One of These Four Dissolves When You Wash It

The short answer: how to clean rattan furniture depends on which of four materials you actually own, because they all get sold as wicker and one of them is made of paper. Natural rattan and cane take a barely damp cloth and hate being soaked. Paper fiber wicker, which is what a great many vintage pieces are woven from, softens and comes apart in water and must be dusted and vacuumed only. Synthetic resin wicker can be hosed down and is the only one that tolerates bleach. Whichever you have, dry it in shade rather than sun, because sunlight dries the fibres too fast and that is what cracks them. Check the weave for a paper seam before any water goes near it.

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Wicker is not a material, and that is the problem

Almost every article on this subject opens by explaining that rattan is a material and wicker is a weaving technique. That is correct and it is where they stop, which leaves the useful half unsaid: if wicker is only a technique, then anything can be woven, and four different things routinely are.

That is why the care advice online contradicts itself so badly. One site says rattan is naturally resistant to humidity and UV; another says it cracks and moulds outdoors. One says bleach is for synthetic only; another recommends bleach on natural rattan for mould. They are describing different materials and calling them the same thing.

Natural rattan: solid, and it drinks

Rattan is the stem of a climbing palm, harvested as a solid pole and steamed into shape. It is what the frame of a rattan chair is made from, and it is porous. Water goes into it and stays, which is why prolonged damp produces mould and swelling rather than a clean piece of furniture.

A barely damp cloth is fine. Soaking is not, and neither is leaving it out in the rain on the assumption that a natural material can handle weather.

Cane: the skin, and the woven part

Cane is the outer bark of the same plant, peeled off in thin strips and woven into the panels you see in chair backs and cabinet doors. Because it is the skin rather than the core, it is naturally more resistant to moisture and easier to wipe.

It is also thinner and more brittle, so it splits where rattan would merely dry. Cane webbing that has gone slack or brittle is a different problem from rattan that has gone dry, and it responds to different treatment.

Paper fiber wicker: the one water destroys

This is the material almost nobody warns you about, and it is common on vintage pieces. From roughly the 1920s onward, a great deal of wicker furniture was woven from tightly twisted paper, sometimes over a wire core, and sold as wicker like everything else. Lloyd Loom is the best known name for it.

Twisted paper holds its shape beautifully when dry and softens, swells and unravels when wet. Washing a paper fiber piece the way you would wash resin wicker does not clean it, it destroys it, and no amount of drying puts the twist back.

If you own an old woven chair with a smooth, almost fabric-like weave and a painted finish, check before you reach for a hose.

Synthetic resin wicker: plastic, and the easy one

Modern outdoor furniture described as all-weather wicker is polyethylene resin woven over an aluminium frame. It is plastic shaped to look like rattan, and it behaves like plastic: UV stable, waterproof, and genuinely fine to hose down.

It is also the only one of the four where a diluted bleach solution is a reasonable answer to mould, which is exactly the advice that gets repeated for the other three by mistake.

So the first job is identifying what you have, and it takes about a minute. The next section is the quiz that does it, and the section after that is the test you can do with a fingernail.

Identify yours in 3 taps

What it is made of, where it lives, and what is wrong with it. Those three decide between a hose, a damp cloth and a vacuum.

How to tell which you own, in a minute

Four checks, in order, and you can stop as soon as one gives you an answer. Do them somewhere hidden, on the underside of a seat or behind a leg.

One: look at a cut end

Find where a strand ends or the weave turns a corner. Natural rattan and cane show a fibrous end, like the end of a bamboo cane, with visible grain running along the strand. Synthetic resin is uniform all the way through with a slightly glossy, extruded look, and often shows a faint seam line from the mould.

Paper fiber is the distinctive one: the end reveals a spiral, because the strand is a sheet of paper twisted tightly into a rope. Once you have seen it, you cannot mistake it.

Two: the fingernail test

Press a fingernail firmly into a strand somewhere hidden. Natural rattan is hard and barely marks. Cane is thinner and springs back. Resin gives slightly and returns, like pressing a plastic garden chair.

Paper fiber dents, and the dent stays. That alone tells you not to put water anywhere near it.

Three: the damp cotton bud

Only if the first two left you unsure. Touch a barely damp cotton bud to a hidden strand for ten seconds, then look at the bud and the strand.

Natural fibres darken slightly and recover. Resin does nothing at all. Paper fiber goes soft under the bud and may transfer a trace of colour, and that is your answer: stop, dry it, and treat the whole piece as dust-only from now on.

Four: the age and the weave

Context helps when the tests are ambiguous. A piece from the 1920s to the 1950s with a smooth, close, almost fabric-like weave and a painted finish is very likely paper fiber, since that is exactly what Lloyd Loom and its imitators were made from. A modern outdoor set on an aluminium frame is resin. A chair back with a hexagonal or radial woven panel is cane webbing, whatever the frame is made of.

All four, and what each one takes

The water and bleach columns are where the internet’s advice gets applied to the wrong material.

The paper fiber row is why this article is organised the way it is. Every general guide that says to scrub wicker with a bleach solution and rinse it off is giving advice that would destroy a Lloyd Loom chair in one afternoon, and there is a great deal of Lloyd Loom and similar furniture in circulation precisely because it was made to last when kept dry.

And the outdoors column resolves the contradiction from earlier. Natural rattan is not weather resistant, whatever a rattan retailer’s blog says. Synthetic resin is. When a source tells you rattan handles humidity and UV naturally, check whether they sell rattan garden furniture, and check whether they mean the synthetic kind.

Cleaning, step by step

Two routines: one for natural rattan and cane, which covers most indoor boho pieces, and one for the vintage paper fiber that needs the opposite approach.

Natural rattan and cane

1. Vacuum with a soft brush attachment. Along the weave rather than across it, so the bristles follow the strands instead of catching against them. This lifts most of what makes a piece look tired.
2. Work the crevices with a dry brush. A soft toothbrush or a dry paintbrush reaches the corners a vacuum head cannot, and woven furniture is mostly corners.
3. Wipe with a barely damp cloth. Wring it until it does not drip. A little mild dish soap in the water is fine. Work in sections and follow the weave.
4. Dry it immediately with a dry cloth, then leave it in shade with air moving around it. Never in a sunbeam, and never near a radiator, both of which crack the fibres by drying the outside faster than the inside.
5. Condition once it is fully dry, if the piece feels dry or looks dull. A wax-based conditioner worked in with a cloth replaces what the fibres have lost.

Paper fiber, and anything you are unsure about

1. Vacuum thoroughly with a soft brush attachment, which is the main event rather than a preliminary step here.
2. Dry brush the crevices, using a soft brush and patience. A can of compressed air works well on tight weave and puts no moisture anywhere.
3. Spot clean marks with a barely damp cloth, touching rather than wiping, and drying the spot immediately. Only if you have to.
4. For odour or mustiness, air it rather than washing it. A few hours outdoors in shade on a dry day does more than any product, and it is the only intervention that carries no risk at all.

Mould, by material

Natural rattan and cane: equal parts white vinegar and water, sprayed lightly or applied with a cloth, left about fifteen minutes, then wiped off and dried immediately. Vinegar is mildly acidic and mould dislikes it, and it does not bleach the fibre.

Synthetic resin: one cup of bleach to a gallon of water, applied with a soft brush, rinsed thoroughly afterwards. Plastic tolerates this and natural fibre does not.

Paper fiber: vacuum, brush and relocate. Mould on paper fiber means the piece has been somewhere damp, and the fix is the room rather than the furniture.

The one that stops the cracking: a wax conditioner

Natural rattan and cane do not usually wear out. They dry out, and then they crack, and dry indoor heating does it as reliably as summer sun. Feeding the fibres once or twice a year is what prevents that, and it is the only maintenance most indoor pieces ever need.

This is beeswax and carnauba wax in an orange oil and mineral oil base, and the specification worth noticing is what it leaves out: no silicone and no linseed oil. Silicone builds up as a film that dulls the surface and interferes with any future refinishing. Linseed oil is the traditional treatment for rattan and it yellows and darkens over years, which on a pale boho piece is precisely the wrong direction.

The method is simple and the timing matters. Clean the piece, let it dry completely, then wipe the conditioner on generously with a cloth, leave it about twenty minutes, and wipe the excess off. Conditioning damp rattan seals moisture in, which is how you get mould under a lovely finish.

Worth it or skip: Worth it for any natural rattan or cane piece you intend to keep, and it works on wooden frames and leather too, so one bottle covers a lot of a boho room. Skip it entirely on synthetic resin, where there is no fibre to feed and it simply leaves a greasy film, and on paper fiber, where the oil soaks into the paper.

Check the wax conditioner on Amazon

Three more, by what the piece needs

A cleaner and conditioner pair, for a piece with years of build-up. Orange oil cuts through accumulated dirt and old wax without drying the finish, and the wax goes on afterwards to feed the fibre. Two steps rather than one, which is the same logic as cleaning and conditioning leather: they are opposite actions and a single product attempting both does neither properly. Useful on a second-hand find rather than a piece you already look after. See the orange oil and wax set →

A smaller bottle, if you have one chair rather than a room. The same formula in a size that suits a single side table, a headboard or a pair of chairs. Rattan conditioning is a twice-yearly job on a small surface area, so a large bottle can sit in a cupboard for years, and wax keeps better in a bottle that gets used. See the smaller bottle →

Boiled linseed oil, for a genuinely dried out restoration piece. The traditional treatment, and it penetrates deeper than wax into fibres that have gone brittle, which is what an old outdoor piece needs. Two things to know: it darkens and yellows the colour over time, so it suits honey and mid-brown rattan rather than pale, and oily rags can self-heat, so spread them flat outdoors to dry rather than binning them in a heap. See the boiled linseed oil →

Natural texture is what makes a boho room work, and it is mostly a question of how the materials sit together. I go through it in layering boho textures, and the colours that suit rattan are in the boho colour palette guide.

Something has gone wrong with it? 2 taps

The quiz above is for cleaning. This one is for a piece that has already suffered, and the second question usually explains the first.

People also ask about rattan and wicker

What is the difference between rattan and wicker?

Rattan is a material, the stem of a climbing palm, and wicker is a weaving technique. So all rattan furniture may be wicker, and plenty of wicker is not rattan. The useful consequence, which most explanations leave out, is that if wicker is only a technique then anything can be woven, and four different things routinely are: natural rattan, cane, twisted paper fiber and synthetic resin. They need completely different care, which is why the advice online contradicts itself so consistently.

Can rattan furniture get wet?

Natural rattan is porous, so water goes into the strand and stays there, and prolonged damp produces mould and swelling. A barely damp cloth is fine; hosing, soaking or leaving it out in the rain is not. Synthetic resin wicker is plastic and genuinely fine to hose down. And paper fiber wicker, which many vintage pieces are woven from, is destroyed by water outright. Several sources describe rattan as naturally resistant to humidity and UV, and a notable number of those sources sell rattan garden furniture.

How do you get mould off wicker furniture?

It depends entirely on the material, which is why identifying it comes first. On natural rattan and cane, use equal parts white vinegar and water, applied lightly with a cloth or soft brush, left about fifteen minutes and wiped off, then dried in shade. On synthetic resin, a diluted bleach solution at roughly one cup per gallon of water is appropriate, rinsed thoroughly. On paper fiber, neither: vacuum it, brush it dry and move the piece somewhere less damp, because the room is the problem rather than the furniture.

Can rattan furniture stay outside?

Synthetic resin wicker is designed for it. Natural rattan and wicker are not, and the figures make the point: five to fifteen years indoors or under cover, against cracking and unravelling in as little as two to three years fully exposed. If you have a natural piece outdoors, a cover when it is not in use and bringing it in over winter are what extend its life, and in a wet climate neither is optional.

Rattan and wicker FAQ

How do I know if mine is paper fiber?

Look at a cut end or where the weave turns a corner: paper fiber shows a visible spiral, because the strand is a sheet of paper twisted into a rope. Press a fingernail into a hidden strand and it dents rather than springing back. Vintage pieces from roughly the 1920s to the 1950s with a smooth, close, almost fabric-like weave and a painted finish are very likely paper fiber, which is what Lloyd Loom and its imitators were made from.

Why should I not dry it in the sun?

Because the surface dries far faster than the core, and that differential is what warps and cracks natural fibre. It feels counterintuitive, since sun obviously dries things, and it is the same principle that governs wool blankets and foam cushions. Shade with air moving through it dries a piece just as thoroughly and does not split it.

How often should I condition it?

Once or twice a year for natural rattan and cane, and more often if the piece sits near a radiator or in a bright room. Dry indoor heat pulls oils out of the fibre as effectively as summer sun and does it invisibly over a winter. Condition after cleaning and only once the piece is completely dry, since sealing damp fibre traps moisture under the finish.

Can I paint rattan furniture?

Yes, and spray paint suits the weave far better than a brush, which loads up in the crevices and drips. Clean and dry the piece thoroughly first, and use light coats from several angles rather than one heavy pass. On paper fiber this is often the right answer, since painting adds no moisture and a great deal of vintage wicker was painted originally anyway.

My cane chair seat has gone saggy. Is it ruined?

Usually not. Cane shrinks as it dries, so dampening the underside of the panel with warm water and letting it dry slowly out of direct sun pulls the weave taut again. It is a genuine repair rather than a temporary fix, because you are using the material’s own behaviour. It does not work on rattan poles, which do not shrink back, and it destroys paper fiber.

Is linseed oil good for rattan?

It is the traditional treatment and it penetrates deeper than wax, which suits a genuinely dried out restoration piece. Two caveats. It yellows and darkens over years, so it is wrong for pale rattan and fine for honey and mid-brown. And rags soaked in it can self-heat, so spread them flat outdoors to dry rather than putting them in a bin.

The rattan care cheat sheet

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The Cozy Home Starter Checklist

Natural materials are what give a boho room its warmth, and they are also the ones that quietly need looking after. This printable walks you through a home room by room, catching the small habits that keep things looking lived in rather than worn out.

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Keep reading

• There Is Metal Inside It. That Changes Everything
  The same fibre question on a storage basket, where the wire frame underneath decides everything and rust shows up months later.
• Layered Boho Interiors: How to Combine Textures Like a Pro
  Rattan does most of its work next to other textures rather than alone, and this covers what pairs with it.
• Boho Color Palette: Warm Tones and Natural Textures
  The colours that sit well with honey-toned rattan, and why a yellowed piece changes what belongs around it.
• Boho and Eclectic Interiors: Your Guide to a Cozy, Creative Home
  Where woven furniture fits in the wider style, and how much of it a room can carry.
• Cotton Velvet and Polyester Velvet Are Not the Same Fabric
  The same two-materials-one-name problem on the sofa that usually sits opposite the rattan chair.
• One Letter Decides Whether Water Ruins Your Sofa
  If the rattan chair has cushions on it, the tag underneath decides what you can clean them with.

Find out what it is, then almost leave it alone

Every article on this subject opens by explaining that rattan is a material and wicker is a technique, and then stops. The useful half is what follows from it: if wicker is only a way of weaving, anything can be woven, and four different things routinely are. Natural rattan, cane, twisted paper fiber and synthetic resin all get sold as wicker and they need opposite treatment.

That is why the advice contradicts itself. Bleach is right for one of them and destroys the other three. Hosing it down is fine for one and ruinous for the rest. And paper fiber, which a great many vintage pieces are woven from, comes apart in water entirely, which almost nobody mentions.

So spend a minute identifying it. Look at a cut end for a spiral, press a fingernail into a hidden strand, and if it dents and stays dented, put the hose away. After that the routine is small: vacuum along the weave, brush the crevices, wipe with something barely damp when it needs it, dry in shade rather than sun, and feed natural fibre twice a year so it does not dry out and crack.

I bought a peacock chair at a car boot sale and got as far as filling a bucket before I looked properly at a cut end and saw the spiral. That chair is thirty years old and it is thirty years old because nobody ever washed it.