Rug dye migration — RugChick.com

Don’t water the rugs!

If you have plants anywhere near your rugs in your home – or if you are a rug cleaner and see plants near rugs you are picking up to clean – you want to watch out for this particular problem that often is not discovered until it’s too late. Even the most careful person spills [...]

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 [...]

Viscose, rayon, faux silk, art silk rugs = PROBLEMS

I received this comment on my “Viscose Rugs are Garbage” post from a reader who was advised by her interior decorator to have a custom rug designed using “faux silk” (aka viscose or rayon or mercerized cotton): “Unfortunately I had an area rug made that has large off-white parts made of faux silk, and the [...]

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 [...]

Rugs That Stink.

When rugs come in our shop that are gosh-awful smelly, the usual suspects are: PETS, FLOODS, or BAD LATEX. #1) PET PUDDLES With pet urine, this hits a wool rug, penetrates those face fibers, and gets absorbed deep into the innermost cotton warp and weft foundation threads. Ever run for hours and take off those [...]

Rug To Run From: Viscose Rugs!

Real rugs (hand woven oriental and occidental rugs) are truly pieces of hand craftsmanship to showcase in your home. They are a piece of a weaver’s life that you get to enjoy. A piece of art that will live centuries (if it is properly cared for). Commodity rugs are mass produced today to feed a [...]

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 [...]

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