try it tuesday

Happy Tuesday!

For this week's Try It post, I decided to tackle one of the little annoyances in our apartment.

Lovely friend A's cousin spilled red wine on her new apartment's carpet recently and, like most genius 21st-century gals, she Googled a trick. It worked like a charm for her, so I thought I'd try it out on a stain of my own.

After Husband and I moved into our place more than a year ago, I threw this little rug down at the doorway of our kitchen. But I think the carpet was still damp from the carpets being shampooed before we moved in —

And we ended up with a faded, brownish rectangular stain. I tried a number of carpet spot cleaners but had no luck. The annoying part is that I really wanted to move the rug, but it had to remain in place to cover the stain.

The suggested magic formula for red wine removal is equal parts Dawn dish soap and hydrogen peroxide.

With A's help, we scrubbed with a combo of brushes and rags — this is the closest I have to a before photo:

After a lot of scrubbing, the area slowly lightened, and then turned a light shade of blue as it dried. In my defense, I couldn't find a single website that warned against using coloured soap. So, I tackled it again last night with a rag and clean warm water, and here is the after —

Not bad. There are still some areas around the corners that look like they could be treated again, but the solution definitely dulled the discolouration.

I give this trick a 3 out of 5.

Have you ever tired this? Did it work? Do you have any other carpet cleaning suggestions?