When it comes to relaxing baths, it’s important to rub-a-dub everything – including your bath pillow.
Bath pillows are great for your neck when you want to enjoy a long bath, and can be the perfect gift for any loved one, but their glamour and luxury gets a bit muddied when mold or mildew appears.
Maybe you’ve had your bath pillow for ages and are just starting to notice some mildew, or you’ve been gifted one and are unsure of how best to clean it after one or two many dips. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
It’s most helpful to get a pillow that you can hand wash frequently in order to prevent mold or mildew. Regardless, with this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about getting your bath pillow as clean as your body!
How to Wash a Bath Pillow (The Right Way!)
Natural Washing Technique
You may have friends that swear by vinegar as a natural cleaning agent. While it may make your nose crinkle, it’s not crazy, because the reaction between vinegar and baking soda can make a huge difference on stains.
Not only does it make for a wicked science experiment, but the combination of vinegar and baking soda also works wonders for breaking up stains. Plus, baking soda has been known to carry anti-fungal properties, so you can kiss mildew goodbye!
But when it comes to this cleaning combo, it’s important to get it right.
First off, don’t put the vinegar and the baking soda together beforehand. It might seem like a good idea to bottle the concoction beforehand, but it actually isn’t.
This is because the reaction of the two is what breaks up the mildew, not the chemical combination itself. The best way to achieve effective results is to keep the vinegar and baking soda separate until you need to use them together.
What you’ll need to do is add some diluted vinegar to your bathtub pillow and work in the baking soda so that it creates a kind of paste, scrubbing with a sponge or a used toothbrush. Scrub diligently to make sure you get all of that mildew out and then leave your pillow out to air dry and kill more bacteria.
After this process, you can repeat if you didn’t get everything, or gently rinse your bath pillow and leave it out to dry again until your next use.
The great thing about this combination is that you can also use it for general cleaning. So while you wait for your pillow, might as well get out any suspicious spots in your bathtub, tiled walls, or shower curtain, too!
Bleach Washing Technique
If you’re more into the hard-hitting stuff, you can also use a mild bleach wash.
First, you should check your pillow’s material and where it came from if you can’t find a tag, though. Some bath pillows may not be made of materials that work well with bleach, and you can actually end up doing more harm than good.
But if after double-checking, you’re good to go, then crack out your bleach, and let’s get to really power-washing your bathtub pillow!
Non-chlorine bleach is usually the safest option when it comes to cleaning on your own. Oxygen bleach in powder form makes for a good system of cleaning that is similar to the first one.
Instead of making a paste, though, you’ll need a lot more water and a lot less bleach. This is because bleach is a very strong chemical, where a little bit certainly goes a long way.
What you’ll need to do for this cleaning technique is to mix a very small amount of bleach with a large amount of water (1 tablespoon per 1 quart is a good rule of thumb). Then you can scrub like normal, making sure to get all of the stains and mildew and mildew stains out of your pillow.
Then, again you can rinse your pillow and leave it to air dry.
And, as bleach is a common household cleaner, you can use the leftover solution to continue cleaning your bathroom! You can also use it for the general upkeep of your bathroom, just make sure to keep the solution diluted because bleach is very strong.
Mildew and Stain Prevention
You may have noticed that these methods both share cleaning your bathroom area at the end. This is because one of the best ways to decrease stains and mildew on your bath pillow is to prevent them from accumulating, to begin with.
This can be done by cleaning your bathroom frequently. Making sure to keep things regularly sanitized and organized can make a great difference in cleanliness.
However, there are some places that just make for easy mildew growth. These are mostly in places with moisture and humidity.
So naturally, keeping the moisture and humidity down in your bathroom will help you prevent mold and mildew growth.
You can do this by using an exhaust fan if your bathroom has one. Another way to lower moisture is by refraining from keeping damp clothing/towels in the bathroom.
But even if after all of this you find mildew coming back every once in a while, at least you’ve got a foolproof method of dealing with it!
Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy the Bath (Pillow)
We understand that it’s important to take a deep breath and let your stress dissolve. So it can be frustrating to try and unwind only to discover mildew encroaching onto your best bath pillow!
That’s why we wanted to provide you with these effective and easy cleaning methods so that you can get back to enjoying your baths in no time.
In fact, if you’re ever in such a situation and just want to take that bath, why not browse our products and have a backup bath pillow handy so that you can take care of your soiled one later?
We also offer a variety of organizational products for any occasion, so take some time to browse our products and blog for more organization and relaxation inspirations!