Hidden Details of Luxury Rugs

Rugs not only come in a wealth of shapes, sizes and patterns but also a great range of price points. You might think that luxury rugs are the most expensive, and you may be right. However, it’s not price alone that's the difference between a $5,000 luxury rug and a rug you can pick up for $20 online. Here are some hidden details that make luxury rugs different.

The Materials

One thing that makes a rug luxurious is the material it’s made out of. Not every luxury rug needs to be made from natural materials, but many are. Silk is one of these materials. It’s made from the cocoon of a silk moth pupa, and it must be processed. Silk is valued for its lustrous hand and how brilliantly it shows off dyes. For people who want the qualities of silk without having to destroy moth pupae, there’s bamboo silk, which is made from bamboo viscose. It has a sheen much like regular silk.

Other materials for luxury rugs include different types of wool. They include wool of Himalayan yaks and the sheep of India and New Zealand. These types of wool are exceptionally soft, warm and tough. Other types of luxury wool can come from llamas, alpacas, camels and goats.

The Dyes

Many luxury rugs differ from “everyday” rugs because their creators often use natural dyes. Red dyes come not only from plants such as madder root and saffron but also from an insect called the cochineal. Blue dyes can come from indigo, whose leaves need to be fermented first to create its distinctive color. Larkspur and the peel of pomegranates are used for yellow dyes, as is weld, which comes from the Reseda luteola plant. Producing a brilliant shade of green can be a complicated process involving several plants, including larkspur, weld and indigo. Purple comes from the murex snail while brown comes from bark and nutshells. Black is created by a mix of many dyes.

The Way the Rug Is Woven

Luxury rugs are hand-knotted or hand-tied. Hand-knotting is an ancient technique where vertical threads are wound on a loom to keep the tension as the weaver weaves the rug. Hand-tied rugs are generally flat woven rugs and will not have knots in them.

Hand-knotted or hand-tied should not be confused with hand-tufted rugs.  With hand-tufted rugs, the threads are arranged on a canvas using a hook. This technique takes less time and the resulting product is not durable or luxurious.  The rug may look or feel nice initially, time will expose its weaknesses. Hand-tufted rugs are generally mass produced and relatively inexpensive. 

Its Heritage

Luxury rugs are often part of a long history and tradition of rug-making. They can be tribal rugs, rugs created for places of worship or antique rugs originally woven for the enjoyment of nobles or royals. They wouldn’t be out of place in a museum.

It Often Can Appreciate Over Time

Because of their beauty, the skill with which they were made, their materials and their provenance, luxury rugs can actually appreciate over time. In order to protect that investment, they must be treated with the utmost care, especially when it comes to having them cleaned. To learn more about how you can do so, reach out to the professionals at Aegis Rug Cleaning.