• Nature’s Miracle carpet shampoo penetrates carpet and upholstery fibers and removes odors and allergens. It is a low foaming formula designed for water based rug cleaning machines.
• Bissell Pet Odor and Stain Removal Formula for deep carpet cleaning that works with the Bissell Little Green, Bissell Spot Lifter, or other area carpet shampooers.
• Encapsulating Carpet Cleaning Detergent offers low moisture encapsulation even for commercial carpet care. It uses the Hydroxi Pro Carpet Cleaning formula to clean and deodorize with hydrogen peroxide and an anti-resoiling crystallizing polymer.
• Parish Carpet Extractor Detergent is a liquid cleaner and emulsifier for use with hot water steam cleaning machines. This product produces little foam and eliminates sticky residue build-up.
• Fiber All carpet liquid cleaner is a highly concentrated emulsifier recommended for use on all types of carpeting and upholstery.
• Second Nature is an eco friendly carpet detergent that is bio-degradable and made to clean tough pet stains. It is concentrated and designed for deep cleaning carpet shampoo machines.

Specialized carpet cleaning products are often unavailable or not practical due to price. Here are some suggestions for the best carpet shampoo cleaners for your carpet shampoo machines.

Use about a quarter of a teaspoon of laundry detergent with bleach for each gallon of warm water.

Just remember that you don’t want a mountain of foam so use only a teeny bit of detergent and not as much as you might think necessary to clean carpet. To rinse the detergent out of the carpet so there is no residue; use a fresh tank of warm water with a cup of white vinegar for each gallon of water. Rinse the carpet with this solution several times. Make sure that your shampoo your carpets on a warm or dry day, and open the windows to help the carpet to dry faster.

Do not walk on damp carpets. Wait for them to be completely dry or they will just be dirtier than when you began.

You can also use a little dish detergent, about a teaspoon per gallon and to rinse use a few drops of ammonia. Again the key to carpet cleaning and using alternatives to dry foam carpet shampoo is to not let the carpet get too sopping wet so it can dry quickly.

There are also products that can help maintain the carpets between carpet shampooing treatments, like a carpet cleaning product called Spot Shot. It is applied by spraying on the stained area and then blotting out the stain or patting until there is no mark left. Some people use a little of this product as a carpet shampoo in their carpet shampoo machines, instead of detergent or other products. Just use a teaspoon or two per gallon of hot water. But don’t forget to pre-treat the stains before shampooing.

How Not To Clean Your Carpet

For carpets that are removable, I’ve tried rolling them up and taking them outside to beat them with a stick like a furious granny. I’ve tried spraying small carpets with a garden hose, disinfecting with liquid detergents and spraying with Lysol, only to find they sometimes shrink or don´t dry completely and later have a musty smell. For areas in the house where carpet has been professionally installed and can´t be moved for cleaning, its even a bigger challenge to keep them fresh and toe-snuggable.

So in the quest to have super fluffy, soft and daisy-fresh carpets, I vacuum lots, blot spills so they don’t cause stains and, and have tried a bunch of different carpet deodorizers to keep them smelling nice. Carpet deodorizers consist of granular powder you sprinkle onto the carpet and then vacuum up. The problem is that they leave a powdery residue and if there’s humidity in the air, the carpet soon has a sticky feeling. If there’s no humidity the powder settles into carpet backing and rises when you plop yourself down on the carpet causing a little dust cloud that makes me sneeze.

So I’ve tried to get rid of the dust and deodorizer residue with liquid carpet shampoo only to find its impossible to rinse out completely and often leaves carpet even stickier and sometimes the fibers often have a crunchy feeling. Unsatisfied with all my attempts to clean my carpets, I began researching what I was doing wrong and asking others what they do to care for their carpets.

Removing old Residue before Carpet Shampooing

Everything I read, and everyone I talked to, agreed that the only solution to carpet cleaning was dry carpet shampoo sold from most vacuum cleaning stores. For sure it is a great way to keep new carpets perfect, but what about those of us who have carpets already filled with sticky powders and crunchy fibers from attempts to clean using liquids. How could I remove the residue already built up in the carpet fibers?

Someone recommended a trick and I tried it and it worked. Here’s the secret:

The first step is to get a regular shampoo machine that cleans with water. These machines can be rented at department stores, supermarkets and other vacuum shops. Where normally you would pour the liquid carpet shampoo, use a vinegar solution instead.

The formula is: 1 cup of vinegar for each 2 ½ gallons of water.

Usually these machines use warm water or steam and vapor to penetrate down into the deepest darkest fiber regions of the carpet and suck out all the grime. When you use them with shampoo, the shampoo doesn’t get totally rinsed out, and that causes the crunchy carpet syndrome, but since you’ll be using only vinegar and water, it will act like an astringent removing the powder deodorizer muck and liquid shampoo residue.

After using the vinegar solution over the entire carpet, do it once more with only warm water. The old liquid shampoo that remains in the carpet fibers will probably bubble and become active once again as you pass over the carpet with water, so it may not be enough to do it once or twice but continue using fresh warm water until the dirty water is almost as clean as when you started. Now you can be sure the residue of old products has been removed.

Once the carpets have completely dried, and appear clean from residue, it’s likely they will not feel soft and plush to the touch because you have used water, and the drying process can make them stiff. But now you can use a dry foam carpet shampoo effectively to restore the soft texture and silky smoothness of the fibers.

You may choose to call professionals to perform the final carpet shampooing procedure or you can do it yourself with carpet shampoo machines specifically designed for dry shampoo.

If you also give the carpets a scotchguard treatment after the final carpet shampooing, maintaining them will be easier and stains will not penetrate the fibers so easily.