Cleaning fabric trim, with our awesome Fabra Cadabra.

Having a number of cars with fabric seats, door trims, carpet, seat belts and hood linings, we needed to develop a good cleaner for them, something effective at cleaning, safe for all the different types of the fabric and something to help remove the musky smell some car interiors can get from sitting around for a period of time.

Fabra Cadabra sitting proud in the Brock 1979 A9X original seat, lets see how it removed some stains from it...

 

LEARNING FROM OUR MISTAKES

We have had some painful experiences with cloth trim in cars and incompatible car care products, one big US brand in particular badly stained/ bleached the colour of the dark fabric where we used it (yes, following their instructions), which was upsettingly irreparable... the only solution was for it to be re-trimmed.. You learn from your mistakes and after many years the idea of a good fabric cleaner was put to our chemist. It did not take him long as he had past experience in the field and we came up with our new Fabra Cadabra, named as we think it is pretty magic at removing stains and cleaning up fabric trim!

 

DEEP CLEANING

Fabra Cadabra has a deep cleaning formula, which works by removing the stains and other foreign items from the individual threads of the fabric, whilst not being damaging to them or most importantly, the stitching. We have found it cleans up oil, grease, meat pies, soft drinks, hair gel (don't ask), cattle dog muddy feet marks, kids marker pens (treat them ASAP before they dry), ladies foundation and mascara, chocolate, ice cream, coffee, blood, yellowing (usually from sweat or red bull drink) and a variety of other unidentifiable stains. The most important thing to remember is that you need to clean any stains off ASAP, the longer you leave them, the harder they can become to remove.

 

COLOUR SAFE

Fabra Cadabra has no solvents in it, so it is safe for ALL colour-safe fabrics and stitching, new and old. Always test a small area you cannot see first if you have any concerns.

 

COLOUR REJUVENATOR

We added in a pretty cool ingredient that rejuvenates the colour back to your trim whilst your cleaning, something needed with a lot of older cars that have not been cared for that well.

 

ODOUR REMOVAL

Our chemist sourced a nice fresh fragrance that helps remove odours in the car while you are cleaning, something we greatly appreciate with some of the musky smells the old cars can get at times after sitting around for a few years. It's also not bad at hiding the pong of a smokers car as well.

 

NATURAL SUEDE, ALCANTRA

This product is not suitable for older natural leather suede, something that was pretty rarely used in cars and after years of failures, never now. You cannot use any liquid on this type of material, if you do get marks in it, the best suggestion we have is to go and get a melamine sponge or magic eraser, use this to try and remove any marks you may have in it. Most cars nowadays especially the more expensive exotics use a synthetic suede, or Alcantra, made from microfibre, which our Fabra Cadabra is safe to use on.

  

Stains in the seat, some grease fingermarks and just imbedded dirt from many years of sitting around.

 

Fawn coloured trim is fantastic for showing up any marks. Black dot on the right is more grease..

 

HOW TO USE

Its quite simple, we use it with our Square Bear microfibre applicator pad, and our Plush Daddy interior cloth, although as a second best option, you can use a quality small square cleaning sponge as an applicator and a separate microfibre cloth.  Its best to do it in the shade, preferably indoors, in a reasonably well ventilated area (wind your windows down). 

 

Firstly its pretty important to try and get to the stain as soon as it has happened, the longer you wait, the more it gets set in and is harder to remove.

 

Closely inspect the area and marks to be cleaned, to determine what they are, removing any heavier substances, like meat pie material or sauce with damp cloth, or a plastic knife/ spatula. Note that items like glue, wax and chewing gum cannot be removed with Fabra Cadabra (to remove those ones, put a plastic bag with ice on the area and then after 10 minutes when it has hardened, work at chipping it away as delicately as you can).

  

With delicate trim, use the nozzle on its side, never straight on, so you dont risk damaging the fabric from too much suction.

 

Always give the area your about to clean a good vacuum so you're not pushing anything lying on the surface into the interior fabric whilst trying to clean it. 

 

  

Blot the surface you need cleaned, dont scrub!

Don't spray the product direct into the interior fabric!! For the best spot and specific mark cleaning, spray about 4 squirts of the Fabra Cadabra into the Square Bear applicator pad, making sure it has good coverage on the pad. Then apply in a blotting motion from the outside of the mark to the inside, so your not pushing the stain onto new areas of the fabric trim. Don't scrub it either, just use the same blotting motion so not to push the stain even deeper into the fabric (this is especially the case for something like tomato sauce and grease). 

 

  

You can see the slight lather in this shot as Fabra Cadabra works on removing the stains

 

Always check your cloth, this is from just cleaning this seat, you dont want to be rubbing this back into the fabric.

Let it sit for about 1 minute then apply the same way again. The ingredients in the Fabra Cadabra are this time working at releasing the stain from the fabric threads, so with the second application you will notice it had begun to leave the trim. You may with some stains need three to 4 applications like this. 

  

Wipe down with lint free microfibre and then leave to dry for 20 mins with the windows down.

After your happy that you have removed the stain, wipe it down with the Plush Daddy microfibre cloth to help it dry. Leave it sit for about 20 minutes with the car doors open and then finally once dry, give it one last vacuum to pull out any other material the Fabra Cadabra has removed from the fabric threads.

 

Now you may notice after this that the trim you have cleaned can be a slightly different lighter, cleaner colour to the rest of the trim, what this means is that the rest of your trim is dirty and could do with a freshen up!  So again spray the Fabra Cadabra into the applicator pad and apply to the rest of the area you want cleaned, in short, soft strokes across the fabric.  After doing this again let it dry and give it a final vacuum.

  

All done, and no damage to the delicate 33 year old fabric.

 

Up close, the marks are gone for good. Works like this on eveything we have tested it on to date!

 

Keep an eye on your applicator for built up dirt, turn it over to the clean side if it looks excessive. You can wash the microfibre applicator in the wash once your done as well. Read more about this here.

 

CARPET STAINS

For carpet stains use a similar procedure to above, with just a few extra sprays used into the Square Bear applicator pad as the material is a bit denser than trim on your seats or doors.  

 

NEW CAR SYNTHETICS: ULTRA SUEDE AND ALCANTRA

Use exactly the same cleaning method as mentioned above, just being sure not to wet the fabric too deeply. Lightly brush the surface with a soft bristle brush (like our Pouncer) once it is vacuumed and dry, to keep the material nice and soft.

 

SEAT BELTS

If you have old, dirty seat belts, just spray the Fabra Cadabra into the applicator and rub into the dirt and grime inflicted areas, you will be amazed how well they can come up. We have some white ones that were filthy and they came back like new with not much work.

  

IT'S AVAILABLE NOW!

We have used this formulation on numerous types of trims from new exotic fabrics, basic well used trim (from our courier delivery drivers trucks) to delicate old ones (like the Brock A9X) and had great success with them all. Fabra Cadabra can be found in our best supporting stores across Australia, you can find your closest one on our stockist page by clicking here.

If you are not near any of our stores, the Fabra Cadabra is available on our website here.

 

If you have any questions, please email info@bowdensown.com.au or FREECALL our office on 1800 351 308.

Love your car,

Dan Bowden