Saturday, October 21, 2006

Stain Removal from Carpets - Using Hydrogen Peroxide

This is an amazing little carpet cleaner, all in one compact (and cheap!) little bottle you can buy at any grocery store or drug store. It is - hydrogen peroxide.

I have pale colored carpets (sort of an oatmeal-beigey color) and when I poured a capful of full strength hydrogen peroxide on the carpet stains, and then let it sit for a few minutes - I automatically saw the stain start to disappear. Before I even scrubbed!

Now, here is my new secret trick that I discovered entirely by mistake - use an old eletric toothbrush to scrub that stain into nothingness. I had an old electronic toothbrush that I didn't like, and I thought - "Might as well give it a try here." It worked great! It did all the scrubbing work for me...and totally removed the stain.

Please be sure to always do a spot test with hydrogen peroxide on a small, hidden area of your carpet so that you'll be sure it doesn't make the color of your carpet run. I only suggest this on pale colored carpets. :) But if you have light carpets like me, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how well hydrogen peroxide gets out even really old carpet stains!

One more thing -- after I finished pouring on the peroxide and scrubbing it, I then sprayed some regular water on top and placed a clean towel (or paper towel) on top and put something weighted on top of that. It helps to soak up all the liquid, and the lingering remnants of the stain as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the only time i've ever used hydrogen peroxide to remove stains from carpet, they were blood stains and i used the peroxide because it's what i always use on blood. (it works about 95% of the time, even on dried blood!) but i never thought to try it on any old carpet stain. thanks for the tip!

(plus, old electric toothbrush = genuis!)