Red Dye Removal

As a professional cleaner who goes to many homes every day one of the most common things we see is red stains on carpet.  These can be hard to remove and are caused from many different things such as; red wine, red drinks for kids, popsicles, and many other foods or drinks that have red dye or red food coloring in them.   As a professional there are products that we can buy that work most of the time to remove red stains from carpet.  How can you as the home owner remove red stains from carpet without having to call out a professional carpet cleaning service.  Here is one thing that has worked for many people trying to remove red stains from carpet.

First off you will more than likely have the best results removing any stain the fresher it is.  This applies to removing red stains from carpet too. So as soon as you see the red stain on your carpet grab a white terry cloth towel or paper towel and wet it.  It is important that the towel should not be colored or have any kind of pattern on it. Sometimes the dye in the towel could rub off onto the carpet.  Once the towel is wet, then gently wipe the stain from the outside of the stain in.  This will remove any excess and not spread it around making the stain larger.

Next while the stain is still wet get out your iron and turn it on and let it get hot.  Then while the iron is heating up mix up some warm water and ammonia in a fifty – fifty ratio and put it in a quart spray bottle.  Spray the red stain with the ammonia solution. You will need to put enough on it to wet the fiber, but not so much that you soak the area.   Then take your damp white terry cloth towel or several damp white paper towels and lay the towel flat on the stain.  Take your hot iron and carefully place it on the towel, making certain that the iron only touches the towel and not the carpet.   You should leave the iron on the towel for only 6 – 10 seconds then lift the iron and see if the color is transferring to the towel.  Then keep repeating the process until all the red color is gone out of the carpet.  When doing this make sure of three things.  The towel needs to stay damp, the iron should never touch the carpet, and the iron doesn’t need to sit on the damp towel to long.

If you don’t want to use an iron and towels then you can use a wallpaper steamer.  It works just as well and you don’t have to worry about burning the carpet.  The downfall to a wallpaper steamer is they usually take a while to heat up.

By following these instructions you should be able to remove quite a few red stains from your carpet without having to call in the professional carpet cleaners.  However, removing red stains from carpet can be difficult and this method may not work on all red stains.