products

What are your trips for cleaning carpet without using chemicals?

Natural cleaning products for your carpet and rugs

About Michelle Marine

Michelle Marine is the author of How to Raise Chickens for Meat, a long-time green-living enthusiast, and rural Iowa mom of four. She empowers families to grow and eat seasonal, local foods; to reduce their ecological footprint; and to come together through impactful travel.

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24 Comments

  1. I had a red wine spill as well! I dumped the salt and vacuumed it up that night, then used my Spot Bot with water, it got it up completely. I’ll have to remember the hydrogen peroxide trick too.

  2. What great tips! We are the same way with carpet. We have it in two of our bedrooms, but, ironically, it’s our throw rug in the living room that gets the dirtiest! My two little girls are constantly spilling food, juice, etc., so I will definitely be giving these tricks a try! Thank you!

  3. Clean Carpet without using chemicals is unbelievable to many cleaners, but you prove it here that carpet cleaning is also possible without using chemical.

  4. I use baking soda and vinegar as well for my cleaning. Vinegar with water and lemon juice is also an effective cleaning solution. I would recommend that too.

  5. Aside from being ingredient, I thought baking soda can only be used to clean mattress but not knowing it can also be used for carpet cleaning. I should try this! Thank you Michelle for sharing tips for keeps!

  6. I’ve also used Hydrogen peroxide and yes, it works pretty good. I work as a cleaner (Cleaners Up Ltd.) and I deal with carpets every day. I can recommend using a mixture between baking soda and essential oil. You can mix them with water and it works very good against carpet stains! 🙂 Thanks for the post! I find it really interesting! 🙂

  7. Clean carpet or rug without using harmful chemicals is unbelievable to many cleaners, but you prove it here that carpet cleaning is also possible without using chemical.

  8. I like your tip to ask carpet cleaners what products they use so you can avoid toxic chemicals. Having harmful fumes or mold in your house is not a fun thing, especially if you have young children. I also liked your tip to pour salt on a liquid spill and use hydrogen peroxide if the stain is still there. Thanks for the article!

  9. We should learn how to clean our carpets first before getting professional aid. You’ll be amazed on the information spread in the internet for DYI carpet cleaning tips and tricks!

  10. Thanks for useful tips. Hydrogen peroxide works quite well to clean stains on carpets. Apart from that, some light stains can be lifted by just plain rubbing alcohol as well. And if the stain is a bit too strong, use a vinegar followed by dishsoap.

  11. Cleaning carpets without using chemicals is the best idea,it cleans the carpet without harming your hands.Hydrogen peroxide works great on the carpets,its action is much quicker and faster.Thanks for sharing such an informative article.

  12. You had a great idea about asking the professionals which type of compounds they use, especially since you had such a young child crawling around the carpet at the time of this post. You also list a considerable number of resources for those seeking more info about natural carpet cleaning and home care.

  13. Your description of having your way with no carpet is pretty well understood. It always continues to require cleaning, no matter what prevention you take, just as you shared.

  14. Before going through your article I don’t know that corn starch, vinegar, club soda, and borax are also used for cleaning the carpets.I used them definitely.Thanks for sharing!

  15. Cleaning a carpet is difficult. I know because once I used to clean my room carpet manually using a normal floor duster cleaner. But right now there are various types of vacuum cleaners that help clean carpet easily and takes less time.

  16. These are great carpet cleaning tips! I have a cream color carpet so you basically see every mess, so I will have to try these tips! Thanks for sharing!

  17. Great share Michelle Marine. One of best tested method you shared. Baking soda really works well.

    Thanks for giving us such a great tips.

  18. Hey Buddy,

    Hope you are doing well.

    I recently found a post on green carpet cleaning online. Just to know more about green carpet cleaning methods, I was searching for some more informative articles like this.

    You are right, making use of some commonly found household products like baking soda, vinegar, club soda, etc. can help in making our carpets more clean and that too without use of any harmful chemicals.

    I really appreciate your idea of going green with carpet cleaning methods. I hope more and more people will follow this chain.

    Thanks for sharing!!

  19. Thanks for your best article I must say that you got very interesting content here, best carpet cleaners, to help you make an informed selection.