DIY : How To Dry Clean Plush Toys

Thrifting doesn’t seem to be new here because I love scoring items at a low price. The other day my daughter and I went to the wet market and thought of passing by the thrift store. I can’t seem to evade the winking magic word “sale” out of my eyes. So we went in and started to rummage some items.

When I was rummaging some skirts at the clothes rack, my daughter was also busy staring at some of the plush toys in the cabinet. Minutes later I saw her pull a chair, put down her umbrella and climbed up the chair trying to reach the toy cow. To cut the chase, she insisted me to buy it. I cannot say “no” to it anyway.

But the toy cow needs a little furbishing. So, I am sharing with you how I effectively clean my kids’ toys using materials inside your home.

Materials needed:

• Dry cleaning bag. I don’t have a laundry bag so I had to do makeshift; I used a large laundry bag instead.
• Baking Soda.
• Laundry detergent.
• Brush preferably with fine bristles.
• Washcloth.
• Blower (optional)

Procedures:

• Place the plush toy inside the garbage bag and sprinkle it with generous amount of baking soda. Paying attention to the areas with stain and discolorations.
• Close the laundry bag and set it aside for 15-30 minutes.
• Get your brush and start brushing off the baking soda from the toy. Note though that it requires patience and you should do it in a place where you can make mess with freedom.
• If there are hard-to-remove stains, damp the cloth with water and rub a detergent soap to the area and continuously rub it lightly until the discoloration disappears.
• Use the blower to make the toy dry. You can also air dry the toy especially if it has delicate materials.

Before dry cleaning

After dry cleaning

I use this technique especially to the battery-operated plush toys because laundry shops don’t accept these kinds of toys. One more thing, I find a little injustice that one laundry shop will charge us Php1500 for a backrest pillow that we scored from a surplus shop, which we got only a fraction from its original prize. There is also growing number of plush toys here and just imagine if I would bring them to the laundry shop for dry cleaning every week, what do you think will happen to my pocket then?

Hope this helps especially to mommies with kids who have A LOT of plush toys too. How do you clean your kids' plush toys? Share yours too.