Cleaning Tips

Many people ask about how to clean blinds, shades and shutters. Here are some suggestions we have received from our manufacturers.

Normal Cleaning – with  the shade or blind fully down

• Dust with dusting brush
• Use a vacuum to clean deeper
• Compressed air or using a hair dryer without any heat can be used to blow off dust
• Clean spots with warm water and a mild detergent – like you would clean a shirt or blouse
  Use a damp cloth to rub the shade and remove the dirt.
• If you coat vinyl vertical vanes with a weak soap solution, it will reduce static buildup. Or you can use dryer sheets
• Faux wood blinds can be cleaned with a damp cloth

Cleaning using a bath tub

• Fill your bath tub (6 inches to one foot deep) with warm water
• Add a small amount of mild detergent
• With the shade fully down, take down the shade
• Immerse in water but do not immerse the head rail (top bar of shade)
• Wash the shade for five minutes by gently moving the water around with your fingers
• Rinse the shade with warm water.  (Drain and refill the bathtub.)
• Drain the water from the bottom rail by tilting the shade and letting the water run off
• Don’t squeeze the fabric but using the cord, close the shade
• Put the shade back in the window and lower the shade fully.  Let the shade air dry

Note: Don’t use this method on blackout cell shades, fabric vertical vanes, woven woods, roller shades or real wood blinds

Professional cleaning

• Services are available to ultrasonically clean shades and blinds
• Injection/extraction cleaning services can come to your home to clean your shades and blinds
• Ultrasonic cleaning can be done for mini blinds, and regular cell shades

Drapery cleaning

If you are taking draperies to a professional cleaner, remove the pins from the draperies and mark with a pinned note which window they are from so you will know where they belong when you get them back from the cleaner.

Here are some links to YouTube videos on cleaning shades and blinds: