Fringe comes in all different kinds of styles and fabric types. Today I want to address a common mistake we see people make with cotton fringes. Most hand made rugs have cotton foundations and therefore have cotton fringes. Sometimes people (and even “rug cleaners”) will apply bleach to cotton fringes to “brighten” them up. Well, bleach is not a cleaner. It poses no benefit to dirt removal from a fabric. Bleach is an aggressive oxidizer and causes great harm to natural fibers. Bleach doesn’t stop its action for quite some time so we often see fringes that are super white from someone applying bleach to them but they are also falling out of the rug. Fringes that have been bleached by clorox will eventually completely degrade away. You can usually tell if this has happened by gently pulling on the ends of the fringe. If they have been damaged by this oxidizer then it will just usually easily pull out of the rug.
So, today’s tip is to never apply bleach to your cotton fringes. This will harm the rug and degrade it’s value.