I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about viscose (aka rayon, faux silk, or Art Silk) rugs from rug cleaners, and also consumers looking to buy some new rugs.
Yes viscose is MUCH cheaper than silk – that’s because you are getting what you pay for.
Looks good, but not for long.
I’ve made posts before about the negatives of buying or cleaning a viscose rug.
The fiber is not just kinda weak – it is VERY weak. Spill on it, and scrub it trying to clean it up, you will permanently distort and damage the fibers.
It likes to YELLOW on you. Get it wet, just with water, and you will have a water mark that ends up looking like a big pet urine puddle. (This is because rayon is a bunch of cellulose by-products, mish-mashed together and heavily chemically process to make it look shiny, and it yellows when wet.)
It likes to BLEED on you. The dyes are not strong. Ever try to clean one of these on your own at home, because it looks easy to clean, and you will create a soup of dyes mingled together if you’re not careful.
And… it looks worse after every year of foot traffic, and after every cleaning. Why? Because you can’t scrub it much without distortion or damage. Think about something you have that is cotton (a stronger version of rayon), like perhaps some socks. They’ve gotten dirty from use, and then you can only wash them by gently soaking them in a cleaning solution, and not being allowed to scrub to try to get the soil loose, and not allowed to use hot water to help remove it (because it would make it come apart more).
How clean could you get those socks? Would you ever be able to wear them again? Probably not.
So you have viscose rugs, with feet, shoes, and paws walking on it – and the contaminants brought in from those sources – and you cannot properly and thoroughly clean it because it’s such an inferior fiber it can’t hold up to proper cleaning over time.
You literally buy a rug, when it’s viscose, that is disposable. It will look good for a short period of time, and will age quickly and will be in the landfill, or given away to Goodwill, in a few years.
So, why bother?
A wool rug will last you decades, and some for centuries, if you get a quality one. There is no better rug fiber to buy than wool, for lots of reasons I’m written about in prior posts.
Viscose and rayon may be cheap… but even “cheap” – it’s not worth it. You are wasting your hard earned money.
Just want to make sure everyone is clear on this. 
- Lisa
Unfortunately I had an area rug made that has large off-white parts made of faux silk, and the other part made of great wool. I did have a water spill on the faux silk part that left a horrible brown stain – as you’ve described. I read your Cleanfax article, got a recommendation through Cleanfax for a reputable cleaner in my area, and they took the rug to their facility to clean. They cleaned the stain pretty well, but all the off-white faux silk areas are now more of a beige color. Any help for these parts? A designer recommended that I use the faux silk when I had the rug made. I’ve showed her your article, and she says she has a hard time believing that it’s true! Any help is appreciated.
Terri, faux silk will yellow with moisture, and with time. Your designer should not be recommending viscose/rayon to ANYONE to purchase if she truly values their business. My feeling is that she is unaware of all negatives of the product, because I’m sure she wants to direct her customers to good products.
I am going to post suggestions to you in my next Rug Chick post – it’s a good topic and I’ve been getting a lot of viscose questions lately.
Thank you,
Lisa
I totally agree – i have yet to ‘successfuly’ clean a viscose rug! They are more trouble than they are worth