It starts before the rug gets wet
Every rug is photographed on intake — the full face, the back, and close-ups of any area that warrants attention. A written condition map accompanies the photos: where the pile has thinned, where the foundation is weak, any prior repairs, any staining with a visible history. Fringe condition, selvedge integrity, and end-finish stability are each noted.
That documentation is the baseline. It tells us what to protect during the wash, what to show the client if a question comes up during the process, and what to compare against when the rug comes off the drying floor. It also protects both parties: no argument about what a rug looked like beforehand, because beforehand is on the record.
Dye testing
Before any water touches the rug, we test the dyes. A small area of each distinct colour is dampened with the solution we plan to use, blotted with white cotton, and inspected for transfer. Stable dyes leave the cotton clean. Fugitive dyes leave colour. We adjust the plan accordingly: lower pH, cooler water, additional dye-set steps, or in rare cases declining to wash the rug wet at all and using a dry-solvent protocol instead.
Certain dyes have well-known behaviour. Madder reds can bleed into cream fields if the pH rises. Chrome-mordanted oranges from the early synthetic era are fragile. Some early synthetic purples — common in pieces made from roughly 1880 to 1920 — are notoriously fugitive and need specific chemistry. Testing every rug means we catch those problems before they become permanent.
Dry extraction before washing
A used rug carries pounds of embedded grit — fine mineral particles that work their way into the foundation over years of walking. That grit is abrasive. If you wet a rug with the grit still in it, every subsequent agitation grinds the particles into the wool fibres. The rug gets cleaner on the surface while losing structural integrity beneath.
Our dry extraction is a mechanical pre-treatment: the rug is passed over specialised dusting equipment that vibrates the foundation and pulls loose particulates out of the back. On a neglected 9×12 we routinely pull one to three pounds of dry soil this way. Most carpet-cleaning services skip this step because their equipment is not designed for it. It is the single most important reason a professional wash lasts.
The wash
Washing happens in cold water. Cold water does not felt wool. It does not open the cuticle. It does not accelerate dye migration. With the correct solution, it is perfectly capable of lifting soil — the idea that hot water is necessary for cleaning is inherited from domestic laundry, where the target is synthetic detergent on synthetic fibre.
For wool, we use a slightly acidic solution around pH 5.5 — the natural pH of the wool fibre itself. The rug is fully submerged, not sprayed. Soil loosened by the dusting step lifts into suspension in the wash water. A trained washer works the solution through the pile by hand, in sections, with the direction of the pile — never against it, never with a rotary brush.
Rinsing
A thorough rinse is as important as the wash. Residual detergent attracts soil; a rug that is not rinsed clean will re-soil faster than a rug that was never washed. We rinse until the water runs clear, then check the final pH of the runoff to confirm it has returned to neutral. If the pH is still alkaline, the rug goes back for another rinse cycle.
Drying
Drying is where most rug damage happens and where the best facilities separate themselves from the rest. The rug is laid flat on a clean, ventilated floor — never hung under its own wet weight, which can distort the foundation. No direct heat, no sunlight, no forced hot air. Room-temperature airflow only.
Timing varies by construction. A heavy hand-knotted antique Kashan with a dense wool pile can take three to five days to dry properly. A lightweight flatweave kilim might be dry in twenty-four hours. We check each rug daily with a moisture meter and only move to the next stage when the foundation reads dry — not just the surface.
Final inspection
Before wrapping, every rug is photographed again from the same angles as intake. The condition-map notes are reviewed: did the wash improve what we expected it to improve? Is anything worse than it should be? Are there findings we need to flag to the client — a repair we recommend, a weak spot now visible that was hidden by soil, a dye issue that emerged?
For clients who want the full picture of how the studio operates, our about-us page covers the team and the workshop. If a rug needs more than cleaning, the same process rolls into restoration work without leaving our hands.