Little Green Machine Review: Home Hygiene Game-Changer

I have five young children and pride myself on a hygienic home, even if toys are scattered about the floors. My shelves are stocked with the best laundry detergents for sensitive skin, antibacterial spritzes and pet stain remover for our two little dogs. But holy moly, I had no idea how much dirty chaos was in my beloved area rugs till I have the Little Green Machine a whirl.

Spoiler alert: it's SO good and I have no idea how I ever lived without it.

What is the Little Green Machine?

The Bissell Little Green Machine is a compact carpet and upholstery cleaner that's small enough to fit neatly in a closet or carry from room to room. It's relatively lightweight and comes with a variety of attachments that make the most disgusting messes a breeze to clean.

It removes spots and stains from carpet, rugs, upholstery and even curtains. While it was designed with pets in mind, it's a total miracle worker when you've got messy kids running around. And if you're at the stage where you're investing in potty training products, trust me, you need this device.

The large water tank capacity holds an impressive 48 ounces of water (or cleaning solution) for simple, continuous spraying even on large areas. Plus, the motor is so strong that it manages to get up old and weird cereal mush from my best area rugs with barely any effort. Did I mention it's budget-friendly, too? It is.

How to use the Little Green Machine

One of my favorite Little Green Machine’s features is how lightweight and portable it is. I consider myself strong, but the last thing I want to spend my day doing is lugging heavy things around in the name of cleaning. The large tank capacity and long extension cord also makes covering large spaces quick and easy.

The best way to use the Little Green is to simply fill the water reservoir with either plain room temperature water, or with a combination of water and your favorite carpet cleaning solution. I used the stain-fighting cleaner that came with my machine and then later tried it with a diluted portion of Folex carpet cleaner.

Then, plug it in, hit the on switch and take the hose scrubber out to aim at the soiled spots of your choosing. There's a little spray trigger on the hose itself, and I liked to hold it down to really saturate the most disgusting and caked-on stains. Running the vacuum head over the affected areas till every drop of water and gunk is picked up is all it takes.

And yes, you can use the vacuum head as a scrubber thanks to loads of built-in nylon bristles.

Our Little Green Machine review

I put the Bissell Little Green to work in the highest-traffic area of my house—the den that doubles as a play room for my kids. Because all the kids tend to hang out there, the dogs do, too. Did I mention my dog just had nine puppies? True story, so we've got a lot of messy creatures around here.

The Little Green Machine worked like a stain-removing dream. In just a few minutes, seemingly permanent stains began to list and get sucked up into the dirty water reservoir of the device. It was both gross and gratifying to see it in action.

I noticed the machine worked best when all the chunkiest parts of debris were removed first (like caked-on mashed Cheerios) because the vacuum head has a relatively narrow entry point. Then, a generous spray down with either room temperature water or cleaning solution worked marvelously. For particularly tough stains, I let the cleaning fluid soak in for a couple of minutes before sucking up the gross stuff.

I can confirm the Little Green worked near miracles on an old dog pee stain, a coffee mark on the sofa I thought might never come out and a bunch of spots covered in blue marker ink from my youngest son. Amazing. It really does remove tough stains.

Pros

• Easy to use for both kid and pet messes
• Works on rugs, carpets, sofa upholstery, car seats, curtains and other fabrics
• Affordable
• Works with plain water or diluted cleaning solutions
• Lightweight and easy to carry
• Long extension cord for a portable carpet cleaner

Cons

• It's a wet vac, so it's not ideal for dry vacuuming or covering extremely large areas (you'll still need a regular vacuum for that)

Final verdict

Holy moly—I can't believe I lived this long without a Little Green. You need one. Frankly, I needed this on my newborn checklist and should've gotten one the minute I had the first kids. It's that good.

Where to buy the Bissell Little Green Machine

The best place to score your own Little Green Machine is Amazon, where it usually retails for about $125 or the Bissell website where it sells for slightly less and includes a free bottle of Bissell Oxy Formula cleaning fluid. Either way, it's so popular that it tends to sell out—so hurry up!