It’s loony to intentionally fade a rug. Moreover, fading a brand new rug that you spend a few bucks on might also sound absurd.

However, fading a rug can have significant benefits if you’re fading them for the right reason i.e., enhancing the appearance, psychology, home decoration, etc.

You’d probably be wondering why we’re talking about psychology in terms of fading a rug. Well, many of you are already familiar with how colors affect a person’s mood. This is the similar scenario here.

Besides, many people buy expensive dark-colored rugs which they hate later. So, to make them light in color, you need to fade them. This process also saves money.

Necessity of Fading a Rug

Suppose you bought a new rug, or someone gifted you a rug, but you didn’t like the color of it. Here you can apply a few rug fading techniques to make it look intriguing.

In addition, faded-colored rugs sometimes look more appealing than the normal ones, depending on the overall theme of your room or hall.

So, if the faded rug fits well with the overall theme of your room’s design, you must definitely follow the steps to learn how to fade a rug.

How to Fade A Rug Using 5 Methods?

In this paragraph, we will talk about five different methods that you can use to fade a rug. Similarly, you can use these methods to clean a Wool, Persian, or Polypropylene rug.

1. Using Bleach

Bleach is one of the most popular methods used to clean cloth stains, furniture, toilets, etc. That’s not the only use of bleach, one can also use it for sanitization and control the bacteria in places such pools.

Besides, in terms of fading a rug, bleach is one of the significant methods.
Hydrogen Peroxide (H₂0₂) is a one of he common bleaching agent used for clothes. However, it’s used in a smidgen quantity to avoid discoloration.

But in your case, of course, you need to fade. Hence, you’re good to go with the higher quantity than usual. Moreover, bleach also help in getting pet stains out of a rug.

How to Fade a Rug Using Bleach?

Step 1: Pour 5L of water into a bucket (or more, if necessary)
Step 2: Then add 10% Hydrogen Peroxide or more (depending on rug’s size)
Step 3: Rinse the rug thoroughly until you see your desired fade
Step 4: Dry the rug and it’s now ready to use

This process is good for Wool and Persian rugs.

Choosing the Right Quantity of Hydrogen Peroxide H₂O₂

This part is crucial as everyone have different size and thickness of rugs.

If the 5L water is enough for your rug, you can add 10% H₂O₂ i.e., 500ML. Similarly, if you add more water, the quantity of H₂O₂ will increase.

Suppose you didn’t get the desired results after performing the steps above. In that case, you need to increase the Hydrogen Peroxide’s quantity, from 10% to 20%.

Now, don’t just directly increase to 20%, take the measurement of your rug, for example, its size, thickness, and your desired faded-color, then proceed accordingly.

2. Using Sunlight

Sunlight is a free and natural source of light for us. Likewise, you can also use it for fading rugs.

You’d already be familiar with how sunlight causes discoloration of the clothes. Moreover, even on the clothing tags, you see the warning for not putting directly into sunlight or avoiding longer exposures to the direct sunlight.

Thus, with the intention of fading the color, you can put your rug into the sunlight for prolonged duration. Nevertheless, this process can take several days to weeks, depending upon the quality of the rug and your desired color.

Steps for Fading the Rug using Sunlight

This step is good for Persian and Polypropylene rugs as they’re durable enough to handle the sunlight all day long.

3. Using Salt

Salt is a natural ingredient used in kitchens everyday. People often use salt to clean the stains in clothes, similar to bleach.

However, it can also be used to fade the color of rugs. Salt laundry is a great idea for fading wool rug color. Also, it’ll clean the dirt from a wool rug and increase its density regrowth. Why? Because in this way, you can prevent the softness during fading process.

Furthermore, it salt helps to remove the rug creases. Additionally, you can use it for Persian rugs as well. Fading the polypropylene rug with salt won’t have any effect at all.

Fading the Rug with Salt

1. During rug laundry, put salt into the water
2. Make Sure to put around 100-200g salt in 5L water
3. Meanwhile laundry, use hands to rub the rug in between
4. You may need to repeat this laundry 3-5 times, depending upon the color and quality of the rug

4. Dyeing the Rug

This is one of the best and simplest methods to give a rug a new color of your desire. In this method, you won’t have to do any efforts to fade the rug.

Moreover, sometimes, people aren’t satisfied with the faded version of the rug. Hence, dyeing is the supreme method that you can use to generate a new color that matches with the overall theme of your house or room.

The ingredients you need for the dyeing process are a bucket of boiling water, the color that you want to apply, vinegar to make the rug soak dye, and a stainless steel spoon to stir the solution.

The dyeing process can be a bit messy if you’re not used to it. Anyways, if you are up to it regardlessly, let’s dive into the methods of how you can dye the rug.

Steps to Dye the Rug

Step 1: Initially, prepare the solution for your rug – A bucket of 4-5L boiling water.
Step 2: Add the color ingredient into boiling water, make sure to add less as you want a faded color, and stir.
Step 3: Then soak the rug in a warm water, making sure it’s completely wet.
Step 4: Now, it’s time to add the rug into the dye solution, add it and take a stainless spoon to stir the rug until it’s completely submerged into the solution.
Step 5: After that, rinse the rug with hot water until you see you preferred fade shade.
Step 6: Ultimately, take a break to clean the mess while rug is being dried and rinse it with cold water.

Pros & Cons of Dyeing Rug

Best Method for Fading a Wool Rug

To fade a wool rug, bleach, salt laundry, and dyeing is the best process.

These three processes are safe for the wool as it’s a soft material. While the drying in sunlight option can also work, but it’ll come with consequences.

Sunlight may fade the color of wool, but it’ll damage its fabric and the rug will feel harsh and appear bizarre while lying on the floor.

Prime Method for Fading a Persian Rug

Persian rugs are known for its unique crafted style and durability. In our experience, fading a Persian rug can only be done with the bleach, salt laundry, and sunlight.

These three activities will gradually fade the color of a Persian rug. However, if we talk about the dyeing method, it’s strongly not recommended for the Persian rugs.

Why?

Because such rugs’ threads already have a high-quality dark color. Thus, if you dye it, the threads will appear more dark, making them strenuous to fade.

Finest Method for Fading a Polypropylene Rug

Polypropylene rugs and carpets are the most durable, making them ideal for crowded areas like offices, shops, and other business stores.

They’re prone to handle a heavy flux of humans. As a result, fading them is a challenging process, yet not impossible.

To fade polypropylene carpets, you can scrub it with different bleach agents. Moreover, you can also put them directly into sunlight after a wash.

Note that this process will take time, but eventually, you’ll see results. All you need is to be consistent with the fading process and, most importantly, patient.