How To Remove A Red Wine Stain From Your Carpet!

We are often called out to remove wine stains, especially red wine stains. In fact, I would say it’s one of the most common issues for a professional carpet cleaner.

The main reason why red wine spillages are commonplace is probably that the customer is had a few too many lol but I will not get into that 🙂

Imagine sitting down and relaxing holding a glass of red while watching GoogleBox on the telly …. you hear something funny and in a fit of laughter, you spill the red wine all over your nice new cream carpet!

You start to panic and use a wet towel to rub the stain

The stain looks slightly lighter in colour but has spread to an even larger area and you have made the carpet pile fluffy.

You grab a bottle from under the sink of a generic carpet cleaning solution that has ‘magic’ in its name and promises to tackle any stain. You pour on the liquid, scrub it in but the miracle carpet cleaning liquid has now made a really light patch that looks permanent!

The stain now looks entirely different from when you started. The colour is not red anymore but a strange purple colour with white patches everywhere.

You add some more cleaning solution in desperation and the edges of the stain have now turned green.

No amount of scrubbing seems to change a thing.

First of all, never add liquid to the stain. Do not rub or scrub the stained area and never ever uses a shop-bought carpet cleaning chemical as in our experience they often cause more damage than good.

If you carry out some research online you will probably think that you need a degree in biochemistry to tackle drink spillages on a carpet but you can make it simple for yourself.

You can improve a wine stain and even in some cases remove the stain completely depending on the carpet fibre type.

If it’s a wool carpet then you may have a problem. Wool is obviously made from a natural fibre so anything spilt on it can dye the wool-like your hair and can become permanent. Also, many wool carpets have a hessian backing to them which will release an orange/brown dye which then comes to the surface of the carpet. These hessian bleed stains are often seen when someone tries to carry out a DIY carpet clean with a hired carpet cleaning machine or if they have a spillage and add to much water or cleaning fluid.

Man-made carpets are easier to remove stains like wine but you still need to know what you are doing so not to damage the carpet!

If the stain has been down a while you may struggle to remove all traces of it but if it’s a new spillage then it’s best to tackle it ASAP so maybe best not to ask the husband to do it as it will still be there days later! 🙂

1. Move quickly and in a calm manner. It’s important to act fast as a spillage is not a stain yet.

2. Using a clean cloth, towel or kitchen paper you need to blot the spillage. This means ‘to soak it up’ by blotting the stain you will remove most of it and it’s best to use some weight some either press down on it for a while or put something heavy on the towel you are using to blot.

3. Remember …. DO NOT RUB THE STAIN ….. Every few minutes check the cloth you are using to blot the problem to see if you are getting any transfer and turn it over or use another cloth until you can transfer no more.

4. Once no more wine is being transferred to your cloth, towel or kitchen paper you then dab a new clean towel which is slightly damp from a little amount of water and continue to blot the wine stain for a few more minutes.

5. It is now time to find another clean towel (yes I hope you’ve stocked up on them lol) and this time find a heavyweight and place on top of the dry towel which is on top of the stain for a good few hours.

6.After checking the stain and it’s still there it’s then time to call a professional carpet cleaning company in who in 99{ad406bbff823065935c15e2bd41e236637fde00bc3cf37099fb53d7454f9119c} of cases fully remove a red wine stain from a carpet.

The information in this article will help you through the first stages of a spillage and may even help you to remove it. At the very least it will give you more time to call out a professional and remove most of the drink stain.