From clumsy drink spills to make-up smudges, carpet stains are stressful and unsightly, but accidents happen! With the best knowledge and the right stain remover, there’s no need to stress.
This guide will arm you with the knowledge to safely and easily remove stains from carpets, rugs & upholstery. Whether their old or new stains, we have a tip that can help you restore your carpet back to a clean, spot free finish.
In this guide you’ll find out how to:
- Effectively remove stains by avoiding common mistakes
- Remove water-based stains such as fruit juice & food stains
- Get rid of red coloured stains such as red wine, red curry and red juice
- Lift fake tan & makeup stains such as foundation & lipstick
- Target grease, gum, oil, tar, pollen & ink stains
- Get rid of tea & coffee spill stains
- Remove pet-related stains such as urine, mud and faeces, whilst deodorising
Read our professional carpet cleaning tips to get rid of those stains for good.
Our Top Tips for Removing any Stain from Carpet, Rugs & Upholstery
No matter what the stain is, whether your puppy has weed on the rug, your kids have spilt fruit juice on the fabric sofa, or make-up has been smudged into the carpet in a rush to get to work. These tips will prevent you from making the stain worse in a panic.
- Only use water to lift the stain if you don’t have a targeted product. Using the wrong products for particular stains, such as using washing up liquid on red wine, can actually set them in even more. So, if in doubt, just use water to mop up as much as you can.
- Blot, don’t scrub! You could work some stains deeper into the carpet pile, as well as feather and damage the carpet if you're scrubbing too hard. Gently does it.
- Treat the odour as well as the stain. If you have a stain that also has a bad smell, you’ll want to treat the odour at the same time, otherwise you’ll still have a problem. This means using a product that deodorises and ensuring it goes as far down into the pile as the odour.
- Don’t leave stains too long before using a targeted product. Our carpet stain removing solutions are great on stains old & new, but the older they are, the more difficult they are to remove. It’s best to target them straight away for much easier removal.
Now that we’ve covered our top tips to avoid making stains worse, lets dive into the details.
Removing Water-Based Stains from Carpets, Rugs & Upholstery
Water-based stains such as fruit juice are the easiest to remove. You can try water first, but if you need something more, use Stain Remover No.1.
This carpet stain remover spray is safe on all carpet types, including wool. It contains sugar solvents that breakdown stains without affecting natural fibres. This is a great stain remover to have on hand for general carpet spot treatments throughout your home.
Safely Remove Red Coloured Stains
We all fear the red wine stain on the sofa or carpet. The bright red colour is notoriously difficult to remove from fibres. Without the right product that is.
Red coloured stains, including red wine & food dyes, need a gentle bleaching agent to breakdown the tannin staining. The product needs to be tough on red colouring, but gentle on fibres.
Our Red Wine & Red Stain Remover has a gentle bleaching agent that doesn’t affect fabrics, but safely lifts red staining. Use this stain remover on any strong, red pigments.
How to Remove Fake Tan & Make-up Stains from Carpets
Fake tan spills and make-up smudges are always a stressful situation, especially when you’re in a rush to get out the door for a social event.
Make-up & fake tan are normally oil-based and a little bit greasy. This means it can be difficult to remove the stains with just water, or a water-based stain remover, such as Stain Remover No.1.
You’ll need something to target the oil base, such as Grease, Gum & Oil Stain Remover. This product contains fatty hydrocarbons that breakdown oil. Like dissolves like, so this oil-based stain remover dissolves oils and grease effectively.
The stain remover solution contains 3 different solvents to treat different issues such as chewing gum, tar, oil and grease. It is also a gel formula, which prevents changes to latex backings.
This product should be extracted out of the carpet after treatment, with a carpet cleaner machine or spot wash. When the solution & stain are extracted out from the carpet, rug or upholstery, it turns a milky-coloured liquid.
Grease, Gum & Oil remover is the best solution to use for lifting pollen and ink stains too. The solvents target these type of stains for easy extracting.
Tea & Coffee Stain Removal
Tea & Coffee accidents happen to the best of us. They’re frustrating, especially when its on your cream carpets.
Having Tea & Coffee Stain Remover to hand for stains such as these, makes clearing up after the mess quick and easy. The formula safely breaks down tannin by reacting with them to make them water soluble. They can then be extracted out with a carpet cleaner washer machine, or by blotting with a damp cloth.
Removing Stains with Odours
When you have a double problem of a stain plus a bad odour to go with it, such as vomit, puppy urine and food odours, you’ll want to treat both problems at the same time.
If you treat the stain at the surface level, whilst the odour has sunk deep into the carpet pile, you’ll be left with the smell still.
To treat the odour properly, you’ll need to soak a deodorising solution as far into the carpet as the smell has sunk in, to fully remove it. This will treat the stain at the same time.
Our Pet Pro Stain & Odour Remover does just that. Deodorisers and stain removers tackle both issues at the same time, without affecting delicate, pH sensitive fibres, including wool. Carpets, rugs and upholstery are left with a spring fresh fragrance, clear of spots and stains.
We’ve covered a wide range of stains there, so that you know how to clean all types of carpet stains with our kit of carpet stain removal products. If you have a specific stain that we haven’t covered in this blog post, get in touch by sending us an email to info@dirtbusters.co.uk