We are in the midst of the holiday season, and you know what that means: family is coming to visit.

It’s time to get out the scrubbing bubbles and Pine-Sol for a thorough cleaning. Can you guess what the number one skipped surface is when people are cleaning house?

The window blinds. 

Whether you skip them intentionally because they’re an overwhelming hassle or because you forgot they existed, you will want to give them a good wipe down before momma comes to visit.

To make your holiday cleaning easier, we will teach you how to clean window blinds quickly and effectively.

Read on.

Leave the Blinds Up

Unlike most things in your house that need a thorough cleaning, you’ll want to leave your blinds up on the windows instead of taking them down. If you’ve already taken your blinds down, it would be easier to go through the hassle of putting them back up there than to try and clean them while they are down.

Leaving the blinds up not only gives you the best access to each individual slats, but it’s almost as if you have a second set of hands holding them still for you.

Dry Dust

Before you do any kind of deep cleaning, you’ll want to do a quick dry sweep. This will knock down the piles of collected dust, whereas a wet rag would just make everything clump and a lot more difficult to clean. 

You can use any kind of cloth to dry dust from a Swiffer duster to a microfiber cloth to a paper towel. Beware of traditional feather dusters, as they tend to just push the dust into the air where it will settle back onto the blinds as soon as you finish.

Wipe with Damp Microfiber Cloth

For heavily soiled blinds, you can use a damp cloth. However, what cleaning agents you dampen the cloth with can vary depending on the material of your blinds.

Four plastic blinds, you can use any kind of mild cleaner from pure water to all-purpose to Pine-Sol.

If you have wooden window blinds, treat them like any other treated wood furniture. You can find scented wooden furniture polish in most cleaning isles (we like lemon-scented).

For fabric window blinds, you can use a warm soapy water mixture. Be sure not to get the blinds too wet and always blot dry them as much as possible.

Vacuum Any Excess Dust

And last but not least, don’t forget to do a quick vacuum around the windowsills and floor underneath. With all of the scrubbing and wiping, you’re bound to push some dust into the air, which frustratingly settles on the sills and floors.

Learning How to Clean Window Blinds Just Takes Practice

Learning how to clean window blinds quickly yet effectively is an art, and can take a few tries to master. The good news is, you probably have enough windows around the house to get all of that practice in.

Thinking about yanking all of the blinds down to avoid cleaning them? Check out this article on why that’s a bad idea.