With a wide variety of rugs, it sometimes can get challenging to distinguish between cheap and high quality handmade rugs. Not to forget, buying a quality rug is even more difficult for first-time buyers.
But, don’t worry. Here’s a documented guide of how you can tell a quality rug from a cheap one.
Where To Look For A Quality Rug?
No doubt, there are some rug villains ruining everyone’s reputation. But there are rug heroes too, dealing in good quality antique rugs for years. And this is what their business relies on, years of experience and a good reference.
So, better go for a company recommended by your family or friends. Or else, ask your rug cleaner, “which rug gallery is selling rugs of quality”, they know better as they deal with cheap, expensive, old, and new rugs every day.
The Overall Rug Appearance
If you’ve been living with rugs for your whole life, it is not difficult for you to catch a difference between rugs. You can easily decide based on the rug’s overall appearance whether it’s original or not.
A good quality rug is thin-pile and lies flat on the ground with no rolling of edges.
Upon having a conversation with a rug expert, I got to know that machine-made rugs are difficult to distinguish from hand-knotted rugs, as machines can produce a copious amount of symmetrical rugs. But still, in the case of a poorly machine-knitted rug, you can see the difference in its unsymmetrical edges.
Furthermore, a blended rug with synthetic fibers either appears too glossy or too dull.
It’s All In The Knots
Machine-made or hand-tufted rugs are made in less time without putting much effort. And their knots are loose with less number per square inch.
So to distinguish between a hand-tufted and a hand-knotted rug, flip it and count the number of knots. A well-knitted rug has 290 knots per square inch. And for sure, it cannot compete with a rug of 40 knots per square inch.
Also, with fewer and loose knots, you can never get the same sharp design. And as it takes less time to produce a mass number of machine-made rugs, many dealers sell you cheap rugs while costing you high. But you can avoid falling for the trick using this technique.
A good dealer will be more than happy to discuss the details of a rug-making process with you. And he will also inform you how long it took to knit the rug you’re buying.
Hand-Made And Hand-Tufted Rugs
In the case of hand-tufted rugs, the wool fibers are tufted at the back of the frame, and then latex is poured to make them stay at a place. You can easily distinguish hand-tufted rugs from hand-made ones. Now no dealer can scam you massive money for “fake” rugs.
Also, with time, the latex will delaminate, crumble, and turn to powder, leaving you with nothing. On the contrary, handmade wool rugs are durable for centuries, and you can pass them on to your next generations.
Don’t Buy Synthetic Rugs
If you’re purely looking for a quality rug, it is advised not to buy synthetic rugs. Go for wool rugs instead.
With that said, synthetic rugs are also not environment friendly and can cause breathing issues if used for long. So, they’re definitely not for your kids’ room.
How to distinguish between a synthetic and a wool rug?
- Synthetic fibers appear too shiny or too faded
- More, they shed easily when you bend a corner
- They’re coarse to touch
- They wear easily under heavy foot traffic
Premium Wool And Dyes
Remember the first rule of thumb? Buy from a reputable dealer. He will be more than happy to tell from where they imported the wool and what dyes they’re using?
Pro tip: you can also check the rug’s “made-in” tag to see if the wool is premium quality or not. For instance, countries like Pakistan, India, and China import high-quality wool for rug making.
Persian wool is proved to be the best among all. There the sheep raised for the shedding purpose is given a proper nutrient diet. So, look for rugs on sale Northern VA made of Persian wool.
And in the case of dyes, organic vegetable dyes are the best. And if synthetic dyes are used, they should be of high-grade pigment.
