Rug bleeding — RugChick.com

Why some rug dyes bleed.

There are a variety of reasons a rug might “bleed” on you. Let’s go through different scenarios for a wool rug like this one, where the red dyes have migrated into the neighboring off-white areas: What could create this type of dye migration? Several things. FUGITIVE DYES – if the red is shown to not [...]

Hidden danger – bleeding rug wefts.

Every professional rug cleaner knows how to test a rug to see if the dyes are colorfast or not. At least they should know how to. =) Especially since a good percentage of new rugs today have dye colorfastness “issues.” I walk through the steps in my post on dye testing, and the video on [...]

Afghan rugs, the trade-off for new tribal rugs.

Rugs are loosely lumped into two general categories – “tribal” rugs or “city” rugs. City rugs come from “bigger” weaving operations that tend to produce rugs with more intricate designs, higher knot counts, and tighter quality control. This is a broad generalization of course. Tribal rugs come from smaller operations, or nomadic weavers who weave [...]

Watch out for Tea-Washed Rugs in the home…

Tea-washed rugs are rugs that have had a brown “tea-like” dye solution applied to the rug to make it appear darker, older, or to hide some underlying flaws (like past dye bleed damage). The “tea wash” solution, tends to be on the basic pH side, so that it will “hold” to the acid pH original [...]

High heat = high risk…for oriental rugs.

A couple times a month I get a photo of a rug that comes in that breaks my heart… because you see a really nice rug damaged by something that was entirely avoidable. My last post showed a rug that was damaged by not being attentive with a piece of dusting equipment on a Turkish [...]

A silk tufted rug – now what?

I was sent some photos of a relatively “new” type of product hitting the market – a tufted rug using silk as highlights. Now…tufted rugs are of course not new to retail shops. I’m sure you’ve seen them, rugs with a material backing, like this: Tufted rugs are what I refer to as FAKE rugs, [...]

Pet Accidents Happen. Now What?

Pet activity may happen on your favorite rugs this season. Guests in the home, or you away from home, restless pets can end up doing things they should not. With an inexpensive tufted rug, this can be a blessing because it is protecting a much more valuable wood floor underneath it. With an oriental rug [...]

New Oriental Rugs – Protecting Your Investment

I use the term “oriental rug” to mean a hand-woven rug (as opposed to an “area rug” which is a machine made rug). Technically “oriental” refers to “the East” (the Orient) and rugs woven over on the other side of this great planet of ours. Academics use “occidental rug” to refer to those rugs woven [...]

Tackling a Silk Rug in Tampa.

Just had a GREAT workshop yesterday at Interlink Supply of Tampa with a full classroom of cleaning and restoration professionals. They came to spend the day learning some rug cleaning and identification guidelines, and handling rugs when they are involved in floods and fires. We also went into restoration marketing strategies and how to educate [...]

Rugs and Floods. What to do.