Whether it’s a young baby ​drinking from a bottle, or a grown adult indulging in a late-night snack, milk accidents can happen to anyone. Drinking milk regularly might be beneficial for bone density and good digestion, but carpets do not enjoy the same benefits we do.

Not only does the spilled milk stain, but some types of carpet can trap small liquid particles and leave milk on your carpet and allow it to spoil. Read on to find ​out how to clean milk out of carpet.

​Why Milk Causes Carpet Stains

At first glance, it seems like milk makes a very odd substance to produce such a dramatic and pronounced stain.

Milk is a natural product, unlike other notoriously stain-worthy liquids like soda and wine. 

However, milk does stain. And, as it stains, it also produces a sour, rotten smell, which only compounds the problem.

The reason milk stains is because it contains proteins and fats that adhere to whatever it is spilled on.

These complex chemical compounds don’t come out easily once they have adhered, and require enzymatic action to break them down.

​Beyond staining, they start to smell, worse and worse over time.

​Not only do you need to treat the stain, but you’ll probably have to treat the smell as well. If you catch the spill quickly, you might dodge the smell, so don’t delay to clean milk out of carpet as quickly as you can after it happens.

​How to Clean Milk Out of Carpet

Have you ever noticed some rooms or cars smell funky? The floor seems to be clean, but you can tell there’s a strange smell around. This could be due to spilt milk that was left to dry or not properly cleaned from the surface. Dried milk on carpet fibers is a very distinct smell that only very powerful air fresheners can hide.

Learning how to clean milk from carpet isn’t hard, but there are several key steps you need to take. ​Whether 1%, non-fat, or soy, all milk will behave (and stain) relatively in the same manner.

Materials Needed

• ​Clean Towel or Microfiber Cloth
• ​Warm Water
• ​Dishwasher Detergent

• ​Corn Starch or Baking Soda
• ​Vacuum Cleaner

For starters, lets go over the materials you are going to need, regardless of whether it is a new or old stain.

​Before you begin, it is important to know that you should only be using cool water while cleaning the milk stain from carpet.

This is because warm or hot water will not only set the stain in the carpet but it will also make the leftover odor much stronger and harder to remove. 

​Stick to cool water when you are using it to blot out the milk or creating a cleaning mixture like a half and half water/vinegar cleaner.

How to Get Recently Spilled Milk Out of Carpet

If you are able to treat the ​milk spill as quickly as it happens, you are in luck. The sooner you are able to get to the stain, the easier it will be to take it out. This is the secret for how to clean milk out of carpet – get to it quickly. So roll up those sleeves and get cleaning as soon as you see a spill!

If you have spilled milk on your furniture then you can also follow these steps to help you figure out how to get milk out of couch cushions. Especially if it is a recent spill, you should be able to get it off of your upholstery if you act fast and follow these steps.

​1. Dab the Stain

Use the microfiber cloth and carefully dab off as much of the liquid as you can. Do not rub the stain on the carpet as you may be driving liquid further down the carpet fibers. Rubbing can also damage your carpet fibers, causing them to fray and look distressed over time.

Take your time dabbing the stain on the carpet, using several cloths if need be. You can also wring out the cloth you have to extend its use. You can also use paper towels to help absorb as much of the moisture that you are able to.

Resist the urge to rub the carpet at all. While this would pick up the milk a lot quicker, it also drives the stain deeper into the carpet. The proteins in the milk are then more likely to stick and stay with your carpet, causing an ongoing smell.

Once you’ve dabbed up all of the milk, place the used microfiber towel in a bowl full of water to rinse out.

​2. Treat the Stain

Use a mixture of cool water and dishwasher detergent in a bowl or spray bottle to spot treat the milk stain on your carpet. Use another clean microfiber towel and treat it with the cleaning mix to use over the stain.

Using a spray bottle helps you control how much moisture you put back into your carpet. Soaking the stained area by pouring cleaner onto it will create too much chaos of an over soaked carpet that you may not be able to fully dry.

You can spray the area and let the cleaner be absorbed naturally by the carpet fibers so that it begins to break down the enzymes of the spilled milk. This way your carpet is damp with cleaner and easy to be blotted up.

Thoroughly cover the stain with the liquid or spray. Allow the mixture to extend a little beyond the visible stain and onto the clean carpet, just to be sure. Once again, try to dab and not rub the towel over the stain as much as possible.

Repeat this process several times, applying the liquid and then dabbing it out. When you’re done, the stain should appear to be visibly gone, although there is still another step to take.

​3. Pull the Stain Out

Once that is done, you can move on to using the cleaning powder to chemically attract the last drops of milk ​from the carpet. Drop some powdered cornstarch or baking soda over the stain and leave it for 5-10 minutes.

If you are deodorizing a carpeted area, you would normally leave the baking soda or cornstarch for a longer period, but this step is simply to pull out the excess liquid that has been leftover from the milk and the previous cleaner that you used.

Fine powders like baking soda or cornstarch are good at attracting liquid in ways that no towel could ever dream of. The powder will pull liquid up and thoroughly dry the surrounding area.​

Using baking soda is also a wonderful carpet cleaning hack that helps to remove the agents that lead to the long term smell problem that spilled milk can produce. Since you are not leaving the baking soda for more than ten minutes, after you finish the stain removal steps, you will want to sprinkle more down and leave it overnight to make sure no smell lingers.

​4. Vacuum the Stain

Pick up the powder with a ​powerful vacuum cleaner and inspect the area. There should be little to no milky smells coming from the stain, and it should feel clean to the touch. Wait a couple of hours for the area to dry completely and repeat the process if necessary.  

You should work faster if the ​spillage occurs on shag carpet as it can easily trap the stain before you even notice it.

​There is a chance that the stain could come back in the next few weeks. If so, just reapply the cleaning mixture and follow the same process for how to get spilled milk from carpet.

​One final tip – make absolute certain the area is dry before moving on from the cleaning. If it is still damp, even slightly, then it runs the risk of attracting dirt and debris, which can permanently damage the carpet.

How to Get ​an Old Milk Stain ​Up From Carpet

As previously mentioned, spilling milk on your carpet is worse than spilling soda or even wine. These other liquids might leave a darker stain, but milk is one of the few liquids that will crust, change colors, and begin to smell… bad.

If you have a carpet stain​ that happened a while back, you will need to take some extra measures. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the stain will be completely removed. However, there is still a great benefit to spot-cleaning an old milk stain.

​1. Pre-treat the Stain

Begin by pre-treating the stain with the same mixture explained above. Throw the mixture in a spray bottle and generously soak the surface. Leave to rest for about 15 minutes and then use a clean microfiber towel to soak up the liquid.

Pre-treating the stain in simple terms is you rehydrating the original spill that has crusted and dried up. When you rehydrate the area, it will help loosen up the clumped together dried milk so that you can begin the removal process.

You can do this several times if need be. Each time should be slowly loosening the stain up, even if it’s hard to tell. Once pieces of the stain are loosened up and removed, then it creates a path for the rehydrating to reach further into the dried stain.

The key to this step is to let the mixture soak thoroughly before drying it up. Don’t scrub – we’ll do that in the next step. The job of this cleaning mixture is to break down the stain and prepare it for scrubbing.

​2. Scrub the Stain

If you have access to a shampoo cleaning machine, this will be the perfect time to use it. You will probably need to give the carpet a couple of passes before anything noticeable happens. Eventually, the stain will begin to look less obvious and any smells will be eliminated.

If you don’t have access to a carpet-cleaning machine, you can still remove the odor from your carpet. There are cleaning powders, such as Arm & Hammer Litter Carpet & Room Pet Fresh Odor Eliminator, that may effectively purge the odors from the carpet.

Additionally, a combination of lukewarm water and vinegar​ on the stain for 30 minutes might remove any remaining odors. Since you are dealing with an already dried stain, you can get away with using lukewarm water during this cleaning, instead of sticking with cold water only as mentioned previously. 

​3. Vacuum and Remove Odor

Once you’re satisfied with getting the stain up, you ​can quickly vacuum and work on removing the odor, following the same steps as above. ​

Avoid adding an smell enhancers if at all possible. Some people recommend adding lemon to your mixture, for example, as it has a pleasant aroma.

The problem with adding any of these things to your cleaning mixture is that you are introducing new agents to the stain. And, you don’t know how those agents are going to interact with the stain. They could actually make it worse, or get rid of the smell but pronounce the stain.

When in doubt, just continue applying and reapplying baking soda and/or vinegar, or a purchased solution. If this doesn’t stop the smell then there are a few different odor fighting items found in your pantry that you can use on your carpet for persistent sour milk odors that will be addressed a little further down.

​​Insider Tip: Keep a lightweight, easy-to-grab vacuum in a closet near your heavily trafficked areas. It will make it a lot easier to quickly clean a spill in the future. Here are our ​reviews of top cheap vacuum choices​ that can go in your closet.

How to Clean Breast Milk from Carpet

Old milk stains are especially bad when they are from formula or breast milk. Sometimes, even the most effective techniques might be no match for these accidental spots.

Breast milk has a stronger concentration than regular​ milk that you buy in the grocery store. Thus, its potential to stain is much higher. Your best defense is to treat the spilled breast milk immediately.

​As a mother that is breastfeeding, keep towels at the ready in places where the milk could potentially spill. This way, you’ll be at the ready if a little accident were to occur.

Sometimes a well made nursing bra and breastfeeding shirts will make it a lot more convenient to feed as well, making it easier and subsequently reducing spills as a result.

If you are a new mom and are dealing with constant formula or breast milk spills, take advantage of the information found on forum sites. These are written by real people that have similar problems, and can help you find the answer to a specific situation you might be having.

Review

• ​Pre-treat area with mixture
• ​Let soak
• ​Vacuum with shampoo machine
• ​Remove odor with cleaning powder

​Why Sour Milk Smells So Bad

Milk starts to smell bad when the bacteria that it contains starts to ferment. As it ferments, the chemicals that are released produce a very strong and nasty smell. It is this smell that clearly tells us the milk has soured, or gone bad.

Specifically, what smells is the bacteria that metabolizes ​the lactose in milk to lactic acid. It is the acid that puts off the strong, rancid smell.

This fermenting process builds upon itself in an exponential fashion, meaning that milk that starts to go bad can turn really quickly. It isn’t uncommon for milk to be fine one day and then sour the next. This is due to the way the bacteria multiplies rapidly.

How to Get Sour Milk Smell Out of Carpet

You have cleaned the carpet and removed as much of the milk as you possibly can, but there is still that lingering sour milk smell in your carpet. There are a few different natural cleaning agents that you can use to get rid of that sour smell once and for all.

Coffee Grounds

​Use a few scoops from your current fresh bag of coffee to help combat the sour milk smell. It doesn’t matter whether it is regular or decaf, what you are mainly using is the big and bright smell of the coffee that will overpower and absorb the sour milk odor.

It is really simple to use coffee grounds as an odor remover on carpet. All you need to do is:

1. Sprinkle liberally sprinkle coffee ground on the carpet over the smelly area.
2. ​Leave the ground coffee on the odor overnight.
3. In the morning vacuum it up.

If you are worried about the coffee grinds staining your light colored carpet then you can test a small area before you begin to sprinkle the coffee grinds all around.

Also, make sure that the carpet is completely dry before you sprinkle the coffee, since any moisture can cause the grounds to discolor white carpets. 

Baking Soda

​Known for its amazing odor neutralizing powers, baking soda is an around the house go-to odor controller.

1. Liberally sprinkle the baking soda over the area that the odor is coming from.
2. Leave it for 30 minutes or overnight.
3. Vacuum up the baking soda.

When you are vacuuming up the tiny particles of baking soda, make sure that you are using a HEPA filter vacuum on your carpet to make sure that the baking soda isn’t being thrown back up into the air.

White Vinegar

While you may have used vinegar in the cleaning up process, if the spoiled milk odor is still lingering then you can go back over the area with another round of vinegar. Thanks to vinegar’s odor neutralizing properties it will absorb the stain as well as clear any leftover milk enzymes that may be hiding in the fibers of your carpet– just like how it removes stains from your showe​r.

1. Mix a solution of 50/50 cool water and white vinegar into a spray bottle.
2. Lightly spray over the carpeted area and let it sit for a few minutes.
3. Use a paper towel to blot up the liquid
4. Follow up by sprinkling a little baking soda over the area and then vacuum it up after an hour.

Make sure that you are misting the area, don’t completely soak it since this can get your carpet and under padding too wet which can lead to damage to the floors below or mold developing under your carpet.

Following up with baking soda after you blot up the vinegar gives your carpet a one, two punch to knock out the sour milk smell so that it will be gone for good.

Hydrogen Peroxide

This final take on removing milk odors from carpet is a great way to get rid of odors fast by using something that you should already have on hand. This is ​more commonly used to treat stains ​on clothing and your favorite linens but it’s a very versatile product you can also use on carpet.

In order to keep your carpet safe from being drenched, pour some of the 3% hydrogen peroxide (anything stronger could damage your carpet) into a spray bottle. Spritz the hydrogen peroxide over the area.

It will begin to bubble, so let it set and bubble away. This is the means that it is reacting due to bacteria or enzymes that are settled in your carpet, most likely causing the foul smell.

Once the hydrogen peroxide stops bubbling, then you will want to blot it up with a paper towel. Let the carpet dry overnight and follow up with a quick run over with a stick vacuum to restore it’s texture.

​Conclusion

​How to get spilled milk from carpet starts with acting quickly. The faster you can dab the milk up, the better chance you have to completely remove the stain and odor.

Even if you aren’t able to act fast, you can still clean milk out ​from the carpet. Utilize the mixtures we’ve recommended to soak up the stain. You will probably need to do this several times to remove it completely.

Additionally, you can invest in better appliances to clean your carpet and avoid having to work with towels or cleaning mixtures in the first place. If you do have some old stains that you want to take care of but haven’t found the will to do so, calling a professional might be the best route as ​well.