North Carolina woman buys carpet cleaner from Dollar Tree car section. Then she uses it on her living room rug: ‘You’re joking’

We usually don’t expect cleaning products to perform miracles, but according to one North Carolina Dollar Tree shopper on TikTok, this carpet and upholstery spray from LA’s Totally Awesome comes pretty close.

In a video that got over 375,000 views, TikTok creator Brooke (@brookeseagle) said one Dollar Tree product helped get rid of stubborn stains in her white rug.

Which Spray Does She Recommend?

Brooke says she bought LA’s Totally Awesome Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner from the dollar store, originally to clean the carpet in her car.

“Cause it’s from the car cleaning section,” she says.

However, she later decided to try it on her living room rug after her son got blackberry juice on it.

“I sprayed it on my rug earlier because my son got blackberry juice all over my rug,” she says. “And look at this.”

She then shows the rug, which appears to have a yellowish tint in several areas. But the spot she sprayed looks much whiter than the rest.

“Look how white it made that one spot,” she says.

That made her curious enough to keep going. In the video’s text overlay, Brooke says she had already used a carpet cleaner machine on the rug multiple times, but it “barely touches the stains.”

Then she moves to another patch of the rug, which she says gets dirty because of the red mud around her house.

“Even if you don’t wear shoes in, the dust just gets in,” she explains.

Brooke sprays the cleaner directly onto the stained area. Almost immediately, the spot starts to look lighter.

“Y’all see that?” she says. “I’m not even scrubbing.”

She says the rug is white, but after more than a year of use, it had become clear that choosing that color was “not a good decision.”

Still, the cleaner made such a visible difference that it almost made the rest of the rug look dirtier.

“Look at that,” she says. “That makes it look even dirtier than I thought it was.”

Then she points out the price.

“This was a dollar,” she says. “That is insane.”

Commenters Swear by the Brand

In the comments section, viewers said they’ve had good experiences with other LA’s Totally Awesome products, too.

“They also make a degreaser and it is literally the best!! for everything!” one user wrote.

Another said they bought the brand’s cherry blossom-scented all-purpose cleaner at Dollar Tree and loved the results.

“My counters never looked better and it smells great,” they wrote.

One commenter asked whether the carpet cleaner smells like bleach.

“No!” Brooke replied. “It doesn’t have bleach in it that’s why I was so shocked. It’s not as strong as their other cleaners but smells similar.”

What Ingredient Makes It Work?

Technically, the cleaner does not appear to contain bleach.

According to the ingredient list Brooke shared, the product contains water, Ecopure, Carbopol, EDTA, trisodium phosphate, sodium myristate, and sodium metasilicate.

The ingredients most likely doing the heavy lifting are sodium metasilicate and trisodium phosphate. Both are strong alkaline cleaners, which means they can break down oils, grime, residue, and other buildup that may be sitting in the carpet fibers.

That may explain why the rug looked “whitened” so quickly. It was not necessarily being bleached. Instead, the cleaner may have been stripping away the dirt and residue that made the rug look yellow or stained in the first place.

@brookeeseagle This is embarrassing but I had to share because Dollar tree never fails me. I’ve sprayed straight bleach and it doesn’t even do all that. This rug has been through it and I was about the throw it away because it wouldn’t come clean. You’re joking ? plus it’s only like 5 ingredients #foryou #stainremoval #dollartreefinds ♬ Vinyl Crackle Sound – Acerting Art & Joedeshon

The Mary Sue has reached out to LA’s Totally Awesome and Brooke via email for comment and additional information.

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