Cleaning oriental carpets on your own

If something got soiled at home, usually it can be cleaned by oneself. However, valuable carpets can get damaged when attempting to clean them. If you keep to some important points, you can clean your carpet at home unscrupulously. In the following we give some valuable advice on how to clean your own Persian or oriental carpet. In more severe cases, you should however have the carpet cleaned by professionals.

How severe is the degree of soiling? 

Light spots and smaller dirty parts can be cleaned without problems. Of course, you must know how - our tips below will show you. Serious soiling like large wine stains or an all-over cleaning of the carpet should be done by professionals. An original hand knotted oriental carpet is usually colour sensible and needs the treatment of experts to get it back at its original state. This is especially important for those carpets made with natural dyes from plants. If the cleaning is done incorrectly, the oriental carpet might lose its colours and its wool or silk might be damaged irreparably. Nain Trading is an expert for cleaning carpets for 20 years know. If you aren't sure about the degree of soiling, feel free to call us.

How to clean smaller stains on the oriental carpet 

If your carpet has just minor stains, you can easily remove them by yourself. In order to succeed, here are some professional tips and hints. Before you start using home remedy, take your time and read this article.

1. First thing to consider is a suitable detergent

There are a lot of detergents on the market with more promises than can be kept. If you want to remove dirt from your oriental carpet without touching its colours, you need to use a pH-neutral detergent. Otherwise, the detergent could bleach colours. Also, chemical surfactants should not be an ingredient of the applied detergent because the surfactants could damage the carpet's fibres. For applying the detergent, you should use soft brushes and cloths. Before starting you should use a vacuum cleaner.

We recommend to make sure that the colour of your carpet won't be affected by the used detergents. Therefore, you should apply a bit of the detergent on a small area and leave it for a short time. Then brush it off in grain direction with a moistened brush or cloth. If the colour bleaches out, you should get a more neutral detergent. Alternatively, dilute the one you already used with water. In these cases, you should test the result again. Only if the colour stability is guaranteed, you can start cleaning the carpet as follows. 

2. Main wash: Don't use too much water!

Now we can start with the main part of the cleaning. Before you start, make sure you consider that the carpet should be moistened, not wet. Otherwise, you'll wash out too much fat, which makes your carpet soft and stain-resistant in itself. As result the carpet might become blunt and dull. Spread the previously tested detergent with the grain onto the moistened carpet. As soon as the detergent is drawn-in, brush it off - also with the grain. Make sure that all the detergent will be removed from the carpet's surface. On this occasion, you should wash the brush itself repeatedly, so that the detergent can get off the brush. If the entire foam is removed, rinse the carpet with water. Make sure the whole carpet gets watered. With the backside of a scrubbing brush, you can now get the rest of the water off.

3. The final step: Greasing and drying the oriental carpet

After the carpet has been cleaned and the water has been removed, grease the carpet a little bit. This step is very important because the removed fat must be replaced to give back the carpet it's natural gloss and robustness. You should use lanolin or wool fat for this. If sufficient fat is applied to the carpet, dry it. In the best case, the carpet should be able to be aired from both its sides. Bannisters or duckboards are perfect. It is important, that the carpet is ventilated from all sides. The front and the back should dry at the same time.

Please consider: Soaking the carpet for a short period while cleaning it is acceptable, but you should try to avoid longer periods in order to make sure that the colours, fibres and fats won't be affected.

Lasting pleasure, if you clean the oriental carpet the right way.

Hand knotted oriental carpets are lifetime-companions. Their durability makes them perfect floor coverings in almost every environment. But dirt never makes an exception. To maintain the gloss and colour intensity of the carpet, sometimes it needs to be cleaned. Smaller stains can be easily removed just like we told you before.

Nain Trading – an expert for professional cleaning of valuable oriental carpets

If your carpet shows soiling more than just minor stains, you'll need an expert. Nain Trading looks back on 20 years of experience in cleaning and repairing highly valuable Persian and oriental carpets. You can be absolutely sure that we bring back your carpet to the original state. Feel free to contact us for an individual offer.