pink spots on wool carpet

[Alan Wirth]

One of my employees used a spotter with a ph of about 10 for no apparent reason on a beige color wool carpet installed wall to wall in a custy home and everywhere he used the spotter it left a faint pink spot. the pretreat does not have any adverse effect on the carpet but the high ph sure screwed things up.
I went back and tried to just rinse with plain water without any luck. Does anybody have any ideas of how to get back to the original color.

In a tough spot,

Alan

 

[Jack May]

Hey Alan,

try a little acid rinse in case it is a pH imbalance/indicator dye problem.

Failing that, try a little H202 or even an A&B mix.

You could also give a little Red Vanish for wool a try but not at the same time as the peroxide!!!! IF you have to use both on the same visit, thoroughly rinse, apply detergent, acid rinse and flush flush flush between treatments or the residue of the one will react with the other and a white smoke/vapour will start to rise from the carpet :shock: :?

Other than that, not too sure. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

Wool can PERMANENTLY yellow with high pH but your beige going to pink seems to be a loss of the blue and yellow hues.

Did you take any pH readings when the problem arose?

John

 

[timnelson]

Agree that pH measurement needs to be done before attempting correction. Pink spots on beige is more common with reducing agents. Can you tell us what the spotter was?

 

[Alan Wirth]

I did not test the ph of the spot and the name of the product I believe is t-5 made by Theochem labs here in Tampa.

Thanks for the product suggestions. That is the direction I was headed to solve the problem.

I have done a lot of wool rugs over the years and never experienced this problem.

I'll let you know how it turns out.
Thanks again,
Alan