Here at Arizona Oriental & Specialty Rug Care in Prescott AZ, I receive lots of questions from my clients. Recently had a client inquire about why her freshly cleaned area rug now has visible lines that she never noticed before. She was speaking about the horizontal lines better known as abrash. Abrash is a naturally occurring color variance (a shade difference) of fibers within the same color field on a rug. The wools are sometimes made from different batches of dyed wool. From time to time it will even look like the same color when weaving and over time, when the dyes oxidize, they will fade differently. More often this will occur with rugs that are Tribal due to the dyeing process being done in much smaller batches than the batches of dyed wool made in the cities for larger rugs.
These color inconsistencies do not take away from the value of the rug and are quite desirable. Oftentimes the abrash is subtle enough to be camouflaged with soil, which is exactly what happened with the rug we cleaned for the above mentioned client. She either never noticed it before or just forgot that under the soil there were the variations of color.
Enjoy the distinction your rug has with this abrash and don’t think of it as a defect but rather the character you were looking for in your one of a kind rug. This unique coloration is so desired that it is often added to machine made rugs to mimic the desired beauty the rug owners seek in hand knotted rugs.
Till next time, enjoy your beautiful art for your floor and remember a clean rug is a rug that can last you a lifetime!
Arizona Oriental and Specialty Rug Care serves Prescott, Prescott Valley, Sedona and much of the Northern Arizona areas. We meet the highest standards in professional cleaning of area rugs with rug wash specialists having earned the highest training which includes certification as WOOLSAFE FIBRE CARE SPECIALISTS through the WOOLSAFE ORGANISATION. Such extraordinary certification ensures the area rugs of our client’s receive the utmost in care.
If you have additional questions and would like more information on what the lines are in hand knotted rugs or any other questions, call Arizona Oriental at 928-445-1718, visit our website at www.ArizonaOriental.com, or stop by Monday through Friday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at our rug washing facility at 565 EZ Street, Prescott, AZ 86301 (pick-up and delivery also available).
