Viscose Rug Cleaning in Salt Lake City – the fiber you should be aware of!
As design trends continue to change and new fibers are introduced into homes, us textile cleaners have the responsibility of keeping up on those trends and learning how to clean said new products. Unfortunately, there is a current boom in the home decor world and it is a fiber called "Viscose." Let's take a look at why this fiber is throwing cleaners for a loop... and why you should avoid purchasing it! Viscose, which is also known as; art silk, bamboo silk, faux silk, rayon, modal, and other names, is a cellulosic fiber that is cleaning nightmare. It is sold as an environmentally friendly fiber, but numerous lawsuits and a quick examination of the manufacturing process will prove it to be the opposite. The major issues are that the fiber is not meant to be wet cleaned, and it has a very short usable lifespan because of its very poor wear characteristics. So why would textile mills start injecting this fiber into every category of home decor? Price, and how it feels. It is a very inexpensive fiber that can be sold as silk by some shady manufacturers and it even has the almost same feel of a high end silk fiber. How has the cleaning industry responded? At first, most rug cleaners tried cleaning viscose rugs with conventional cleaning methods that work for wool or synthetic rugs. We quickly realized that those methods only created issues when cleaning rugs containing viscose fibers. The fiber does not respond well to cleaning with water, due to the fact it turns brown/yellow as it dries and gets very stiff... Not the result you want! Most cleaners decided to turn away viscose rugs all together, while others kept [...]