tags
Aniline leather
Leather dyed through with no pigmented surface coating. Soft, natural-looking, and highly absorbent — it takes up spills and stains within seconds.
Cleaning code
The single letter — W, S, WS or X — on an upholstery tag, stating which class of cleaning agent the fabric was tested against and found to tolerate.
Colourfastness
The resistance of a fabric's dyes to migrating when wetted with a cleaning product. Tested by blotting an inconspicuous area onto white cloth; any …
Hot-water extraction
Injection of heated cleaning solution into a textile followed by immediate vacuum recovery. The deepest common method, and the one that puts the most …
Over-wetting
Introducing more moisture into a textile than can be recovered and dried promptly. The root cause of browning, wicking, prolonged drying and microbial …
Wicking
The upward movement of moisture along fibre surfaces during drying, carrying dissolved soil back to the visible face. Why a successfully cleaned spot …
Low-moisture cleaning
Cleaning systems using a fraction of the water extraction requires. Encapsulation crystallises soil for later vacuuming; bonnet cleaning transfers it …
Pile distortion
Uneven flattening or misalignment of a pile fabric's fibres. The resulting patch looks like a stain but is an optical effect — flattened fibres …
Water-based cleaning
Cleaning in which water is the solvent. Effective on polar soils — sugars, salts, most food residues, perspiration — and the source of shrinkage, …
Cellulosic browning
Yellow-brown discolouration appearing after cleaning, caused by lignin dissolving out of cellulosic fibres and wicking to the surface as the item …
Care label
The standardised pictogram label stating the most severe treatment a textile will survive without irreversible damage — a ceiling, not a …
Solvent cleaning
Cleaning in which a water-free organic solvent is the medium. Effective on oils, greases and waxes, and the only permitted wet route on an S-coded …
Dwell time
The period a cleaning product is left in contact with soil before removal. Part of the treatment rather than a delay before it, and part of any valid …
Protein stain
Blood, milk, egg, dairy and bodily fluids. Set irreversibly by heat, because heat denatures protein — the same reaction that turns an egg white solid.
Tannin stain
Tea, coffee, wine, fruit juice and beer. Treated with acidic chemistry — the mirror image of protein stains — and set or darkened by the alkaline …