[Paul Simpson]

Have a large amount of large wool rugs to clean tomorrow at customers house, how do I best handle the wet wool rug smell you get with cleaning these. The last few I have done I have taken home to do and been able to leave in my store room to dry completely before returning to customer but this is not an option here because of the size and number of rugs involved. Explained to the customer that wet cleaning wool rugs does leave a lingering smell but want to minimize this as much as possible.
Any tips appreciated.

Thanks Paul

[darren_metcalfe]

I have started to use Kill Odour Plus from Chemspec.  this really does seem to hide the smell.

Darren

[Matt Townend]

I use Chemspecs "One Clean" and there is hardly any smell after cleaning.

[Stephen "Dusty" Roberts]

This is a first for me to try and control the wet sheep smell.

 We clean over a thousand rugs a month in our plant and don't worry about the wet wool smell. I believe this odour is much stronger in some wool rugs because the wool has not been scoured (cleaned) as well before making the rug.

A bit of odour control form chemspec should do the trick.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Dusty,what do you use for whitening the cotton fringes after cleaning ?
Thanks.

Lewis  Doubtfire

[chrisg]

Leave the smell, its ment to smell.

[darren_metcalfe]

But if you can mask it to make it a better experience for the customer then surely that is the way to go??

[AquaMagic]

I tell the customers that its the sign of a quality rug.

Dene

[Mike Osbourne]

Dene

Have you mensioned this in a previous post? I read that a while back and it works on a number of levels, even though it's a bit of a white lie.

I now say.

It's funny you should mension the smell, because the more you smell it the more you can be rest assured of it's quality and that you have bought wisely.  As it subsides all you can smell is it's freshness.

Try it and watch their faces change.


   

[Stephen "Dusty" Roberts]

Lewis

We use some whitening formulas, but only when really needed. We charge an extra $2/ln ft for this.

It is of my opinion that when a rug has real dirty fringes the fringe is worn as well. This is a repair opportunity and can be very profitable.

Fact is we do no repairs. We sub that all out to repair experts for a wholesale price then we double our cost. 

Here is a link to MasterBlend. They have the most complete lineup of "Natural Fibre Friendly" formulas for loose rugs the are all wool safe approved!


http://www.masterblend.net/shopping/product.cfm

(I don't think they have a UK distibutor.. I smell an opportunity here!)

[Paul Simpson]

Seeing as the subject has been brought up again just thought I'd let you know what exactly I did as it seemed to work. 

Cleaned as normal with Prespray gold and put a few drops of Cleansan in the tank. After rinsing sprayed a fine mist of Fabric/Fibre rinse over the rugs and dried as quick as poss. with turbo dryer.

Already explained to the customer about the possible smell but on leaving there was no smells from any of the rugs and customer was very happy. Says he probably have me back in 12-18 months as recommended by myself.  Even had the satisfaction form back that I left with him saying how delighted he was.

[Stephen "Dusty" Roberts]

The stinkiest wool rug I have ever experienced had its own bad BO. Turned out the rug was woven in Ethiopia and the dye's were set in Camel urine..

My client had lugged it back themselves and had for years tried to have one rug cleaner after another solve this prob.

and when I got it wet...OMG..


We were able to fix the prob eventually by rolling the rug up in a "non-Scents" mineral powder that AD-Sorbs the odor. I had to keep it sealed for approx six month with this powder but it did work in the end!
Here is a link to it..
www.deodoroc.com

I use this still once in a while when we have a rug that just won't take a full wash due to loose dyes, warpage issues or construction probs. It's a very nice trick to have up your sleeve once in a while.