The Art of Carpet Dyeing & Colour Repair

Having realized the potential of carpet dyeing, I've taken a 3 days carpet dyeing course and excitedly got back to my workshop to practice. 

The results were mixed, mainly due to lack of experience, but at the same time I've identified the need of having better dyes.

Working with primary colours is all good and nice in theory, but in practise one needs well balanced dyes to be able to match any given carpet colours.

So I went back to the drawing board, started to research acid dyes (during this research I've also learnt how to use a specific group of dyes on sisal, seagrass, jute, etc which has vastly improved my sisal colour repairs, but this is a different subject) and a few months later the Brio Dyes were born.

Armed with my new dyes I set off to practice as much as possible and improve my carpet dyeing services.

I have found a niche and while I recognise there is a massive market for carpet colour change, I focus almost exclusively on the colour repair segment of the market. 

Fast forward 4 years later, I have restored thousands of bleach spots from the now well known and well understood benzoyl peroxide spots in brand new high end properties mainly affecting the soft nylon 6.6 carpets to private jets and stately homes up and down the country and of course high end hotels whom were over the moon with our colour restoration services that saved them tens of thousands of pounds in carpet replacements.

I think this somewhat addresses the commonly asked question "is there a market for carpet dyeing"? 

The other question I often hear is "I'm a carpet cleaner, why do I need to learn carpet dyeing?" 

As we all know carpet cleaning is the easy part, but it gets a bit more difficult when it comes to stain removal. 

Advanced stain removal training is of course essential, and in many cases it all comes down to using strong reducers ( sodium metabisulphite or the last resort - sodium hydrosulphite) or oxygen based bleaches accelerated with UV lamps, to get rid of stubborn stains like dye bleeding, pollen, turmeric, and of course pet urine to name a few. 

A skilful carpet cleaner will manage to improve the stains using these methods but in many cases will go too far and remove some of the carpet colour in the process too – sometimes it's inevitable. 

This is where carpet dyeing comes into place and sets the best of the carpet cleaners from the rest. 

Being able to colour match gives the carpet cleaner the option of removing stains with the full confidence that if some of the carpet's colours is also removed during the process, it can be addressed at the end by touching up the spot or in many cases the "aura" around it with a bit of well matched dye. 

In conclusion, knowing how to deal with bleach spots and colour loss is yet another tool in your toolbox that makes one a better carpet cleaner. 

 It's also useful to know when and what to dye. 

As a rule of thumb, I only work on high end wool and occasionally nylon and sisal carpets ( and of course, my passion - oriental rugs) 

There are parties claiming that polyester and polypropylene fibres can be colour restored and I agree  they could be dyed with pigment dyes but being cheaper carpets, by the time we charge for the colour restoration it would be close to the replacement value so that in my opinion makes them BER (beyond economical repair). So we stick to working on high end nylon, sisal and of course, wool. 

But are all stains dyeable? 

I often get phone calls from clients who say "we've got this stain our carpet cleaner could not remove so they've advised we need a carpet dyer" . 

Unlike a bleach spot which involves colour loss, a stain is colour addition so dyeing (adding even more colour) is not an option. 

Yes, one could reduce the stain with the option of dyeing it if going too far but this is not necessarily a  solution for every stain! 

Carpet dyeing requires a lot of practice and skill and is time consuming so sometimes, depending on the type of stain and carpet value, replacing the carpet might be the best option. 

Having said that for the last few years I have been flooded with colour repair enquiries, so much so, I had no option but to cut back on carpet cleaning and other services I used to offer just to be able to cope with the incoming volume of enquiries. 

I've also had many carpet cleaners asking me to organize carpet dyeing workshops and courses which I've successfully started doing at the beginning of this year and will to continue to do so, to extend the family of professionals exclusively using the Brio Dyes for carpet colour repairs. 

Gabriel Andreca

Brio Carpet Care