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As with other furniture that gets regular, heavy use, your office chair can quickly become a hotbed of germs and allergens. But with common household cleaning supplies, you can keep your chair like new.

Office chairs—especially highly adjustable chairs—tend to have nooks and crannies where lint, dust, crumbs, and hair can hide and accumulate. We’ll help you clear those out, whether you have an upholstered or non-upholstered chair.

Obviously, if your chair has cleaning instructions, either attached to the chair or on the manufacturer’s website, follow those guidelines first and foremost. For example, Herman Miller has a care and maintenance guide for Aeron chairs (PDF). Most of our recommendations here are based on Steelcase’s surface materials guide (PDF), which covers different types of chair materials.

Some chairs have a tag (usually on the underside of the seat) with a cleaning code. That upholstery cleaning code—W, S, S/W, or X—suggests the best types of cleaners for use on the chair (water-based, for example, or dry-cleaning solvents only). Follow this guide to determine which cleaners to use based on the cleaning codes.

Chairs that are leather, vinyl, plastic mesh, or polyurethane-covered can be regularly maintained using these supplies:

For deep cleaning or stain removal:

On a daily basis, make sure you immediately clean up any spills or stains by blotting them with water or a water-and-soap solution, to prevent them from setting deeply. That should take about five minutes.

Regular maintenance cleaning can take as little as 15 minutes (plus air-drying time) to freshen up your chair and to remove dust and germs. We recommend doing this weekly, or as often as you vacuum or sweep your workspace or wipe down your desk.

To remove stubborn stains or do seasonal deep cleaning, set aside about 30 minutes.

From the top of the chair to the wheels, thoroughly vacuum up any dust, lint, hair, or other debris. If there are spaces that are hard to reach with your vacuum, use a duster or a can of compressed air to clear out those tight areas.

Mix a few drops of dish soap with lukewarm water in either a small bowl or a spray bottle. Steelcase recommends (PDF) a mix of one part soap to 16 parts water, but you don’t have to be that exact.

Gently wipe all the surfaces of the chair with a cloth dipped in the solution, or lightly spray the chair with the solution and dab it in with a cloth. Use enough to coat the surface of the chair, but not so much that it soaks through to the insert because that could damage the chair’s materials.

Dampen another cloth with clean water, and wipe away any soap residue. Then use another clean cloth to dry hard surfaces (such as armrests and chair legs) or seat coverings (such as leather and vinyl).

Let soft surfaces like fabric seats air-dry—or, if you’re in a hurry to get back to sitting, you can also remove moisture with a hair dryer on the cool setting or a wet/dry vac.

If the dish-soap solution doesn’t get rid of some stains, an alcohol-based cleaner might be able to lift them. First, test a small, inconspicuous area of the chair—like the underside of the seat—to make sure the cleaner won’t harm the fabric. Then gently rub a few drops of the alcohol into the stain, without saturating the fabric. Remove residue with a damp cloth and let the fabric air-dry; the alcohol should dry quickly.

If alcohol doesn’t remove the stain completely, attack it using a different agent. iFixit offers stain-removal advice for common stains including beer, blood, chocolate, coffee, and ink. You might need to reapply several times to completely remove the stain.

For deep cleaning or to tackle the most stubborn stains, break out the portable upholstery cleaner, if you have one, or enlist the services of a professional upholstery cleaner.

Melanie Pinola previously covered all things home office as a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. She has contributed to print and online publications such as The New York Times, Lifehacker, and PCWorld, specializing in tech, productivity, and lifestyle/family topics. She’s thrilled when those topics intersect—and when she gets to write about them in her PJs.

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