Cleaning Tips

You’re at home enjoying a nice glass of wine —relaxing, maybe sitting down to dinner, savouring the moment—when disaster strikes. The glass slips from your fingers. And then there it is: a red wine stain. On your beautiful, (maybe cream!) carpet. What do you do? Call your mother? Abstain from red wine forever after? Cry? No! Don’t let that stain scare you. If you keep your cool and act fast, your carpet will be spotless again in no time. How do you get red wine stains out of carpet?Are red wine stains permanent?Why do red wine stains turn blue?How do you clean set in red wine stains?Use salt to get red wine out of carpetDoes vinegar remove wine stains?White wine will take out red wine stainsThe best way of removing red wine stains from carpetProfessional carpet cleaning is the final resort How do you get red wine stains out of carpet? 1. Blot up the excess wine. Before you go running for the cleaning cabinet, grab a cloth and start blotting. Using a fresh spot of cloth each time, absorb as much liquid as possible from the red wine stain. Then, pour a little water on the stain to dilute it and continue blotting. This should make it much easier to clean. 2. Do a test run. If your carpet is dark-coloured or especially precious to you and you’re planning to use a harsh/abrasive solution to clean, you may want to do a test run before you start pouring on the chemicals. Find a hidden spot (beneath a couch, perhaps) and do a quick test run to make sure the color and quality of your carpet won’t be affected. 3. Pick your method. Based on what you have lying around, try one of these tried-and-true methods: * Baking Soda: With a 3-1 ratio mixture of baking soda and water, stir together a paste and pat it thoroughly into the stain. Once it’s dry, vacuum off. You can also use baking soda in combination with hydrogen peroxide.* Carpet or Clothing Stain Remover: Since all stain removal products are different, follow the directions, treating the carpet like clothing if need be. Simple as that.* Salt: Shake some salt (a pretty hefty amount) onto the stain and let it absorb the wine (similar to the baking soda solution above). Vacuum off.* Vinegar: Mix vinegar with a little water and blot away. Follow up with some dish soap blotting. 4. Assess your results. If you weren’t able to clean the stain right away (and it’s not budging from the carpet) or your home cleaning job just wasn’t up to the standards, you might need to call in a carpet cleaning company. Are red wine stains permanent? As a rule of thumb, stains should be tackled straight away, or they will become permanent. The longer the stain stays in fiber, the more difficult it will be to clean it. There are many stain removers you can use to help you, but always be mindful not to rub the stain in, just blot. Why do red wine stains turn blue? Red wine gets its color from grape-skin pigments called anthocyanins; it's the same thing that stains your hands from berries, plums and cherries. Anthocyanins work as acid-base indicators, which is the same chemistry behind litmus tests. The color of the anthocyanins depends on the pH of what they come into contact with. Acidity turns anthocyanins red, while alkalinity shades them toward blue. Because wine already has acid in it, its anthocyanins are red. But as soon as you expose those anthocyanins to more alkaline factors, they will start to turn blue. So, if you use alkaline products to clean the stain, like baking soda for example, the chemical reaction will be instant and the stain will turn blue. How do you clean set in red wine stains? As mentioned before, old stains are a lot harder to clean than fresh ones. But it's still worth a try! If you are dealing with a set in red wine stain, here's what you should do! Mix about 3 parts hydrogen peroxide and 1 part dishwashing liquid, then apply to your stain. Let it sit for a while (think 20 minutes to an hour) to do its magic. Then, blot clean before attempting to fully wash out the mixture. If that doesn't work, there's a good chance that the damage is now permanent. Use salt to get red wine out of carpet Salt removes stains Salt is great to use when a red wine accident happens! Blot as much of the liquid as you can with a paper towel, and then cover the entire stain with salt until you can’t see the red wine stain anymore. Let the salt soak into the wet stain and then dry. As the salt dries, it should suck up the stain. Then, simply vacuum everything up. Does vinegar remove wine stains? Distilled white vinegar is a miracle worker in the house. It is inexpensive, gentle on fabrics and safer to use than chlorine bleach and fabric softeners. Vinegar will neutralise the red and purple pigments in the wine. Pour vinegar on the stain, let it sit for a few minutes. After that, use soapy water to clean what's left of the spill. White wine will take out red wine stains Cleaning red wine with white wine might seem weird, but this method is about fighting fire with fire. All you need to do to clean the stain is pour a little white wine on top of it and then rub a thick layer of baking soda on top. You should let this sit for a couple of hours. You need to make sure that the baking soda stays moist, so return to the stain every once in a while to lightly spray the stain with water. Once the stain has been lifted, wash the spot with soap and water to remove all traces of wine and baking soda. The best way of removing stains from carpet There is no magic way of removing red wine stains, and all the above methods work. You can pick what you want to use based on what you can find in your household. But the rate of success really depends on so many factors, like the type of fiber, age of stain, etc. If you're not 100% happy with the outcome after trying these tricks, you should call a professional carpet cleaning company to help you out with the stain removal. Professional carpet cleaning may remove red wine stains If none of the methods above work, it's time to get professional help. Carpet cleaners are professionally trained for dealing with the most stubborn stains. At Happy Clean, we have over 25 different carpet cleaning products for each type of stain. Our staff know what technique to use for stain removal and over the years, we have dealt with many types of jobs. One time, we had an emergency call at 8am on a Sunday for some red wine spilled on a light gray fabric suite of furniture and a cream carpet. We got there by 10am and did the carpet and upholstery cleaning job, leaving a delighted customer behind. This is the type of service we offer, making sure we turn each call into a regular customer. If you need your carpet cleaned, don't hesitate to get in touch!

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How to clean red wine from carpet