Carpet and Textile Cleaning: Essential Tips and Products

Real nests of dust and dust mites, carpets require regular maintenance to keep them as good as new. Your carpet will eventually become a victim of food and drink spills, accidents from objects on shoe soles. If for you, carpet maintenance is more tedious than anything else, come and discover our 5 tips to clean your carpet easily and efficiently.

As an expert in textile cleaning products, Hagerty helps you to give a second life to your carpet.

How to clean a carpet at home ? Our clean carpet solutions

In order to effectively clean a carpet, all you need to do is follow proper cleaning procedures and use the right recommendations. If you have carpets and children or pets in your home, you need to know how to thoroughly clean carpets without using a steam cleaner.

Cleaning with usual household products is indeed a good idea; nevertheless, nothing can be compared with specifically developed formulas for your textiles. Read more to know how to clean carpets the best way and without making mistakes.

1 - Use several treatments solution to clean your carpet

Shaving cream can be useful

Believe it or not, one of the most useful cleaners for general carpet stains. It removes almost all types of stains. Apply shaving cream directly to the stain and let stand for about 30 minutes. Once the shaving cream has solidified, wipe it off with a dry white cloth. Spray the area with a 50/50 mixture of white vinegar and water, then wipe off the solution with a cloth.

This could be helpful in an extreme emergency, if you do not have textile cleaning products at hand. However, for large surfaces, the shaving cream tip will be time consuming and will be more expensive. Vinegar may leave unpleasant smell and results are not always granted.

Baking soda and vinegar can be used for your textile care

Vinegar is an ingredient that has been used in households to help clean for decades. Combining vinegar with either baking soda or club soda and squirting the solution on top of a stain can help to completely remove it. Similar to the shaving cream, you should leave the solution on the floor for at least 15-30 minutes to give it time to soak in. You may need to apply the solution and scrub more than once to remove everything.

Vinegar has many uses similar to baking soda. It can be used for carpet maintenance. One of the most interesting uses is to swell crowded areas where the carpet looks worn and flat fibers. Dilute vinegar with an equal amount of water and spray it on the affected area. Once the material has absorbed the mixture, use a regular spoon to slide it over the sides of the carpet to loosen the fibers and restore their original texture.

Again, this may be a solution but the strong and persistent vinegar smell is not pleasant. We rather recommend you to use vinegar to remove limescale from taps, shower and bath.

2 - Steam clean your carpets weekly

One of the best procedures for sanitising your carpets is the hot water extraction, widely known as ‘steam cleaning’. There are many good brands of steam cleaners on the market. If you don't want to buy it, you can rent it from a local hardware store.

While traditional vacuums work well and should be used regularly to remove debris that can damage carpet, steam cleaning once a week can remove a lot of dirt that you can't even see.

The steam cleaning technique is good, but the single use of hot water may not be sufficient to thoroughly clean your textiles. We therefore recommend using a professional formula to be mixed with water to eliminate acarids, thoroughly clean and refresh colours

3 - Remove odours with a spray treatment

Even if you love your pets, you know that they tend to leave a certain scent, especially when they rest and walk on the ground all day long. If you don't pay attention to this smell, it will continue to get stronger and stronger every day, which is difficult to eliminate.

Sometimes simply airing the rooms is not enough. It is better to use a professional solution to eliminate odours.

Remove pet hairs with a lint roller

Have you had the sensation that no matter how hard you vacuum, there’s just crud, crumbs as well as hairs that your vacuum cleaner can’t handle? This is a common problem when you have a long pile carpet and even the most powerful vacuum cleaner cannot clean the fibre to a higher level. The solution is to purchase a lint roller for the problem area and apply a little elbow grease until all stubborn particles are collected. Depending on the type of carpet, the total time spent on each carpet should not exceed five minutes.

This solution will take a long time and will not remove the dirt in depth. This is not optimal for cleaning the textiles you care about.

4 - Vacuum often and reach every corners

A vacuum cleaner might just be the most powerful tool in your carpet cleaning tool belt. Have you made the common mistake of vacuuming too quickly or infrequently? In a few days, dust, hair particles and a lot of dirt will accumulate on the carpet.

Cleaning once a week is a good idea, but if you have pets that tend to shed, you may need to clean it twice a week. Instead of making quick trips back and forth, use the accessories provided with the vacuum cleaner.

Vacuuming is not enough to thoroughly clean your carpets. That’s why we recommend you to clean your textiles using professional solutions to remove dust, odours and dust mites.This will also minimise the risk of allergies.

5 - Use Hagerty exclusive carpet cleaner products to clean your carpet at home

As we have seen, the previous techniques are sometimes complicated, long to take effect and with no certainty of the result. Nowadays, we want to clean quickly and efficiently. That's why we recommend Hagerty's professional products.

- Cleansing foam shampoo

Cleans and takes care of rugs, carpets and washable upholstery. It allows you to maintain and to remove grease stains without damaging the fabrics.

The Foam Shampoo removes dust and minimizes allergy risks by trapping moths and destroying their allergens. The foam has effective effects and does not cause marks on washable fabrics, carpets or rugs. Fabrics become clean again and are protected from dust mites.

- Dry shampoo 

It dry cleans and takes care of precious oriental rugs, carpets made of fine silk or wool as well as delicate upholstery and mattresses. It allows you to maintain, to remove grease stains without damaging the fabrics.

The powder acts quickly, is efficient and protects the fabrics that can’t be wet. How to use it?

1. Vacuum-clean thoroughly to remove any loose dirt.
2. Sprinkle Hagerty Dry Shampoo uniformly on the surface to be treated.
3. Brush it in progressively with a clean dry brush or sponge.
4. Allow to settle for 30 minutes.
5. Proceed with thorough vacuuming on the whole surface.

- Express stain remover

The quicker you react, the quicker you get rid of it ! The spray serves as an immediate remedy in case of marks, stains or traces on fabrics or textiles. The care has an effective result and does not cause any marks and the fabrics and textiles become clean again.

The SOS Spot Remover formula has also been specially designed to pre-clean a carpet before using the HAGERTY BLUE H System and 5* Shampoo Concentrate.

- Carpet cleaner - Shampooer

Used with the Blue H machine, with its professional injection-extraction system, the 5* Shampoo Concentrate cleans dust and dirt, removes smears and smells. Its exclusive formula rekindles fibers and colours of cushions, rugs, upholstery and even your mattress. Moreover, it purifies and deodorizes long-term !

Are you looking for more carpet cleaning advice ? Are you interested in our products or simply want to know more about us ? Reach us and let us know what we can do for you: hagerty@hagerty.world.