How to Clean Your Oriental Rug at Home | DIY Rug Care

So one of the most common questions  we get here at Catalina Rug is,   how do I clean my rug without having to take it  to professional rug cleaning? So in this video,   what we're gonna do is we're gonna show you that  process of how you can clean up your rug at home   in a very lightweight fashion without the risk  of damaging the rug. And it will be good enough   to make your rug look cleaner and remove some of  the dirt and it give you a little bit more time   before you will have to take it for professional  rug cleaning. So the way we're gonna do this video   is first I'll show you what kind of equipment  and materials you need is pretty basic stuff,   and then I'll show you the process step by step.  So stick around and all that is coming up now.

All right, so to get started, let's go over  the materials you'll need to clean your rug   at home. So you'll need a couple of cotton  towels, like these ones, preferably white,   and make sure that they're clean. And you'll  need some sort of brush like this one here   that is gonna help you brush the pile of the  rug. And then you'll also need some sort of   soap similar to this one that we're using here.  This is a dishwashing foam.

And just make sure   whatever product you're using doesn't have  a bleach or anything that's gonna damage the   rug. So here I just wanna show you a little  bit of a closeup of each of these products.   So basically this is the towel that we're using.  Here's a closeup of the brush that we're using,   and then also the dish washing foam  that we're using to clean the rug. All right, so first, before we get started with  actually cleaning the rug, we're gonna go ahead   and give it a nice vacuum.

First, we're gonna  start with the top of the rug and make sure   that we are vacuuming side to side. And also make  sure to avoid vacuuming the fringes of the rug   because that could damage the rug over time.  So once you're done with vacuuming the front,   we're gonna go to the back. All right, so now that  we've finished vacuuming the front of the rug,   we're gonna flip the rug over and  vacuum the back. This is optional,   but it really does help to remove some of the  dust and debris that have gone into the pile.   And depending on the size of your rug, you  could use this trick where we are flipping   half of the rug over and vacuuming one half.  And then once we're done vacuuming this half,   we're gonna move on and vacuum  the other half of the rug.

All right, so now that we're done vacuuming the  rug, we're ready to start actually cleaning it.   So we're gonna mix the soap with some water to  dilute it so that way it's not too strong. And   then just go ahead and take the towel and dip it  into the mixture and start gently wiping the rug   and try to go with the direction of the pile.  You don't want to go too much against the pile   because it's gonna get into the deeper parts of  the pile and it's gonna get very wet. So you're   just trying to focus on cleaning the surface of  the rug. And for this reason, you're gently wiping   on top of the rug and just going with the pile,  as we're showing you here, and of course whenever   you feel like the towel is drying up, you could  dip it back into the mixture to soak it up more. And for this step, I recommend doing this in  sections. So pick out one section of the rug   and clean it first, and then move on to the other  sections. And this really depends on the size of   your rug, but for example, for this rug, we  tried to clean it in four different sections   and the size is around a four by six.

Now as you  can see here, our towel is starting to get dirty   from cleaning up just one part of the rug. And  this rug is actually pretty clean to begin with,   but you can definitely expect that as you  start doing this, your towel is gonna get   very dirty. So go ahead and switch to a clean  towel whenever your towel gets too dirty   cuz you don't want to be distributing that dirt  around the cleaner parts of the rug. So as   far as cleaning the pile of the rug, that's  pretty much the step that you have to take. And you'll notice that the pile of the rug  is gonna be dry within 30 minutes to an hour   and we're really dampening the pile. We're  not getting it soaking wet. So you should   expect it to dry fairly quickly and you could  feel the rug and just feel the pile of the rug   to make sure that it's completely dry before  you start walking over it and using the rug.   Now for the next step, we're gonna show you how  to clean the fringes of the rug.

And of course   this process is optional, but if you find that  the fringes are dirty, then you could use this   process to clean them. All you need is a stick of  wood or something that you could place underneath   to place the fringes over. And you're gonna use  the same soap and water mixture that you created   along with the brush to clean the fringes.  And we're gonna show you how to do that next. All right, now that we have the stick in place  and the fringes placed over it, you just take   the brush and dip it into the mixture that we have  and then start soaking and brushing the fringes   from the rug towards the end of the fringes.  And just make sure that the mixture gets nice   and soaking into the fringe so that way the  fringes start to get soaking wet and you're   gonna go from one end of the rug to the other.  And then once you are complete with one side of   the fringes, you're gonna switch to the other  side.

But do leave the stick of wood in place   because it allows the fringes to dry easier. So if  you can use two sticks of wood for this process,   that would be the best. Otherwise, we  recommend you wait for one side to dry   before you work on the other side and move the  stick over to clean the other side of the rug. Alright, so that's how you can clean your hand-knotted rug at home and hopefully this will make   your rug look cleaner and remove some of the  dirt.

And this will allow you to wait a bit   longer before you have to take it for professional  rug cleaning. And just something to be cautious   about is to double check the products that  you're using and look at the labels to make   sure it doesn't have any sort of bleach or  anything that could damage the rug. Also,   you can check with your local professional  rug cleaners about the type of product   you're using to make sure that it's not  gonna hurt the rug. And if you enjoy this   content and you learn something from it,  then I invite you to like and subscribe   and comment below in this video and check out  our playlist about rug care cuz we have a lot   of different videos covering this topic.

And  with that, I will see you in the next video.
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