Carpet and Upholstery fibers, as well as tile and stone flooring generally fall into the two catagories of "natural" (earth made) or "synthetic (man made). For the purpose of this article, we'll focus on carpet and upholstery fibers. Although there are several types of natural fibers such as wool, cotton, linen, & silk, among others, they all fall into one of two subcatagories, which are "protein fibers (animal) or "cellulosic fibers (plant)". Synthetic fibers are man made, and come in a variety of shapes and fiber types such as olefin (polypropylene), nylon, rayon, etc . They can be color dyed with a single base color either during the extrusion process (solution dyed), or after they are manufactured, they are lot dyed by dipping the lot of product into a dye beck (acid dyed). If the textile is to have a print of some type, that is applied topically (stamped) afterward.

In order to competently, safely, and efficiently clean carpet, and upholstery, one should know the type of fiber and the make up of the textile they are attempting to clean. Nothing comes as more of a surprise to the unsuspecting cleaning technician, than watching those pretty floral dyed print colors start migrating into one ugly looking pool of purple as he/she is applying the prespray.

A burn test should be used to identify the fibers before anything else, followed by a colorfast test to make sure your cleaning solution will not cause bleeding of the colors into one another.

When in doubt, use a neutral cleaning solution, which has a PH of 7. If you use an alkaline (high PH) solution (only on synthetics), always remember to neutralize the fibers with an acid (low PH) rinse, to prevent residue and resoiling problems afterward.

This information is very general, and can be applied to carpet cleaning, as well as, upholstery cleaning, area rug cleaning, tile and grout cleaning, spot removal, and odor control, with some additional tweeking.

Dominick Cassano, President
Magic Carpet Express Co.