How to Remove a Red Wine Stain from Carpet
Oxi Fresh’s Expert Tips for Cleaning Up Red Wine Stains on Carpet
Red wine with dinner? ✅ Celebrating a special occasion? ✅ Making a gathering with friends and family just a little bit brighter? ✅ Accidentally spilling it all over your beautiful carpet? ❌
Cleaning up a red wine spill is never part of our plans, but it can happen to the best of us, especially when the wine’s really flowing! Thankfully, Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning has your back.
In this post, you’ll find an effective, simple strategy for removing red wine stains from your carpet on your own. And for those trickier stains that refuse to budge, we’ve got the professional products and equipment to get the job done right if you need us.
A 5-Step Method for Cleaning Red Wine Stains
First things first, you should always take action as soon as possible when it comes to cleaning up red wine in your carpet (or any other kind of stain). Giving the wine a chance to dry and set into the carpet will make it much harder to remove, so act as fast as you can.
Step 1: Blot the Spot
So, you’ve spilled some red wine. Start by grabbing a stack of clean white towels and blotting up as much of the spill as you can, moving from the outside edge of the stain towards the middle.
Notice we said “blot,” not “scrub.” Scrubbing tends to spread stains further around on the carpet. Blotting—while regularly switching to fresh, clean towels—gets the wine up out of the carpet while minimizing its spread.
So blot as much of the red wine up as you can before moving onto step 2.
Step 2: Cold Water and More Blotting
Once you’ve pulled up as much wine as you can with dry towels, grab a spray bottle filled with cold tap water—not hot water—and lightly dampen the stain. Don’t apply too much water during this step, as that could lead to “wick back” later on. Now that it’s damp, go back to your clean white towels and continue blotting to remove even more of the wine.
Repeat this process—lightly dampening and blotting the spot with fresh towels—until no more of the stain comes out. In an ideal world, this could be all you need to do to clean up the stain. If not, just continue to step 3.
Step 3: Mix and Test Your Cleaning Solution
Grab another spray bottle and mix three parts household-strength hydrogen peroxide with one part dishwashing liquid. It’s best to use clear dish soap for this step, and make sure you’re using standard, household-strength hydrogen peroxide, which is typically diluted to 3%.
Once you’ve made your mixture, spray a small amount on an inconspicuous part of your carpet to test that it’s safe and appropriate for broader use on your specific flooring. Give it at least a few minutes to dwell on the carpet, then blot it up and observe the results. If there’s no discoloration or other apparent issues, it should be safe to use this solution on the stain.
Step 4: Treat the Stain
Now that you’ve made and tested your cleaning solution, spray the mixture onto the red wine stain, then let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Giving the product a chance to dwell on the stain is a crucial step—so practice some patience here if you can.
After this dwell time, go back to your fresh, clean towels and start blotting the spot once again. With many carpets, you can repeat this step two or three times to achieve satisfying results.
Step 5: Final Rinse
After treating the stain, it’s a great idea to lightly rinse the carpet with cold tap water to remove any lingering cleaning solution from the carpet pile. Grab your spray bottle, and dampen the carpet with the cold water before blotting it up with more clean towels.
For many common red wine spills, this 5-step method can produce the results you’re looking for. If it doesn’t, it might be time to give Oxi Fresh a call for professional service.
What If the Stain Is Already Dry?
If the red wine spilled into your carpet has already had a chance to dry out, it’s still worth trying the method above before you call in the pros, with one small alteration. Simply skip the first step in the process, since blotting a dry spot with a dry towel isn’t likely to remove any meaningful amount of the stain.
Instead, lightly dampen the stain as you would in step 2, and proceed from there.
Does It Matter What Kind of Carpet I Have?
It absolutely does. The 5-step process we shared above should be safe for most modern carpets made of synthetic fibers, but it might not be suitable for older carpets or those made of more delicate fibers. That’s why we recommend that you test the homemade cleaning solution on an inconspicuous part of your carpet before actually putting it to use, as you should with any new carpet cleaning product you’re planning to try out.
In particular, please exercise serious caution when cleaning any carpet or rug made of natural fibers like wool, cotton, or sisal as these can be easily damaged during the cleaning process. If available, read through your carpet’s care instructions as well for some extra insight into your unique flooring.
Should I Use a Commercial Stain Cleaning Product If the Homemade Solution Doesn’t Work?
For many synthetic carpets, you could try out a basic oxygen-powered stain remover powder, ideally with a sodium carbonate base, if the homemade solution we recommended doesn’t produce adequate results. Just be sure you don’t buy any products that contain bleach or ammonium, and, as always, test the product in a discreet part of your carpet before using it more broadly.
Need Help? Call Oxi Fresh!
And if none of this delivers the results you’re looking for, let Oxi Fresh take it from here. We’ve got professional stain-fighting solutions that can break down some of the darkest, deepest red wine stains around.
Just dial 1-877-694-3737 to get in touch with our team today. We’d love to hear from you.
