Tea-washed rugs are very common in today's marketplace.
Tea washing gives rugs an antique sepia-tone effect.
A tea-washed rug has been overdyed
with a brown or golden dye or treated with a chemical
to darken the rug and make it look older.
This treatment is also called henna washed or antiqued.
Traditionally, this effect was achieved by packing rugs in
tea leaves, but today it's almost always done
with chemical treatments or dies,
and these treatments can cause three main problems.
First, the chemicals used to tea wash the rugs can stink.
This isn't always the case, and higher-quality tea-washed rugs
should have no odor at all, but sometimes
lower-quality tea-washed rugs can smell pretty bad.
Occasionally, someone is sensitive to the chemicals used
to create the tea-wash effect.
Again, this problem seems to occur more frequently
with lower-quality tea-washed rugs.
But if you or someone in your family is chemically sensitive,
this is something you keep in mind.
Finally, the tea-washed treatment
is not permanent, meaning it will wear off and wash off
over time.
And when it does, the treatment will come off unevenly.
Higher-quality tea-washed rugs shouldn't have odors,
and most people won't have a problem
with the dyes used in high-quality tea-washed rugs.
However, even a high-quality tea-washed rug
will eventually lose its tea-washed treatment,
although not as fast as a lower-quality rug.
When rugs are tea washed, they can be soaked in the chemical
or dye solution, or the solution can be sprayed onto the rug.
These different methods of application
will affect how the rug looks when it starts
to lose its tea-wash treatment.
Because tea washing changes the appearance,
it can be used to hide previous color bleeding
or stains in a rug.
Sometimes unethical rug dealers will tea
wash a rug to hide existing damage.
As the tea wash wears off, the original damage
is often revealed.
Over-the-counter household spot removers
are too aggressive for wool face yarns
and will almost always take some amount
of the tea-wash treatment off.
However, even gentle washing can take the treatment of as well,
and when it comes off, it won't come off evenly.
The important thing to know about tea-washed rugs
is that the tea-wash effect is not
a permanent part of the rug.
In most cases this dye will wash off, wear off,
or fade over time.
When this color loss happens, it doesn't happen evenly,
especially on lower-quality rugs.
The chemical treatments stick to wool better than cotton,
so cotton fringes can lose a tea-wash effect fairly quickly,
followed later on by the body of the rug.
If you have any questions about tea-washed rugs
or any other rugs, give us a call
and we'll be happy to help.
And please let us know if you like this video.