How to Spot-Clean Decorative Throw Pillows

Decorative pillows are both functional and add a punch of personality to your living room sofa or accent chair. What happens when your favorite throw pillow gets hit with a stain? Follow these pro cleaning tips to get your decorative pillow back to the sofa in time for the weekend.

Pro Tip | We recommend dry clean only for all our Chloe & Olive handcrafted designer pillow covers to maintain the quality and longevity of the fabric. Weekly light vacuuming is desirable to remove dirt and dust particles in addition to annual or semi-annual dry cleaning to extend the life your pillow covers.

Blotting a spill immediately helps prevent potential staining. It’s the most important step to the cleaning process. Use a white fabric towel rather than a paper towel to avoid material transfer for this next step. Blot the white towel into the wet stain to soak up as much of the liquid as possible. The key here is to blot and not rub. Rubbing will drive the liquid deeper into the fabric and cause possible damage. Continue blotting until no more liquid has transferred to the towel. By using a white towel, rather than a colored towel, ensures no color transfer onto the throw pillow.

We prefer this homemade solution to cleaning our Chloe & Olive throw pillows. We highly recommend testing a smaller area first to ensure the soapy water does not affect the dye on the fabric. Mix a couple cups of cool water with a teaspoon of dish soap (we prefer Dawn). Next, dip a section of the clean white fabric towel into the soapy mixture and wring out as much water as possible. Blot the stain with the white fabric towel and repeat. Let the throw pillow air-dry before placing it back on your living room sofa.

For spots such as chewing gum, chocolate or sticky syrup, place a zippered sandwich bag full of ice over the sticky spot until it hardens. Next, scrape away the hardened debris with the edge of a plastic knife starting at the stain edge and working your way inward. If the debris softens again, reapply the ice then scrape again. If a spot remains, follow up with the soapy cleaner outlined above.

You’ll need to reach under your bathroom sink for this cleaning solution. First, dab the pen mark using a clean area of the white fabric towel each time you dab. Dab until the white towel is free of any ink. Place a fresh white fabric towel under the stain, moisten a clean white towel with rubbing alcohol and dab the stain. The ink should begin to dissolve almost immediately. Continue dabbing the stain until no further ink is released from the fabric. Dab with cool water and let air-dry. As always, test the rubbing alcohol on a small, inconspicuous area of the pillow first to ensure colors won’t bleed.