Advice and Ideas
How to clean a rug – A practical guide for maintaining your luxury rug
Are you looking for the best ways to clean and maintain your contemporary rug? Here are the best tips, from our experience.
Cleaning rugs
We recommend vacuuming your designer rug at least three times a week. This removes any grit or dirt that can damage the handmade rug’s fibres and ensures that any natural shedding is disposed of.
We also advise that spillages are dealt with as soon as they occur. If a food stain is made on the area rug we like to use Dr Beckmann Carpet Stain Remover but other methods we have used include shaving foam left for 15 minutes and then rinsing with a mixture of water and transparent vinegar or Vanish carpet cleaning spray foam. Do no clean stains by rubbing as this will spread the stain.
We also recommend specialist cleaning, either wet or dry, at least once a year.
Fading
It is recommended to never place your boutique rug or any other artwork or textiles in direct south facing natural sunlight as it may fade. Double and triple glazing your windows can really reduce fading.
Bubbles Rug by Sonya Winner – How to Prevent Fading on your luxury rug
Sometimes fading happens due to the pile flattening or gradual soiling and in these cases a good professional cleaning will usually restore the carpets appearance.
But there are also cases of ‘fake fading’ – occasionally your contemporary rug might show localised shading known as pile reversal. It is an optical effect whereby some areas of the carpet will appear lighter or darker due to localised changes in the direction fo the pile lay, or because of the fibre having been pressed and flattened (during transport of the rugs, for example) and made visible by the way the light is reflecting off the carpet surface. It is caused by traffic patterns or unevenness in the floor, it is not a carpet defect.
Moths
With regular vacuuming you should be safe against any moth infestation. In North London, where our showroom is situated, the old Victorian properties often have moth issues. There are many different ways to deal with them once they are there but the key is to never give them the opportunity to settle in the first place. So hoover, hoover, hoover! Having always loved Dyson hoovers we recently discovered the joy of Dyson V8 – we use it in our Studio and we’re so pleased with it. A cordless and light weight vacuum cleaner is the most wonderful excuse to hoover your contemporary rug all the time!
Moth Damage on Carpet
We advise getting in professionals to deal with a serious moth issue. And if you’d rather tackle them yourself, then the Pest Expert Carpet Moth Killer Kit is very effective and can also be purchased on Amazon.
Shedding
Rug Shedding
Almost all carpets to different degrees will lose fibres during the first weeks on the floor, especially in handmade rugs. This is caused by the way the yarn is spun and the carpet constructed. The carpet may need to be vacuumed more during the first few weeks.
Occasionally tufts may appear above the surface of the carpet. Do not pull these, but cut level with the surrounding pile using sharp scissors.
Animal Hair
All our modern rugs are completely pet-friendly and pets love playing on them! This can cause some muddy paw traces (easy to clean in the ways described above) and quite a lot of hair. Sometimes our beloved pet’s hairs are stubborn and though you are hoovering regularly, suddenly a newly shed patch of fluff appears on your designer rug just as you are closing the cupboard door on your Dyson vacuum cleaner. The Fur Magic wand is the best tool for hair removal from furnishings and we cannot recommend it highly enough.
