Persian Rug Cleaning San Diego

Why Persian Rugs Require Specialist Care

The value of a Persian rug lives in its knot density and its dyes. A finely woven Tabriz or Qom can hold several hundred asymmetric knots in a single square inch, and that density makes the pile both beautiful and stubborn to rinse. Older pieces were colored with plant dyes, madder for red, indigo for blue, walnut husk for brown, and some of those dyes stay fugitive for the life of the rug.

Handle one the way you would wall to wall carpet and the results show quickly. Hot water and high-pH detergent can bleed indigo into an ivory field. Over-wetting a cotton foundation can cause a Heriz to dry crooked. Silk highlights in a Nain scorch under aggressive scrubbing.

So we inspect every Persian rug before a drop of water touches it, reading the weave region, the fiber, the foundation, and the stability of each color. Across seventy years the family has washed Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Heriz, Nain, Qom, Qashqai, and village and tribal rugs, and that history is what tells us how far a given piece can be pushed. Trouble spots are settled before the bath as well, treated gently by hand so the surrounding pile and dyes stay undisturbed, and the rug is then soaked on both sides until the dirt, oils, and odor held deep in the knots have loosened their grip.

Persian Rug Styles We Clean

Regional origin tells us almost everything about how a rug should be washed. A geometric Heriz on a heavy wool foundation asks for a different hand than a curvilinear Isfahan with silk warps, so we set the soap blend, water temperature, and drying plan to the piece in front of us. However the wash is set, the rinse ends one way for every piece: flushed on both faces until the water runs completely clear, so no soap or loosened soil stays in the foundation to attract dirt later or dull the colors. Drying then finishes flat and slow on the racks, protecting the shape of the foundation and bringing the wool back to its natural softness. It is the same patience the rinse demands, since several hundred knots in a square inch make a fine pile as stubborn to rinse as it is beautiful.

Rugs we clean regularly include city weaves such as Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Nain, and Qom, along with Heriz and Serapi, Sarouk and Mahal, tribal and village weaves like Qashqai, Bakhtiari, Kurdish, and Gabbeh, antique and semi-antique pieces, all-silk and silk-highlight rugs, overdyed Persian rugs, and modern Persian-style wool rugs.

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