Rayon (a fancy name for viscose) rugs are emerging everywhere in the rug market.

We see them both online and in stores. They are being sold as silk (some don’t know Art Silk or Faux Silk means artificial silk or FAKE silk…) – We are seeing BLENDS of viscose with wool coming from reputable brands like Karastan.

DO NOT buy rayon rugs – we DO NOT want to clean them!

• Rayon / viscose is an extremely weak fiber. In strength tests, wool fibers can be bent up to 10,000 times before breaking. Silk is also very strong at 2,000. Rayon is very weak at 70
• Rayon rugs shed, break, distort.
• Rayon rugs are rarely colorfast. Very poor dye quality and bleed very easily.
• Rayon rugs fade.
• Rayon rugs show soil quickly.
• Rayon rugs yellow with time and/or moisture

Why would manufacturers use a fiber so unsuitable for a rug ?

Simple. Because it is CHEAP. Rayon looks like silk at a fraction of the cost of silk.

They want the look of silk, but they do not want to actually use silk. They decide against the more expensive but far superior fiber that will last a century, and instead opt for one that might have ONE solid year of looking good.

As professional rug cleaners, we are trained to identify rayon/viscose rugs and to run from them. Rayon rugs are one of the few rugs that end up looking worse after cleaning than better. They distort, yellow, the dyes can bleed, they fade, and they look shaggy over time. They are by far the worst fiber ever chosen for feet to walk on. I’d own an olefin rug before I would a rayon rug!  In fact, it is not unheard of for a spill of plain water on a rayon rug to dry looking like a big pet urine stain.

For rug buyers, if you want the look of silk, I would suggest buying a lower grade silk rug over anything made of rayon or viscose.  High quality silk rugs have very low nap and a high knot count. A taller face fiber height means a lesser quality silk rug.

Viscose rugs are what we  label as “disposable rugs” because they have a short life under normal foot traffic. Then they end up in the landfill and you have to go buy another rug.

If all you want is a disposable rug, then I guess you could go buy a cheap rayon rug.  But because of their inherent fading, wearing, soiling, and cleaning problems, rayon is a rug fiber that I would never recommend a client to buy no matter what the intended use of the piece. We recommend wool rugs, which are fantastic for the floor and will not give you any of the headaches of rayon or viscose. And a real wool rug  will last you much, MUCH longer.

Spread the word – Viscose / Rayon Rugs suck!

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