Putting Dream Weaver Carpet to the Test

One of our bedrooms always smells musty. We know why. It's not a mystery. Our master bedroom toilet always runs. One of our children went to the bathroom in there and used way too much toilet paper (it happens!) and then flushed and ran. Little did we know that the toilet clogged and then continued to run....and run....and run. It flooded backwards, under the tile in the bathroom and under the studs into the closest space - the boys bedroom. We didn't discover it until the ceiling in the garage started dripping onto the floor. Needless to say....it was a headache to clean up and that bedroom carpet was pulled back and the rug pad cleaned but the carpet is still a bit smelly.

That is what led us to look into the Dream Weaver carpet. We found the Dream Weaver products because they are a brand of Engineered Floors (the type of flooring we were looking into for our basement!). They have amazing warranties on their carpets and one of the biggest features is that they resist stains and if YOU DO have a spill (raises hand emphatically!) then the clean up won't leave you with faded spots. I have been one to clean carpets so vigorously that the result is a faded area where I scrubbed the colored fibers right off the carpet.

The Dream Weaver carpet color goes all the way through the fibers (they call it Pure Color Solution-Dyed)....not just the outer ones. So that means you can scrub and scrub and the color won't fade out. That's a big claim to make and I of course wanted to put it to the challenge. So today I am testing the Dream Weaver carpet to see if this whole color fade/stain resist thing is legit or just a fun story.

In short, I took three different types of carpeting samples and divided them up into squares. I decided to test them each for wine, mustard, ketchup and melted chocolate stain removal. Then I also decided I would try a variety of carpet cleaners.....just for fun. I also used my Hoover SmartWash with the upholstery spot remover tool. All three carpets are different colors and I threw a longer shaggier pile in there too to see if that makes a difference. I only cleaned each sample for five minutes each. To make it extra difficult (hey this is a test! it's not supposed to be easy!) I allowed each food product to dry and I had the kids literally scrub it into the carpet. This is my reality. A food doesn't get spilled and immediately cleaned up and it always gets rubbed into carpet fibers in my house....why would I test it otherwise.

My prediction was that the carpets would FAIL. I thought....yeah...there is no way. Mustard literally comes out of nothing. And I've bleached it before. I also assumed that the carpets would show fading - especially the darkest sample. The results are in and I couldn't be more excited to share with you them! I will share all the details of our test and I hope you read in detail what I learned. Thank you to Dream Weaver for suppling the carpet samples for me to put to the ultimate test!

I decided on four things that were common in most households. I considered using dog messes but the idea of collecting samples and using those on my table....yeah...not happening. So instead I used the food samples and tried to make it basically impossible to remove.

Ketchup
Yellow Mustard
Red Wine
Chocolate (melted with caramel and mushed into the carpet)

I really felt like these items would be most likely to be on my children's hands and faces and the wine would be a challenge since it is often spilled.

My kids have never liked a challenge more than this one. The idea of purposefully rubbing food into carpet was like I just said "sure let's go to Disney World!". LJ was GUNG HO about being the scrubber-inner.

He smeared and rubbed and dug those fingernails in. I am still cleaning mustard off his cuticles.

Once all four samples were sufficiently smeared, mushed and scrubbed into the carpets, I assessed the damage. The darkest sample was definitely the one that didn't show the wine as much (I only dumped about two cups on each sample so I was sure that it would show more immediately). I also thought the ketchup would definitely end up showing on this one.

The middle sample was showing all four food items clearly. And the third shaggy carpet was definitely in trouble. I felt like all four samples would not get out of this one.

With all of the carpet squares I felt like it was fair to clean them each for five minutes a piece. In total that took me a solid hour of cleaning for this experiment. My shoulder is very sore now from all the scrubbing.

Each carpet sample I used different cleaning solutions and rotated them on each food item so I could see what would clean the best.

And I used my Hoover SmartWash cleaner to suck up all the cleaner and cleaning solution and it got really nasty with all the red and yellow water!

I hope you guys read this carefully because I was shocked by the results.

First - when it came to fading.....I had ZERO cleaning fade. There was no bleached or faded spots on ANY of the carpets. That was incredible because I literally was 1000% sure that it would fade that darkest carpet. Point for Dream Weaver.

Secondly - not all cleaning solutions are equal. In the end, I found that the absolute best cleaning solution was extra hot water and Dawn dishwashing soap. I KNOW. I was shocked too! It was able to remove the wine, the mustard, the ketchup, and the chocolate.

The cleaning solution that worked the least was the Nature's Miracle Pet and Stain remover (in it's defense though, there was no pet marks made so maybe it's formulated specifically for only pet stains!) and the only thing that I could get the big chunks of chocolate and caramel out was Clorox wipes.

Also I learned that if you spray Lysol All Purpose cleaner on any red or yellow item - it legit turns the food item DARK GRAY. Yeah. Not good.

The single possibly neutral comment that I had about the carpet in general is that the shaggiest carpet really held onto the caramel the longest and some of the fibers loosened and came out (like maybe three?) and you can tell I really separated the fibers in the area of the chocolate from my overly aggressive scrubbing. But I would hardly say that was a negative.

In general, I was very happy with the results of the test and I felt like Dream Weaver carpets held up to their claims about the stains and fading. In fact, I told Jeremy that if I wasn't so sore from my hour of scrubbing that I would spend even more time cleaning the carpets just to see if I could remove everything with the hot water/Dawn detergent combo. I bet it would work!

Also if you try this at home with your carpet cleaner - use the Dawn VERY sparingly - it can bubble up so big that it will fill your carpet cleaning canister and overflow. Ask me how I know.

Last but not least - if you are interested in more info about the carpets - I could not recommend this brand enough! I loved chatting with the folks at Dream Weaver and they were awesome about supporting me when I said I wanted to do an at home test! They even have an email address for people looking to improve their own stain situations on their site - just proof that they want their carpet to look as good in your home as YOU do.

You can also see what all these samples would look like in your own home using the EF-EYE Visualizer. Just upload an image of your space, select the style you're interested in seeing, and done! If carpet isn't your thing, you can check out the engineered waterproof flooring selection from their TRIUMPH line too.