I Tried That Viral Dishwasher Tablet Cleaning Hack on My Sofa  —  And Here’s How It Went

Who knew a dishwasher tablet could clean more than the dishes? Truthfully, I never gave it much thought. I mean, dishwasher tablets were made for the dishwasher, so why would I ever think to dissolve them to try and clean something else, like my sofa? But this TikTok video managed to convince me otherwise.

There was no denying my light-colored acrylic sofa was gradually starting to show the dirt from normal everyday use with two small kids in the house. But I have to admit that as I was watching TikTok user @charlascleaninghacks dissolve a dishwasher tablet in water, dunk the towel in it to absorb the solution, then wrap the towel around a pot lid to clean her sofa with it all, I found myself asking if it would be safe to use it on my sofa. Dishes, sure. My plates and cups can withstand more powerful cleaners. But would this cleaning solution be too harmful? Would it discolor or leave behind a weird residue on the fabric? (Spoiler alert: My sofa survived unharmed. Whew!)

I chatted with a local cleaning pro and she advised me to patch-test the cleaning solution first before applying it to the entire surface of my sofa. I wanted to make sure it didn’t cause any weird reactions so I took her advice and picked a spot at the back where no one could see. After taking the towel and applying a small amount, it dried with no marks or outlines left behind on my sofa. 

Here are the steps I followed to clean my sofa with a dishwasher tablet.

To start, grab a tablet and dissolve it thoroughly in warm to hot water in your sink. I made sure the water was hot enough to dissolve the tablet completely so no blue gel or white powder was visible. Once dissolved, soak a microfiber towel in the solution and give it a good wring to get rid of the excess water; you don’t want it dripping.

Pick a small lid from one of the pots you cook with. Then wrap your towel around it like in the TikTok video. This was a new cleaning trick I had never attempted. Be sure to pick a lid you can fully wrap with the towel and grab comfortably around the handle.

Once you have your towel-wrapped lid in hand, start going over your sofa in a circular motion. Wrapping the towel around the lid allows you to clean larger areas of the couch faster. For those spots that needed a little extra scrubbing, I removed the towel from the lid and used just the towel itself to zero in on those stained spots. Unfortunately, the micro-fleece towel bunched up a little, so I found myself unfolding it several times to keep it from balling up.

Did I end up seeing a drastic before and after? No, not really. But I was left with a sofa having less visible drool marks from my kids falling asleep, and it smells much cleaner, too. So that’s positive! Would I try it again? To be honest, probably not. Instead, I’ll keep my eye out for more effective sofa-cleaning hacks to try in the future.