How to manage dye bleed issues on Oriental Rugs

[Larry Cobb]

Larry are you suggesting the use of the Reduce All and Dye Transfer Inhibitor formulations during a detergent cleaning process. If so, do you have the products ready for sale along with recommended concentrations and process? I would be very interested in testing such a formulation.

Regarding the statement that it will "brighten all the colors in the rug". Can you explain how this works? Does it remove overall oxidization/yellowing, or somehow actually lighten the dye in the rug itself? Is it some other reaction? There is a long tradition of formulations that 'lighten and brighten' rugs in various ways used by the rug production washing industry. Is you process something entirely different?

We have the ReduceAll available now, but our new Dye Transfer Inhibitor is about a week away.
I would welcome your testing.

The ReduceAll brightens colors by whitening the underlying original wool color, increasing the total amount of reflective light from the fiber.

Think of bright white wool vs. old yellow wool; both dyed with the same exact dye bath.

Some fiber processors even use some of it in the same bath,
while they are dyeing to achieve more color intensity.

 

[cleanking]

Larry, will your DTI product be concentrate or RTU by the gallon?

 

[rmann]

Larry, we use hydro all the time to remove oxidization/'yellowing' from rugs, giving them a brighter and 'sharper' color. The effect is as though you removed a yellow filter from in front of a light source. Is that what ReduceAll is doing, or is it something else? Have you run any side by side tests to compare Hydro to ReduceAll? If so, what did you find out?

 

[T Monahan]

@T Monahan is secret sauce available to non wash tub owners at this point?

Has there been any use of it on the wash floor in any capacity?

It can be bought in 5 gallon pails. One quart product to 1200 gallons of water in The Wash Tub environment. Some have used it in soaking tubs much smaller. https://www.centrumforce.com/products/secret-sauce-additive-for-dye-bleed

 

[T Monahan]

While your at it, add a little of this:

 

[Larry Cobb]

Larry, we use hydro all the time to remove oxidization/'yellowing' from rugs, giving them a brighter and 'sharper' color. The effect is as though you removed a yellow filter from in front of a light source. Is that what ReduceAll is doing, or is it something else? Have you run any side by side tests to compare Hydro to ReduceAll? If so, what did you find out?

It definitely removes the "yellow haze" from oxidized rugs.

The side by side tests have shown ReduceAll to be more effective at removing dye bleeding at 2oz./5 gal. concentration.

 

[ruff]

I understand the necessity of correcting dye bleeds, you have no choice. However, some of the products are suggested as means to take away the fear of bleeding, in other words, just use them on anything.

What are the long term effects on the integrity of the wool of reducing agents and or other products mentioned?

 

[Larry Cobb]

IMO, Reducing agents are much better for wool than oxidizing agents.

Wool starts out as an off-white color, and slowly oxidizes to a yellow hue.

Reducing agents reverse some of the process, restoring most of the original color level.

Dye transfer inhibitors do not cause any injury to the wool.

 

[roro]

The ReduceAll brightens colors by whitening the underlying original wool color, increasing the total amount of reflective light from the fiber..

I have difficulty in understanding the rationale here. If wool is a cellular product, and dye essentially goes right through the fibre, how can ReduceAll whiten the underlying without doing the self-same to the external.

roro

 

[Tom Forsythe]

Good discussion!! First and foremost, any rug that will bleed with products designed for wool is either defective or contaminated with an agent that breaks down dyes (usually urine). Sadly, defective rugs are proliferating in the area rug trade. I would not work on any rug that will bleed without a signed release from the customer. Second, the method and amount of water used impacts the amount of dye released. I believe that surface extraction is the safest way to clean a bleeder without urine contamination. I would extract with Dye Loc to help take away immediately some fugitive dye. I would pre-spray with a slightly acidic or neutral product. I would then extract with Dye Loc. I also would focus on speed drying as dye bleed stops once the rug is dry. You sacrifice potential cleaning performance to preserve the aesthetic integrity of the rug. For a urine contaminated rug, you have no choice but to pit wash. We had a 12 x 20 Manchester Kashan (Scott, Paul Kelly and myself worked on this rug) where we treated with Dye Loc, used our Wool Medic as both the pre-spray and urine neutralizing treatments, and rinsed with our Wool Zone. We never left the acid side combining acid stabilization along with Dye Loc. The pit wash overcame the weakness of our cleaning chemistry and restored the rug to its original beauty and condition.

 

[Cleanworks]

Good discussion!! First and foremost, any rug that will bleed with products designed for wool is either defective or contaminated with an agent that breaks down dyes (usually urine). Sadly, defective rugs are proliferating in the area rug trade. I would not work on any rug that will bleed without a signed release from the customer. Second, the method and amount of water used impacts the amount of dye released. I believe that surface extraction is the safest way to clean a bleeder without urine contamination. I would extract with Dye Loc to help take away immediately some fugitive dye. I would pre-spray with a slightly acidic or neutral product. I would then extract with Dye Loc. I also would focus on speed drying as dye bleed stops once the rug is dry. You sacrifice potential cleaning performance to preserve the aesthetic integrity of the rug. For a urine contaminated rug, you have no choice but to pit wash. We had a 12 x 20 Manchester Kashan (Scott, Paul Kelly and myself worked on this rug) where we treated with Dye Loc, used our Wool Medic as both the pre-spray and urine neutralizing treatments, and rinsed with our Wool Zone. We never left the acid side combining acid stabilization along with Dye Loc. The pit wash overcame the weakness of our cleaning chemistry and restored the rug to its original beauty and condition.

It's interesting Tom that you talk about surfacing cleaning. I used to work for a company that had a small shop cleaning loose rugs using the truckmount when it came back from the day jobs. We rarely had a carpet bleed and we were using 500 psi at 200F. A lot of the carpets that we got were British Indias and Chinese rugs that were virtually indestructible but we also got our fair share of Persian and other middle eastern rugs. The owner of the company came from the dry cleaning industry and would mix up our chemical for us. We would pre spray, shampoo and extract these rugs and hang them up to dry. I can recall maybe 2 or 3 serious bleeders. When that happened, the owner would get out his Streepene and go to work.

 

[Larry Cobb]

Streepene is the old technology.

This is an example of the new one:

http://mikeysboard.com/threads/dye-bleeding-created-and-removed.284136/

 

[Cleanworks]

Streepene is the old technology.

This is an example of the new one:

http://mikeysboard.com/threads/dye-bleeding-created-and-removed.284136/

I am watching it Larry and maybe it's just the quality of the photos but I seems like the texture of the rug is changing. Having said that, I am impressed with your product and may place an order shortly along with some of your dye removal products. You have to treat me nice now because I am paying with Canadian dollars and paying a fortune for shipping and customs.

 

[cleanking]

I think a fair comparison of Reduceall and Hydro would be using them the same way plants all around the world use Hydro....in a bucket of hot water poured over the rug, on the wash floor, prior to spinning or extraction.

After watching the video it seems like a ton of product is needed to create the reaction and what your 5 minute video showed could be accomplished on the wash floor in about half the time (depending on how stubborn the dye was being).

 

[Larry Cobb]

We used 2 oz. of ReduceAll in 2 gallons of 130 degree water.

The rug bleeding was dried completely before the removal.

 

[T Monahan]

Rug Summit 10 on Thursday with Robert Mann providing the demonstration

 

[Larry Cobb]

Robert is the true craftsman . . .

I do some color rinsing out of that rug.

I do have a question for you Tom.

What is the minimum amount of water usable in your Rug Washer ?

 

[Mikey P]

The tub or tube?

 

[T Monahan]

Robert is the true craftsman . . .

I do have a question for you Tom.

What is the minimum amount of water usable in your Rug Washer ?

If you are referring to our standard Wash Tub with the paddle, then usually around 1200 gallons.

Do you have a cocktail of juice for me to try?

 

[roro]

I have difficulty in understanding the rationale here. If wool is a cellular product, and dye essentially goes right through the fibre, how can ReduceAll whiten the underlying without doing the self-same to the external.

roro

bump

 

[Larry Cobb]

Ross;
It gets fairly technical, but think of a long Red wool fiber.
It consists of the original but yellowed wool fiber (W) portion, and some of the Dye sites dyed Red (R) :
W~W~R~W~W~R~W~W~R~W~W

The Dynachem ReduceAll will whiten the underlying yellowed wool and
then the fiber will reflect more light increasing the intensity & brightness of the Red light reflected.

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

Just another note to add to the conversation. Today there is a high percentage of over-dyed, over-inked, and tea wash dyed rugs. And these can go south if treated like a standard bleeder.

We just use high volume low percentage acetic acid and good water flow to suspend and remove any released dye in "bleeders." I can't remember the last time we needed to pull out some sodium hydro to correct something, it's just not an issue. Though I am currently playing around with some of Larry's products for some stain removal and isolated color correction for the purpose of re-dyeing, and I'm enjoying the air brush techniques learned from Ron Toney at a recent class.

I have been really surprised at the huge presence of mostly new to the rug business cleaners using stripping, bleaching, and oxidizing chemicals. I wonder almost if more rugs are getting bled and leading to this need, and if perhaps we need to review the chems and tools being used today. Just a thought.

Good conversation. I want to thank Service Monster for sharing the link to it.

 

[T Monahan]

I believe a lot of rugs have been going back to the customer with problems over the years and that was considered a fact of life. However, I have seen rugs with issues from cleaners come into my shop right along.

One idea: Maybe the well written disclaimers to excuse bad performance on the part of some rug care "specialist" has allowed the emergence of this concern. Or alternatively, there is more acceptance to talk about it publicly on forums such as we are doing now.

 

[cleanking]

I believe a lot of rugs have been going back to the customer with problems over the years and that was considered a fact of life. However, I have seen rugs with issues from cleaners come into my shop right along.

One idea: Maybe the well written disclaimers to excuse bad performance on the part of some rug care "specialist" has allowed the emergence of this concern. Or alternatively, there is more acceptance to talk about it publicly on forums such as we are doing now.

I like that explanation a whole lot more. Hard to believe its solely a chemistry problem, when plenty of times rugs will just begin to run with cool water. It also should be stated that newer production (1980-today) Iranian, Afghan, Turkish, etc. tend to have more issues with color run than rugs from similar locals just 20-30 years earlier.

 

[Cleanworks]

Coming from a background of mainly surface cleaning rugs, I am always amazed at how some plants soak and rinse their rugs without causing dye bleed. I have seen videos of people washing delicate rugs with fire hoses. I think the sheer volume of water washes out the loose dye and when the rug is extracted properly, there is not enough moisture left to run down the rug as it is hanging. You can get the rugs soaking wet but you have to dry them quickly

 

[T Monahan]

Lots of water and heat drying in this instance.

 

[T Monahan]

May I add, after you get the customer to sign your lengthy disclaimer, and follow it up with giving them there rug back a mess, you can then speak some French and say, "Ce n'est pas ma faute!"

NOT!

 

[Mikey P]

As a Rug ignoramus, I'm curious how much of this current wave of bleeding could be avoided by top down drying for those with out fancy equipment?

How many shops can really afford the space to do so?

 

[T Monahan]

 

[Larry Cobb]

Larry are you suggesting the use of the Reduce All and Dye Transfer Inhibitor formulations during a detergent cleaning process. If so, do you have the products ready for sale along with recommended concentrations and process? I would be very interested in testing such a formulation.

Regarding the statement that it will "brighten all the colors in the rug". Can you explain how this works? Does it remove overall oxidization/yellowing, or somehow actually lighten the dye in the rug itself? Is it some other reaction? . . . Is you process something entirely different?

We are advocating a Reducing Agent and Dye Transfer Inhibitor in the wash process. The pH needs to be @ 9 which is not damaging to the wool. As you asked, I have tested the Hydrosulfite and ReduceAll side-by-side with the pour-on application on the same Turkish rug that I took this new photo of:

The ReduceAll in combo with the ColorSorb (dye transfer inhibitor) removed more bleeding. The Hydro left some slight yellow dye in our testing. One tendency I noticed on this prolific bleeder was that after application of Reducing agent, and rinsing with large amounts of cold water, there was still some bleeding as the rug dried hanging overnight. This is where the ColorSorb (pH-4) should absorb any remaining loose dyes.
There maybe some future for "small spray and extract tools" for removal of bleeding dyes.

I did a simplified explanation of the "brightening effect" in this post:
http://mikeysboard.com/threads/how-...s-on-oriental-rugs.284100/page-3#post-4463495

I do have product available for your Rug Tub Washer test for the "brightening" cleaning process.
Can the Centrum wash tub operate with less than 1200 gallons for a test clean ?