If you live or spend a lot of time at the beach and sunscreen on seats and headrests is a common occurrence, especially from kids. Kids that play lots of baseball tend to leave sunscreen everywhere on the car seats
Sunscreen is oil based. Clean sunscreen stains often especially those on the steering wheel.
Sunscreen isn’t going to be your only issue. You’ll also find lots of lotion and other products that you apply to the outside of your body will build up on the door.
Tesla seats are made of “vegan leather” is vinyl and vinyl is plastic. Don’t expect the quality and properties of actual leather.
Tesla “Vegan leather” is “Ultraleather” produced by Ultrafabrics and is polyurethane, a crosslinked plastic that is not remeltable.
Vinyl (aka PVC) is a thermoplastic polymer derived from the monomer vinyl chloride.
How to Clean Sunscreen Off Tesla Seats
Some Tesla owners have never needed to use more than water and a microfiber cloth. They advise that you try this before anything else.
Some people believe that regular cleaning products also work on vinyl/”vegan” ”leather”. Thus, there is no point in making a different packaging that says vinyl leather cleaner or vinyl leather shield. It’s your choice as to what products you prefer.
If you can’t afford expensive cleaners, use a spray bottle with soapy water to clean with microfiber to agitate it and then a damp microfiber cloth to wipe down vinyl/vegan/pleather.
You can also use coconut oil to clean and condition your Tesla seats including white ones. Try cleaning a small section first, drying it off and seeing results before applying the cleaning method on all your seats.
You can also wipe sunscreen off from seats with baby wipes. Baby wipes do require some persistent scrubbing, but the sunscreen stains do come off eventually.
You can also try neutrogena makeup wipes and some elbow grease. After a while, the sunscreen goes away and you can look for some leather lotion to put on afterwards.
If none of these work, the next level cleaning is using hand sanitizer and wiping the sunscreen off until they dry. This cleans pretty well, just don’t leave it to dry out by itself.
You can also clean sunscreen off with dish soap and water and/or rubbing alcohol. Just make sure you wipe it clean off after.
If normal baby wipes and dish soap didn’t work to clean it but leaves stains behind buy the really thick and white mineral based reef-safe Car Guys Super Cleaner.
You can also use Chemical Guys Leather Cleaner or the Chemical Guys all-purpose cleaner and degreaser which easily removes the sunscreen.
You can also wipe the sunscreen away with a simple microfiber towel with Dawn sudsy soap and water, then wipe off. A few drops per bottle Dawn dish soap and some water in a spray bottle will scrub the sunscreen off and you can wipe down with a towel thereafter.
Be persistent but gently scrub the stains away That will remove the sunscreen off the seats to a point where you don’t notice it anymore even on a black interior. Another solution is to use some elbow grease and Mother’s VLR.
Get some baby wipes, clean it up very well, then give it a spritz of Turtle wax interior ceramic spray on wax (no alcohol) designed for interior rubbers plastic and vinyl. It’ll make cleaning easier in the future.
The Turtle wax inside job, protect the seats more and make it easier to clean up things like this? Buying seat covers protects seats and does not allow sunscreen to get stains from dyes and sunscreen and every stain wipes right off now.
You can also wipe it off with Micellar water, the same stuff to remove “waterproof” makeup from face.
Wipes which can clean really well are Armor All Cleaning Wipes, Meguiars, and Chemical Guys. The seat material manufacturer advises that you use Clorox baby wipes (if water with a microfiber towel does not clean it. Clorox wipes can also remove everything except dog drool.
Don’t use concentrated alcohol though it will melt your seats. If the rubbing alcohol leaks onto the seat after an accident it can melt the plastic leather.
303 has two good products that you should also get for cleaning sunscreen off seats. One is the protectant spray and the other is the leather protectant.
Car Guys Super Cleaner also works like a charm.
You can also use leather cleaning spray from Chemical Guys which works great for all type of stains.
Sonax Alcantra upholstery cleaner, also works great on any vinyl wraps like the Center console.
Use Gyeon mild leather cleaner and then coat everything with a leather shield to prevent any staining especially on white seats, which have gotten sunscreen on the armrest.
Car detailing experts have also suggested to use Wash Wax All from Aero Cosmetics everywhere, inside and out. It does a fantastic job on the interior as well.
Spray WD40 on a rag and wipe seats down! The solvent cleans everything and does not damage the upholstery. Some Tesla owners find the odor of WD-40 lingers for a long time and it smells like a machine shop. To stop the odor, spray a little on a rag and go over the stain a couple of times
Some Tesla users use Windex everywhere on their interiors and sunscreen always comes right off. The interior will look perfect and brand new. Try that on your white seats.
A diluted Simple Green also does a great job of cleaning. Car detailing professions recommend using diluted simple green cleaner. Pour a little simple green into a spray bottle, top the rest with water, spray the entire seat and wipe with a microfiber.
Use Leather cleaner or warm water/dish soap and a brush. The brush gets into the nooks and crannies in the leather texture. This works well for plastics too.
You can also clean the sunscreen off the seats with microfiber and some 70% and very little Isopropyl Alcohol. Just wipe gently. The sunscreen stain should lift off with relative ease.
Dilute rubbing alcohol with water in a small spray bottle. Spray it on the sunscreen stain on the seat and wipe it off with a microfiber towel. Put that small spray bottle with a microfiber towel in your car for the whole summer for any incident sunscreen stains on seats.
You can also wet a paper towel with isopropyl alcohol and lightly dab the sunscreen off.
Use Meguiars all purpose cleaner to remove sunscreen from seats. Griots interior cleaner is another option. You can also use a steamer for vinyl plastic, 3D LVP cleaner and conditioner
Some tesla owners used baby wipes at first made the sunscreen stain worse. You can use Costco wipes accompanied by vigorous wiping
You can use a general interior cleaner such as Turtle Wax ceramic wax and detailers. Another product that can clean sunscreen off your seats is Dr Bronners soap and warm water to start. Castile soap and water and makeup remover wipes also works well.
Costco wipes or Dawn dish soap with some good old elbow grease. Dawn dish soap and vinegar is a combination that should work too. You may have success with Dawn soap and a gentle toothbrush or similar brush to agitate. To do this add a few drops of soap to water, agitate, and then wipe. With soapy water, you need patience
Try Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer or Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner. It works great. You may have to do couple of passes to remove all spots.
Use the Armor All interior wipes and the sunscreen will come right off.
You can also use a disinfectant wipe, it’s vegan leather so it’s doesn’t have super strict requirements.
Don’t use the armor all wipes everyday but it will clear the sunscreen off. Armor All comes in Lotion sunscreen or the spray on. The spray on kind is almost impossible to get off and eats away at the plastic.
Some Tesla users don’t use like using Armor All anything. The “armor” in it is silicone which actually speeds the destruction of the materials. For any actual leather, gentle soap and water works great.
Use leather cleaner and a soft brush to agitate the dirt and sunscreen out. Test in an inconspicuous area first. You may also need a mild degreaser and leather conditioner.
Magic eraser also works but rub gently. You can use vinegar to remove mineral sunscreen too. It works really well. Spray it on, let it soak in a bit, then wipe away.
Use any mild detergent and a set of detailing brushes and the sunscreen should come off with no problem. Wipe it down with a microfiber after and seal with a dry finish protectant!
Kirkland Baby wipes, and WaterWipes work well on sunscreen stains on your seat as well on deodorant, which sleeveless shirt wearer spread all over the seats.
A preventive method is not to use sunscreen before getting in the car. If your passenger has to apply sunscreen before getting in the car, ask them can sit on a towel.
You may also choose to cover up instead of wearing sunscreen. If you wear it, apply at your final stop.
Be more careful the next time to prevent sunscreen stains You can also apply sunscreen outside not in the car.