Carpets can make your home feel cozy, but due to its porous nature, they can accumulate a lot of stains over time. Whether the stains are made by mud and dirt dredged in from outdoors, food and drinks, or even spices, they can make light coloured carpets unsightly.
In a recent TikTok video shared by long-time professional cleaner Ann Russell, from the New Forest, a set of parents were horrified when their daughter stained the carpet with highly-pigmented turmeric. The incident, shared by Katie Moudallal, revealed a massive orange on their cream carpet. Raging at her partner, Katie attempted to clean the stain by vacuuming the spice.
She managed to vacuum a significant amount of the stain, saying, “Why is this happening to me?” Ann was on-hand to help, sharing some sage advice for anyone who finds themselves with pigmented carpet stains.
How to remove carpet stains
When discussing stains made from natural sources, such as spices, Ann explained: “If it happens to you, the first thing to remember is that organic stains fade with time.
“I mean sometimes it can be a long time. But remember one of the reasons why, when the aniline dyes (synthetic dyes) came out in the Victorian era, the thing people loved was that they could make beautiful bright clothing that didn’t fade in sunlight.”
Ann reassured her followers that organic stains will fade, especially if the stain is exposed to sunlight. However there are a small number of steps you can take to ensure that this process is sped up.
The professional cleaner advised: “Always, with a dry powder, start vacuuming, don’t get it wet, start vacuuming with a really pokey Hoover. After you’ve got as much as you think you can get off, rub in a dry powder.”
While many people choose baking soda as their go-to natural method, Ann recommended using cornflour to do the job. Cornflour will be a better solution as, unlike baking soda, it doesn’t attract moisture.
Use a brush to work the cornflour into the stain. Ann described cornflour as working like a dry shampoo, helping to lift out the stain from the carpet fibres.
Follow this by vacuuming the stain again. Keep vacuuming until you’ve removed every last bit of the stain that you can with the dry powder.
Once this has been done, Ann advised using an oxygen bleach to clean the stain or neat hydrogen peroxide. Apply the oxygen bleach to the stain, allowing it to sit for a few minutes.
Blot the excess moisture as much as you can, then follow with an upholstery spot cleaner.
Ann said: “The minute you start getting it wet or whatever, always work from the outside of the stain to the middle.
“This will avoid spreading it, because a really common thing is you start with – the classic thing is things like lip stick – you start with a little bright red stain about that big and fifteen minutes later you’ve got a fuschia pink stain about a foot across because you’ve spread it.
“So always work from the sides to the middle to try and contain it. And then you will probably be left with a really quite glaring yellow spot after all of that, however it does fade.”
Ann then advised to spray the stain each day with peroxide, leaving for ten to fifteen minutes, and then blot away the excess moisture. Having to trust time, the stain will fade over time.
