4 steps to clean your iron the absolute easiest way

Yesterday on QUILTsocial I showed you how using the Heirloom non-stick Teflon™ Applique Mat makes fusible applique with multiple small shapes so much easier. I do lots of fusible applique and unfortunately, I’ve managed to get quite a bit of adhesive (and other substances) on the soleplate of my Oliso PRO™ TG1600 Smart Iron. So, it seems like a good idea to show you the absolute easiest way to clean your iron today!

The dirty soleplate of Christine’s Oliso Pro™ TG1600 Smart Iron.

So, I obviously haven’t cleaned my iron in a while, but that’s only because I wasn’t sure how to do it. Enter the UNIQUE Home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner found at your local quilt store.

The UNIQUE Home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner

Step 1 – Remove the cap

The first thing to do is to remove the cap on the UNIQUE Home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner. There’s a plastic ring on the bottom that you pull off and then the cap will slide off to expose the hard, wax-like substance underneath.

Remove the outer cap.

Step 2 – Heat up the iron and rub the cleaner on the soleplate

The UNIQUE Home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner package says to set your iron to 60°C – this is probably the lowest setting on your iron. Place the iron in an upright position on a cloth and then cover the sole-plate with a thin layer of cleaner. The wax-like substance melts as it touches the hot soleplate.

Cover the sole-plate with a thin layer of the cleaner.

Cover the entire area with the milky-white cleaner.

Cover the entire sole-plate.

Step 3 – Rub the sole-plate

Now use an old towel or some other textured cloth to rub the sole-plate to remove all traces of dirt. Keep rubbing until all the cleaner has been removed. Since my iron was so heavily soiled, I reapplied the cleaner and rubbed it clean a few times.

Rub with a textured cloth.

Step 4 – Blast some steam

If you’re cleaning a steam iron, increase the temperature to the cotton setting and give a couple blasts of steam to free the holes of any cleaner residue.

And here’s my clean iron! As you can see, not all the stains were removed but I’m very pleased with how the iron turned out. The stains on my iron have been there for a while now and I wasn’t expecting all of them to be go away, so I’m happy with how much of the adhesive and dirt was removed!

After the cleaner

I’m so happy with how my iron turned out after using the UNIQUE Home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner! And now that I know how easy it is to clean an iron I’ll do it more often to prevent any more permanent damage to the sole-plate.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up ironing week by making a super easy iron board caddy to help store all of the great iron accessories that I talked about. Join me!

UNIQUE home Iron Sole-Plate Cleaner, UNIQUE sewing Self-Gripping Fastener Strip, Oliso M2Pro Mini Project Iron, Clover Hot Hemmer, Clover Hold It Precision Stiletto, UNIQUE Wool Pressing Mat, Misting Spray Bottle, Gütermann Thread

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: 9 steps to quick and easy fusible applique, the right way

Go to part 5: 9 easy steps to sew a handy ironing board caddy!

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