How to Clean Headliner in a Car – Foam or Powder?
The headliner in the work car/van is dirty so I thought I’d do a video showing how to clean headliner in a car. I bought some foam fabric cleaner for the job but considering the foam cleaner cost around 5 euro a can I thought I’d try mixing some washing powder with water to see what kind of job that could do as well. You know, considering I could make a litre of the washing powder solution for probably less than 10 cents.
How To Clean Headliner in a Car – Which is BEST?
Both the foam fabric cleaner and the washing powder solution cleaned equally well.
Horses for Courses
Ultimately, if cost is no object when it comes to cleaning your car’s headliner, the foam cleaner is the way to go. It’s less messy, more reliable and does as good a job as the powder. The downside is the cost.
The cheapest solution for cleaning a car’s headliner is the washing powder. The downsides of the washing powder is it can be messier because we are dealing with water. The pump bottle nozzle can get blocked with the washing powder, if the powder is not fully dissolved in the solution. The benefit is that it’s a super cheap solution.
Cleaning Car Headliner Options – Pluses and Minuses
| Foam Cleaner | Washing Powder Solution |
| Expensive | Cheap |
| No mess | Water drops |
| Easy application | Spray bottle nozzle can block |
| Great cleaning | Great cleaning |
Other Things Required
Apart from the foam and/or washing powder solution the only other thing you need to clean a car headliner is some microfiber towels. One is probably not going to do the job. For the average headliner I’d say you are going to need at least 10, small, good quality microfibre towels to make a good job.
The last thing you want to be doing is using a slightly dirty microfibre towel on your headliner. It’s just not going to clean properly.
And it’s also important to use a good quality microfibre towel. There are towels out there which are like paper. In my experience, these are not going to do the job. You need a towel with a bit of thickness to it so it can suck out the dirt from the headliner.
And that’s it.
In my experience, even a very dirty headliner can come out looking like new with either the foam or the washing power solution.
