How to Clean an Iron: Tips and Techniques

If you're a sower or quilter or even if you're just a person who irons their clothes. Sooner or later, your iron is going to need to be cleaned. And most people don't realize this over time residue will build up on your iron. It may be from fusible webbing that we use when we do app licate it could be that we've scorched a garment. And the burn has stayed on the iron. Regardless of why your iron is dirty it is important to clean it. For two main reasons. Number one, you don't want that dirt and residue to get on your next item that you're going to be pressing or ironing. And number two, you want to keep your iron working at top efficiency. Irons are meant to glide, to glide smoothly over the fabric surfaces. And if there's residue built up on your iron it won't be able to move easily. It will get stuck. It can cause more scorching. It's just wise to make sure your iron is in tip-top condition. So I wanna show you today how to properly clean an iron. The first thing you're going to need is hot iron cleaner and it's called hot iron cleaner because it is applied while the iron is hot, hot, hot, hot, the hotter the better that's how we get the rest residue off. This is one brand. There are several different brands out there. This is by Faultless. Faultless makes spray starch and other products that we use with ironing. There's one by Dritz. There's also one by Rowenta. And that's just three to get you started. So hot iron cleaners out there. You typically can find it at your local fabric store. And sometimes you can even find it in the grocery store in the laundry area. You can buy your iron cleaner alone or sometimes you can buy it as a kit. And when you get the kit, it's going to have a terry type of towel or application pad, if you will. It's just a simple terry cloth. And then, and that's what you apply it with. And then you have another fiber type of cloth that you use to remove the residue. If you don't think irons get dirty, let me show you mine. You know, I'm a professional long-arm quilter and my iron is getting used every single day. And I do all kinds of quilting and sewing. So I'm working with fusibles and everything else. This is my cleaning cloth that I've used for quite a while. This has just been maybe the last two or three cleanings, though. This is not built up over years. This is just the last couple of cleanings. And you can see the amount of gunk that was on my iron. You can also see how much of the cleaner comes off onto the polishing cloth. So yes, your iron does get dirty. Yes, it does need to be cleaned. I'm just gonna use these rather than messing up my new one. So I'm going to get one more use out of it here and show you how to do this. So this iron is hot, hot, hot. You don't want to burn your fingers. So I tend to dub. Let me see. I've got eight layers here. I make it nice and thick. So I don't get burnt. This is a paste that comes out, kind of like a toothpaste just squirt a little bit on there. You can always add more and then you're going to pick up the cloth and you just rub this over the iron like this. And it will smoke and make sure you get the edges too on the sides here because you do tend to get some residue on there. And you wanna clean it off really well. Sometimes you have to do two or three applications. It looks like I'm gonna need one more here to get the rest of it off. So I just add a little bit more, not a big deal. And go ahead and rub it in, put a little pressure on it. This iron is on my highest setting. It's on a linen setting, I believe. And it is, yeah, I'm past linen and it's on the high steam. I am not feeling at all with that many layers between my hand and the iron. So yes, you can try this at home. You're perfectly safe. As long as you follow the directions. Tt looks like I've gotten all of the residue off of the iron. You can see where there was quite a bit there. Even though the iron looked relatively clean. Then you're going to take your polishing cloth. I'm gonna turn it to the inside where it hasn't been used as much. And once again, I'd probably go with the eight layers and just rub it really, really good. If you don't want to do that, your other option is lay it down and I press really higher-ed and go across it. I also like to go ahead and steam to get anything out of the steam holes, if any of the cleaner got in there. And make sure you wipe the edges because you clean those too. You don't want that to get on your next garment Take a look and make sure it looks nice and clean. If you see you missed a spot, go back and do it again. And that is how you come up with a nice clean iron. Occasionally I have been known to take a bottle of water and spritz it afterwards just to make sure I've gotten every bit of cleaner off and then do the polishing cloth one more time. But if you do that on a routine basis you will prolong the life of your iron and have a much more pleasant ironing experience each and every time.