How do you clean a Cricut Mat? * Moms and Crafters

Today I’m excited to share the answer to one of the most common questions people ask after they’ve started Cricut crafting: how do you clean a Cricut mat – without ruining it?! When you’re done, check out these fun Cricut crafts for beginners. This post contains affiliate links.

Did you know that Cricut mats are cleanable? That is, those adhesive mats that you place your material on when cutting.

Today I’m going to answer one of the most pressing questions with Cricut crafting: how do you clean a Cricut mat – and how to know if you can!

When do Cricut mats need to be cleaned?

Knowing then they need to be cleaned

When you’re using fibrous materials on a Cricut mat, the fibers come loose as you cut, causing wear. This is normal. The more fibrous the material, the more comes loose.

The pink (fabric grip) mat needs to be cleaned the most frequently in my experience. That’s because I often use it with felt, one of the most fibrous materials. Fabric is also very fibrous.

Paper is fibrous but less so. You usually get some shedding on the mat.

Even if you’re only cutting things like vinyl or HTV (iron-on) you’ll STILL get some wear, just from random lint and dust that’ll eventually gather on it, but it’s less common.

When your materials don’t really stick as you press them onto the mat you’ll want to clean it.

If you want to need to clean it less often, you can use dedicated mats for different materials, so you’ll need to clean fewer of them (as the mats you use for less fibrous materials will need less frequent cleaning).

When you’ll just need to replace them

There are two signs that you need to replace your mat:

Some of the adhesive is stripped – it’s not just full of “fluff”
There are actual deep white scratches that means the mat surface was cut. This can’t be fixed.

I HAVE seen people try to repair mats with stripped adhesive by adding their own. To be honest, I just view mats as somewhat consumable and figure for occasional replacement.

While this can be done, I don’t recommend re-sticking mats. You can try and get the “right type” of adhesive, but if you mess up, you can just ruin your material and I honestly don’t think it’s worth it for something that’s not that pricey to replace – and doesn’t get totally ruined very often.

Cleaning it makes more sense. But you’ll want to clean it without stripping the adhesive.

Is there anything I should avoid when cleaning a Cricut mat?

Don’t make these mistakes

One of the most common mistakes I see people share when teaching how do you clean a Cricut mat is essentially teaching how to strip it. You do NOT want to strip the adhesive! You simply want to loosen and clean the fluff!

How DO you clean a Cricut mat?

The trick is to be gentle. DON’T soak it in harsh cleaners and then scrape it aggressively. You’ll be removing the glue with everything else. The goal will be to:

Soak the mat with gentle cleansers (like dish soap) to loosen those fibers
Scrape the surface gently only if you need a little help
And rub it softly with a sponge or paper towel to loosen everything.

Rinse, remove excess water, and air dry. And when you’re done, it’ll stick right to your hand. Cover and reuse. But I’ll break it down in a step-by-step photos with images in a moment.

First, it’s important to know that there can be many correct ways to learn how to clean a Cricut mat. So if someone teaches you a different way, go ahead and try it. This is MY favorite process.

However, if someone is telling you to do things that might strip the glue, don’t do it – find another method.

How do you clean a Cricut mat?

You’ll need

An unsticky mat
Dawn or a similar gentle dishwashing soap
A soft sponge or paper towels
A plastic scraper or used-up gift card
Paper towels

Watch the video

Watch the full-length video on YouTube if you prefer to learn that way! Or scroll down for written instructions with photos.

Process

1. Drizzle a little bit of glue onto your mat.

2. Take a soft sponge and load it with water. Use that to wet your mat and gently rub it in circular motions to loosen the debris.

3. Allow it to soak for about half an hour. Then take the same sponge or paper towels and rework it across the whole thing.

4. If that wasn’t enough, take the scraper and GENTLY skim the surface of your mat to scrape off the debris. Remember: scratches and stains won’t come off. The mat I’m cleaning is five years old! And is IS ruined in spots. It won’t look perfect – but it’ll work again!

But LOTS of trapped fibers are coming off.

5. When you’re satisfied that there are no physical fibers, go ahead and pat it mostly dry with a paper towel. Then let it air dry in a clean environment. Don’t leave it too long or it’ll start trapping too much dust. Cover it with your plastic as soon as possible after it’s dry.

I know this looks pretty dirty still – because, like I said, it’s old, stained and scratched. But it once again sticks because the worst of the debris is gone. Go back to my starting photo and see how much cleaner this disgusting mat is now.

See the photo below? It still has the scrapes from when I cut plastic too deep on it but it sticks! I’ll be using the non-ruined side of this one as needed. Look how it’s staying on my hand as I hold it (the dish soap is in the top right of the shot – you can see it’s hovering above it. Sadly it’s not so clear in the photo how strongly it’s sticking to my hand but you can watch the video to see it in action.)