pink rose topiary and cherub statue on piano in front of floral painting

Tips To Keep Your Artificial Flowers Clean

If you love to use faux flowers to decorate your home, you also know that they can become a bit dusty over time.

The thought of cleaning faux flowers can be a little daunting, especially when they're a part of an arrangement that you want to keep intact. So, today I'm going to give you a few tips on how to clean your flowers without chemicals.

Flower painting with pink rose topiary and statue on piano

First, I have to tell you that if your flowers haven't been cleaned in awhile, it's going to take a little more effort the first time you go to clean them. Dust build up can be beast like when you use a few of these wet techniques. So don't blow in frustration and say nasty things about me if it doesn't work right away. (Joking - I'm sure you wouldn't do that.)

Seriously, it may take a couple of tries to get the dirt off if your flowers have been sitting around the house collecting dust for awhile.

One more thing. Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. That simply means that if you decide to use one of them, I may be paid for referring it to you.

Now that the technical stuff is covered. Let's get those flowers cleaned.

Soap & Water

This method is probably the easiest because we all have a little dish liquid and water at our disposal. My personal recommendation for dish liquid is Mrs. Meyers. I like the way it smells, cleans, and that it's not made with harsh chemicals. I use this stuff like crazy so it's just easier for me to get the subscription box, which I've linked to in the photo below.

Blow Dryer Method

The low setting of a hair dryer works for a little dust on your flower leaves and petals, but I'm not a huge fan of blowing dust all around the room. So while this method is one that appears to work, I'm not a huge fan of it.

 

Grit Method

This method is a little better than the method above because it traps the dust in the gritty particles rather than blowing everything all around. But, this would only work for arrangements that you would keep in a vase, taller flowers that aren't affixed to something (like a faux cake).

You simply take a plastic bag, like a freezer bag, and add some cornmeal, rice, or gritty grain to the bag. Next, dip your flowers inside the bag, close the top of the bag around the stems with the grasp of your hand and shake gently.

cornmeal and a zip lock bag with faux flowers on counter top

This method is also best used for lighter dusting job and not really dusty flowers or those with matted dust particles.

 

Alcohol Method

Adding about 1 cup of alcohol to about 1 cup of water with 1 TBS of vinegar makes an amazing window cleaner, but it's probably my favorite of all of these methods for cleaning artificial flowers. It also makes an amazing window cleaner!

 

This is a larger bottle of alcohol that can be purchased here, but I know this brand is also sold at WalMart.

 

Any quality spray bottle will do for this. Sometimes I've gotten mine from Home Depot, but have found that the dollar store ones and ones at WalMart are too cheap to work effectively. 

One Last Note

Just a side note for cleaning your flowers on your faux cakes. Be careful to spray lightly and wipe with a cloth when using these on your cakes. It's probably best to place a small cloth around the base of the flower arrangement before spraying to keep your cake from becoming wet. 

Another idea, but a little more tedious, is to spray a rag or cloth and gently wipe your flowers.

So, friends, I hope this has been helpful and inspires you to keep using those artificial flowers and not toss them the first sign of a little grime. 

What methods have you used for cleaning your artificial flowers? Drop a comment to let me know.

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