An old Karastan rug came into our shop recently for wash. These are machine woven, wool rugs made in America. Very good quality, as we’ve seen some come in 50 years or older, and still in great shape.
This piece had an interesting tag on the back with “care instructions” from the manufacturer.
Here’s the tag, with our commentary: Click to make larger.
In case it’s hard to read for you, I have copied the text here.
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No 1 -- When using rug pad with RAISED design under this rug, be sure that the raised design of the pad faces DOWN against the floor, with the smooth side UP. Otherwise the uneven surface design of the pad will in time cause uneven wear on the surface of the rug.
Our Thoughts: Having handled thousands of rugs in our lifetime here, we have NEVER seen a pad with a raised design ever cause any uneven wear. It may be this is an old care label, because this is certainly outdated information.
The purpose of a pad is to hold a rug in place and keep it from sliding around on the floor, and also to be a shock absorber for foot traffic to lessen rug wear over time. The pad manufacturers (we use Durahold – the best pad in the industry) design the pads to be placed “raised” side up. They certainly would not be designing these to harm the rugs, especially since the developers of Durahold (the No-Muv corporation) is owned by an oriental rug gallery family that has been around since the late 1800’s. They know rugs, and they know rug pads.
No 2 -- Use an electric vacuum cleaner as often as necessary to keep your rug clean and free from dirt and grit. Vacuuming helps prevent the pile from packing down.
Our Thoughts: Regular vacuuming is the most important habit you can have to protect your rug from wear. The dry grit and contaminants work their way into the base of the wool fibers and cause abrasion and breaking.
A wool rug can hold a full pound of dry soil in several square feet before it will look dirty, because wool fibers hide the soil so well. It’s one of the pluses of wool, because it looks cleaner longer...but one of the minuses because this often means people wait too long before they clean it.
We recommend weekly vacuuming of rugs in high traffic areas, but we suggest that you use a canister vacuum, or other vacuum or attachment that has no brushes that create weekly agitation to the rug. You basically want to “dust” the rug and pick up the dry particulates from the top of the fibers.
If all you own is a beater bar vacuum, then we suggest you keep your bar setting on the highest level (to lessen abrasion). We also suggest training your family, or your cleaning company, to vacuum from SIDE to SIDE rather than along the length so that they do not suck up the fringe tassels into the beater bar.
Once or twice a year, it’s good to lay your wool rugs fuzzy side down, and vacuum the BACK of the rug with a beater bar to shake the grit out from the base of the fibers. You can then flip the rug over and sweep up the soil, as well as vacuum the top side. See THIS PAGE for more information on at-home dusting. Otherwise, when your rug is cleaned by a professional, the rug cleaner will (hopefully) include both pre- and post-wash dusting as part of the cleaning process.
No 3 -- Long ends may work to surface after use or vacuuming. Never pull them out -- clip them off even with the rug surface.
Our Thoughts: Because wool is spun with staple fibers, as opposed to one long filament as silk is, this means there are always some potential fibers that can work their way loose. This is especially true on new rugs that have not been properly washed yet (a wash will remove many of these).
Sometimes, in the final shearing of a wool rug, some longer fibers can get tucked down and then pop up when the rug is walked on.
In both cases, the best thing to do is what they suggest – clip it off.
No 4 -- Remove spots promptly. Liquid spillage: sponge or flush with cold water and blot dry. Greasy or gummy spots: use solvent-type cleaner.
Our Thoughts: It used to be that Karastan rugs had some of the strongest, highest-quality dyes in the machine woven rug industry. On the older rugs you could in fact take cold water and attack a spill with few repercussions.
Today, as Karastan has subcontracted more product to China, and has chosen some horrible blended rug designs using rayon (aka viscose), you need to be careful with how you respond to spills.
The best step is blotting. And if you see ANY dye color transfer into the white cotton towel, then you need to blot as much as you can and get that rug to a professional to help alleviate any permanent damage.
For some more details on proper spill techniques on wool rugs, see THIS PAGE for a spill video and information on handling accidents on rugs. You can of course give us a call and we can help you as well (858-566-3833).
No 5 -- This rug may be cleaned by washing. When the rug becomes soiled, do not attempt any makeshift cleaning at home. Send your rug to an experienced rug cleaner who is familiar with cleaning a washed, luster rug such as this is.
Our Thoughts: If you have a quality rug, especially a natural fiber rug (wool, silk, cotton), then of course you send it to a professional for cleaning. There are risks to cleaning anything at home – fiber loss, dye loss, construction issues (curling, buckling, delamination), and drying issues (if you do not dry the inner fibers completely you can create a mildew problem).
We’ve seen some valuable rugs ruined by well-intended owners, or their housekeepers. Valuable American Indian weavings tossed in the washing machine as if it were a blanket. Silk rugs taken to the local dry cleaner as if it were a blouse. Antique rugs given to their in-home carpet cleaning company for steam cleaning, because they did not realize how valuable the rug was (and that heat on wool and the strong chemicals they use for nylon can ruin a valuable wool rug).
We’ve seen it all. Heart breaking damage that we many times cannot fix. Damage that with just a little education could have been avoided.
If you own a not very valuable rug, and want to see if there is a way for you to clean it on your own, then send some photos (front and back) of the rug, along with what part of the country you are in, and we can give you our thoughts on what to be wary of. Quality rugs need a proper washing, which can’t be done at home, and should never be done IN your home (we just had a frantic call from a woman whose cleaning company took her SILK rug out on her driveway to clean it – can you imagine that?).
If you email your photos and details (size, whether you are in a sunny area, and how you were going to attempt to clean it) – we will let you know if you are setting yourself up for a disaster. The best email to send that to is Lisa’s, and she is at rugchick@gmail.com.
It’s not a surprise that manufacturers of rugs would not know how exactly to clean their product properly. If you ruin the rug...you will then have to buy a NEW one. :)
