Generally, it's recommended to leave the baking soda on a mattress for 30 minutes to an hour. But for a deeper clean, let the baking soda sit for 24 hours. To avoid caked-on baking soda, check it every several hours and remove it once it has absorbed all moisture, stains, and odors.
Deodorize Your Mattress
For best results, leave the baking soda there for 24 hours and catch some sleep on the couch—or go on that overnight trip you've been fantasizing about.
Baking soda needs time to interact and absorb smells. It works best if you let it sit on the mattress, undisturbed, for 12-24 hours. After it has sat, vacuum again with an upholstery attachment to remove all of the baking soda from the surface of the mattress.
For regular cleaning moisture, we love the old tried and true cleaner: baking soda. Strip the bed sheets and sprinkle the product liberally onto the mattress. Let sit for a few hours, then vacuum thoroughly.
'There's an old wives' tale that suggests that sprinkling baking soda onto the mattress, leaving it to air for a few hours, and then vacuuming it off, can help to air it out,' Natalie explains. 'However, it's worth noting that not all mattresses are suitable for this home remedy,' she adds.
Rather than blotting up excess urine with a towel as you would normally, skip immediately to applying baking powder directly to the soiled surface. Baking soda absorbs moisture, and should darken in color as it draws the urine up and out of the mattress.
Let the baking soda sit for several hours or overnight.
If you can let it sit for 24 hours, that's even better. The longer it sits, the better your results will be. Baking soda naturally neutralizes and absorbs odors rather than covering them up.
Sprinkle baking soda on the mattress, let it sit for 30 minutes to two hours, and then vacuum it up. How do you get a smell out of a mattress? Sprinkling baking soda on top of the mattress will neutralize odors. Once you vacuum up the baking soda, let the mattress air out.
About a cup spread across the whole thing. Baking soda kills mold and absorbs moisture that could help mold and bacteria thrive. Let the baking soda sit for 10 to 15 minutes then vacuum.
Sprinkle baking soda to keep it fresh
If you're looking to keep your mattress smelling clean and fresh, try sprinkling baking soda over the surface. Make sure you lightly cover the whole mattress and leave it for a few hours. Then, vacuum the remaining baking soda off your mattress and this will leave it odourless!
Baking soda doesn't do its work all at once, so give it time to neutralize as many odor-causing particles as possible. An hour or so is ideal, and for bad situations, you may just want to leave the baking soda on overnight (as long as it won't get tracked everywhere by pets).
While most bedsheet packages recommend washing your sheets before using them, not many do. Washing the sheets multiple times softens them over time, but on the flip side, the detergent leaves residue on the bedsheets that make them tight again. Baking soda helps break down the residue, making them softer.
Febreze Odor-Fighting Air Freshener
This GH Seal-star spray quickly tackles airborne cooking odors, smoke, must and more with its cyclodextrin technology that surrounds odor molecules and pulls them from the air. And all this performance comes at a great price, making it our Best Value pick.
Mix equal parts of distilled white vinegar and water into a spray bottle and spritz the solution onto your mattress. You don't want to make the mattress wet – just spray enough to cover the surface or the smelly spot. Let the vinegar air dry. You can also use a fan or a blow dryer to speed up the process.
And the best news is, all it takes to empower the air is one simple, natural, inexpensive ingredient: baking soda. On its own or combined with a few other ingredients, baking soda can neutralize unappealing odors and give your home an olfactory upgrade.
Does baking soda ruin your vacuum? Baking soda's minuscule size can clog the filters and potentially damage vacuum cleaners – particularly the motor. If you're using a bagless vacuum, the potential chokepoint would be the cyclonic filters and the post-motor HEPA filter. For bagged vacuums, it's the HEPA filter.
After cleaning, you can sprinkle a layer of baking soda on the wet mattress surface and allow it to soak up the excess moisture. Then vacuum the baking soda off the mattress to dry it. You can also put the mattress under a fan indoors or out in the sun to allow it to dry completely.
A mattress develops yellow spots gradually, and several reasons for it. And you cannot control or prevent it. Sweat, urine, vomit, sebum, and age can cause these yellow marks.
Millions of people keep a box of baking soda in the refrigerator and freezer to help keep them from smelling stale. But that little orange box, shaker container, or 3.5 lb. pouch contains a multi-purpose substance you can use to clean and deodorize all kinds of items and areas.
When this alkaline powder comes into direct contact with smells, it can make a difference. We recently tested different approaches to removing garlic and onion smells from a cutting board (July/August 2007) and found scrubbing with a paste of 1 tablespoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon water to be the most effective.
Add 1 tablespoon (14 g) of baking soda to a small bowl or dish. Mix 5 to 6 drops of an essential oil into the baking soda with a spoon until they are well combined. You don't necessarily have to add an essential oil to the air freshener. The baking soda will absorb odors to help freshen the air on its own.
Spray down the urine-stained area with a generous layer of vinegar. We recommend you use straight vinegar without any dilution if there is a strong urine odor because it's the best way to tackle the stubborn smell. Otherwise, you'll be okay with using a diluted vinegar mixture that's 50% vinegar and 50% water.