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. Today, it is almost always done with chemical treatments or dyes, and these treatments can cause three main problems.
First, the chemicals used to tea-wash the rugs can stink. This is not 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 to keep in mind.
Finally, the tea-wash 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-wash rugs should not have odors, and most people will not have a problem with the dyes used in high-quality tea-wash rugs. However, even a high-quality tea-wash rug will eventually lose its tea-wash 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 off as well. And when it comes off, it will not come off evenly.
The important thing to know about tea-wash 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 does not happen evenly, especially on lower-quality rugs.
The chemical treatments stick to wool better than cotton, so cotton fringes can lose the tea-wash effect fairly quickly, followed later on by the body of the rug.
If you have any questions about tea-wash rugs or any other rugs, give us a call and we will be happy to help.
