If Your Car Seats Are Stained, You Need This Dollar Tree Cleaning Hack

Regular maintenance is key to keeping your car fresh inside and out. Knowing how to keep your car interior clean is the first step to preventing the stubborn buildup of grime, but some parts of your car’s interior aren’t as easy to clean as your dashboard (which you can wipe down with a soft cloth or cleaner) or floor mats (which you can shake out and vacuum). When approaching stubborn seat stains, you might be in a quandary. What cleaner is safe to use? How do you get the stain out for good?

Accidents happen, but unfortunate spills and leaks from fast food containers and grocery bags don’t have to stake their claim as a permanent feature of your car. Although specific cleaners are made to remove car upholstery stains, and you can always hire a professional, one woman shared a Dollar Tree glass cleaner hack that will only cost you a buck and some change.

How This Creator Used Dollar Tree Glass Cleaner for Her Car

@dessa.do Using Dollar Tree glass cleaner to clean my car seats!@yogirlangel_5 sent me this hack to try!!! #dollartree #tiktokhacks #toddlermom #messy ♬ #WIPEITDOWN – BMW KENNY

TikTok creator Adessa (@dessa.do) skipped the costly car upholstery cleaner and tested a Dollar Tree glass cleaner hack for her car seat stains. She starts the video—which has over 320,000 likes on the platform at the time of publication—by briefing the viewer that she’s about to test out a hack her best friend shared with her.

After describing the mission, the TikToker enters a Dollar Tree store and scopes out the cleaning aisle. When she finds the product she’s looking for, the video zooms in on Chase’s Home Value Glass Cleaner with Ammonia. She then shows her front and back car seats covered in stains. She sprays down a seat with a liberal amount of glass cleaner and uses a scrub brush to work the product into the fabric.

At the end of her video are two photos showing a drastic before and after—the car seats look clean and stain-free.

Does It Work?

Cianna Garrison for Family Handyman

I’m terrible at spring cleaning cars. As a result, each car I’ve owned has been neglected because I don’t have time to keep my ride immaculate. With my lax attitude, spotting two car seat stains that needed cleaning was easy. So I headed to my local Dollar Tree, bought the same glass cleaner (which cost $1.25 plus tax), and sprayed down my seats, following the same scrubbing method as the video. I could tell it was working before I let it dry. In the video, the TikTok creator doesn’t wipe her seats with a cloth, but I chose to do so, fearing the glass cleaner would spread to the leather portions of my upholstery.

Although one might not think a glass cleaner can double as an upholstery cleaner, this TikTok hack worked well enough to suggest you should add it to your list of car cleaning tips and tricks. My front-right and back-left car seats had four stains between them, and the cleaner removed all but one. If you have concerns about the cleaner making a stain worse, I noticed that the stain that didn’t come out is a bit lighter in color than before. However, since the cleaner removed my other stains well, I didn’t see this as a big problem. I did perform a spot test before I scrubbed the entire seat, so it surprised me one stain was lighter in color.

If you’re worried about potentially lightening a stain, I might steer clear of this hack. But for someone who has an older car with some pretty beat-up seats, this is a cheap solution that (mostly) works. Just remember to avoid breathing the cleaner and not mix it with bleach (the combination of ammonia and bleach creates deadly fumes).

It’s also important to note that ammonia can damage some fabrics, so if your car’s upholstery is fairly new, this hack may not be worth trying. Always do a spot test before you spray it all over your seat.