Everyone wants quick and efficient ways to clean their most-used items, and shaving cream has been presented as just such a method for cleaning car upholstery—but its use can go very wrong. Before you cover your cab in Barbasol, here’s why you should reconsider.
The problem with shaving cream
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All over the internet, you’ll find blogs and even auto detailers recommending the use of shaving cream to spruce up your car seats. You’re supposed to use dye-free foam, not gel, and work it in with a sponge or soft brush before wiping them clean.
In none of these tutorials will you find an explanation of how or why this is supposed to “clean” anything, but what’s more, you won’t find much information on how much to use. Those are two big problems. Foam comes out of cans quickly and is hard to measure, especially with your eyes. You might think you have a relatively small amount in hand only to discover you have a lot more than you thought—and scrubbing at it only makes it grow. For proof of what that looks like in action, see this Reddit post from a user asking for “the best way to fix [a] ‘shaving foam hack’ fail,” which includes photos of car seats absolutely covered in the stuff.
No matter what you use to clean your car seats (or any upholstery), you have to extract it all when you’re done; and foam, which expands and penetrates deeply, is not a good idea here, especially when the foam itself isn’t designed to clean anything, but rather create a protective barrier between your razor and your skin.
How to clean car upholstery instead
Sometimes, friends, there is no hack. We live in a thriving, modern society where we can purchase specially-made products to tackle specific tasks. Cleaning car seats is one of the times we should embrace that. This Chemical Guys cleaner has a 4.5-star rating from over 31,000 reviews on Amazon and is $12—but it does foam, so follow the instructions carefully. To avoid foam altogether (which is not a bad idea), you can pay about $5 more for an equally highly rated spray cleaner from the Car Guys.
Once you get your hands on the right product, be sure to use it sparingly, per Car and Driver, as you don’t want to soak the foam padding under there and end up with mold or mildew. Scrub the cleaner in, give it time to work, and most crucially, get it all out again when you’re done. One person who responded to that unfortunate Reddit thread identified themselves as a car detailer and suggested using microfiber cloths to pull any remaining cleaner or water out of the seats.
Your best bet may even be to get a mini upholstery cleaner that you can use in the car. The Bissell Little Green Multi-Purpose Portable Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner will cost you over $100 more than a can of shaving cream, but it might be worth it if you want to get the seats nice and clean—and keep them that way.