Help &
Advice

My carpet has faded in patches

Generally this is not a fault, nor is it fading. Try looking at the faded area from the opposite direction and you will be surprised to see that it either looks the same colour as the surrounding area or actually darker than the rest of the carpet. The effect is known as shading or tracking.

So what's going on?

This effect occurs to all pile fabrics, carpet, velour, velvet dress fabrics, Draylon velvet upholstery and velvet curtains, but is most obvious in plain colours. In all pile fabrics but carpet in particular, at the time of manufacture the pile slopes fairly uniformly in one direction. It is never vertical. This is called Pile Direction. If new carpet is laid in more than one pieces Pile Direction has to be taken into account so that the colour looks uniform.

Have you seen the striping effect on a lawn after recent mowing. With the darker row the grass was pushed forwards towards you by the roller and you are looking deep into dark depths of the grass where the colour is richest, while when the mower went away from you the grass was pushed in the opposite direction, away from you and you are looking at the brightly lit backs of the grass that seem many shades lighter. This is what happens with all carpets but is most obvious in plain velvet carpets. It is happening to patterned carpets but it is almost impossible to see. In the busiest area of the carpet the pile can get pressed down into a different direction so it appears to be a different colour to the rest of the carpet .