The Art of Cleaning Oriental Rugs

Posted on 22/04/2016

What is the Best Way to Clean Oriental Rugs?

There will always be rugs that require more attention than others. A perfect example for that is the oriental rug, which is one of the most pretentious things you can have in your house in terms of cleaning. As soon as you start doing it wrong, it might go anywhere from discolouring to falling apart. But all that is perfectly manageable if you know what you are doing and how to approach these particularly capricious floor coverings. Of course, you can always rely on your local cleaning company for a capable professional cleaner who will know what to do, but here are some other options as well:

1. Frequent vacuuming
The best way to clean a rug is not to get it dirty at all. Prevention is hard, of course, but there are methods of treatment which will at least delay the need for rug cleaning. If you use your vacuum cleaner on a regular basis, you will take away all that dust and surface dirt that eventually becomes the bigger issue when you are doing a thorough cleaning. And by thorough we mean do both sides – rugs have two sides and you should vacuum both.

2. Shampoo
Besides vacuuming, you can treat the rug or rugs with a bit of shampooing. Tougher stains will dissipate easily under the cleansing ability of the shampoo, and the shampoo’s fibres won’t be damaged at all since the ingredients of the shampoo are meant to keep the surface they touch together. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every shampoo works. Some of the products in the supermarket won’t agree with your specific rug, so it is always a good idea to check the ingredients and see whether they will work. Another good way to test it is to use the shampoo on a small area of the rug and see the results.

3. Hand-washing
Sometimes you have to do the dirty work. If there are stains that don’t go away even after shampooing, then you will have to do some proper scrubbing. Use either a specific rug cleaner that works well with oriental rugs, or apply baking soda or vinegar. Careful! Don’t scrub too hard – oriental rugs have their weathering points lower than other rug types, so be gentle to the rug and merciless on the stain.

4. Clean the edges
Surprisingly, many people actually ignore the edges of a rug when trying to keep the rug clean. If the middle looks nice, it all looks nice, right? Yes, well, dirt accumulates on the edges as well and it spreads easier unless it is dealt with appropriately. Use any of the techniques above on the edges of your rug and it will be completely clean as well as harder to dirty.

5. Rinse and repeat
Sometimes a single washing just will not do. The stain will still look fresh after the scrubbing, so make sure you take the rug under running water or hose it down in your bathroom (or the outside, if you have the opportunity). And then do it again. And repeat until the well-scrubbed stain is no more. Once the rug is dry, you will see the results. And again, do remember to rinse both sides.

6. Dry away
And then you have only one more thing left to do. Dry the rug to reach the end result. Suppose you don’t have enough time and patience to hang it from a door and use a blow dryer. In that case hang it somewhere outside, preferably somewhere the sun reaches so that drying will be easier. When you are absolutely certain that there is no moisture left, bring the rug in and enjoy.

The art of oriental rug cleaning has its knacks and it makes for easier dealing with them. Learn these six steps and you will no longer have any problems with maintaining the cleanliness of your rugs and securing the brilliant aesthetics of your floors.