Can red color stains come out of my carpet?
One of the reasons carpets are cleaned is because color stains are present and the owner has already tried a home remedy to no avail.
Now, the home owner calls a professional carpet cleaner to perform a miracle.
Unfortunately most color stains do not come out with cleaning.
Why? very similar to washing clothes, once you get a color stain even if you wash them it is not possible to get it out, it will not come out. maybe the color stain will lighten up, but it is still visible. Red, blue, green, yellow, purple stains are very common in carpet. These stains happen because someone spilled an artificial drink with those colors in them. Many of these colors are great dyes that will adhere to fiber, especially: wool, nylon, cotton and other fibers.
Besides artificial drinks, many natural drinks and food contain dyes that will stain carpet. Tea, coffee, currie come to mind. Other drinks and food will also stain fabrics. Milk, natural juice, such as orange or peach juice. even though milk wont stain immediately, if left in the carpet for a couple of days it will mildew and create a black or dark stain that will possibly be permanent, not to mention the awful odor it will create.
As a carpet cleaner I always tell my customers that any color stain will not come out. Will all of them not come out? maybe. But, based on over 25 years of experience and training, there is a high probability that not all will come out. Even if there are ten stains and nine come out, it will not be good enough for the customer as far as guaranteeing removal of the stains. Once color stains have dried, they are set into the fiber.
Usually I find that there are red blue and other color stains on a carpet, and I sometimes find a strange yellow discoloration close to many of the stains, the reason is that the customer has tried Clorox bleach or full strength oxiginated cleaners, therefore removing the original color from the carpet. causing even more permanent damage. As professionals, we have many color stain removers that are mixed at the job and we also use a heat process to speed up the removal of color stains.
These process to remove color stains take time and require expensive chemicals, But even then, sometimes it does not remove the stain. Some of the most impossible stains are hair dye, and furniture stains. the last option is to patch the area.
The best thing to do is not spill anything on the carpet, in a perfect world.
When you do spill something it is best to remove by blotting the spill with white terri towels and a good spotter, using a colorless soap bar to scrub the stain and suspend the dye, then rinse with water and topical hydrogen peroxide. I assume no responsibility if there is any damage to any fabric if you try this, This is what I have done in controlled color stains that I experimented with.
Unfortunately, when a color spill happens, most customers will wait sometimes for years before they call a professional to take care of the problem. Usually during moving out time. It can be frustrating for everyone involved in removing color stains. But then there is new carpet or hard flooring.