color transfer on a couch

[Joel D]

I cleaned a sectional that looked like microfiber or microsuede. Very dirty and customer wanted the dog smell out.

So I sprayed the back with avenge and scrubbed in. It looked ok so I sprayed the whole thing down and scrubbed then started to extract on the top and back with the drimaster upholstery tool and I see all this brown coming out. Thought at first it was really filthy so kept hitting the same area over and over and uh oh it just kept coming. So i just extracted the whole thing with the tool to rinse out all the prespray but tried not to spend to much time in one area. Then put fans on it. Then wiped with cloths every which way to make the knapp look good and more color came off on the rags,-smelled chemical like.

Found a tag that said polyester backing clean using shampoo. Swear it was real suede or something considering the transfer. He called and said it looked great. After seeing the color come out i thought i was done for.

So any idea what this was, could it be poly with some kind of coating? Or is it real suede? This is a new one on me

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Alot of dog oil and dirt. That is why my dog is not allowed in the couch.

 

[sweendogg]

Unless its olefin or solution dyed nylon, any fabric has the opportunity to bleed given the right conditions. I'm not familiar with avenge but if it has an alkaline formula, that could have been enough of a pH shift combined with any possible urine from the "pet Smell" to cause the fabric to bleed. Now there cold have simply been excess dye that was never properly washed out of the fabric after the original dyeing process and once you got those dyes wet, you reactivated them. In either case, flush as much as you can and make sure you are using an acid side rinse. This will help set the fugitive dyes. It sounds like this couch may have been a single color and in that case, it usually is not that big of deal. Generally speaking, polyesters will not usually bleed, but if could have been a poly cotton or poly rayon blend. something to think about. What kinda of color bleed test did you perform? besides thes spray on back? did you know if it was crocking before even wetting it down?

 

[Joel D]

I didnt color bleed test it at all. Good info thanks

 

[Joel D]

I should have explained the couch was brown same color coming out thats why i at first thought it was dirt but the amount of it coming out from the back plus the smell told me something otherwise

 

[Dolly Llama]

probably lots of soil.

I'm not a big fan of the DM tool.
I know a lot of guys swear by them, but i wasn't impressed with the one I demoed.
I don't think it cleans heavy soiled fabrics all that well


here's my color fast test.......*use at your own risk*

Find an inconspicuous area.
for pieces that have a skirt, there's a mile of fabric under it to test.
non skirted pieces are more difficult to find hidden fabric.
I mix a little of our strongest nuke'em carpet pre-spray in a trigger and douche a hidden area of fabric.
I'm talking totally saturated with off the scale ph nuke juice.
Let it dwell 5-10 minutes then visually inspect for color run.
if no run, then I check for croaking with a white spotting towel.
if no croaking I spray it with what ever I think it needs for the soil type and level of soil..up to and including the carpet nuke juice

PS..depending on fabric, after the nuke-it and croaking test, I'll rinse and put a fan on that spot to make sure there will no surprises when dry.
It rare that we have just uph to clean, so we have plenty time for the nuke 'n dry while cleaning carpet in the rest of the joint.
if it's taking too long to dry because it's cotton or sump'um, i might get out the blow drier


..L.T.A.