How to Remove Flower Pollen Stains from carpets

Posted on 21 July 2017

How to Remove Flower Pollen Stains from carpets

I for one love flowers in the house, the smell is great and they give a home a fresh, vibrant splash of colour, plus a few brownie points from the wife with a surprise bunch. That is until those lovely looking flowers have shed some pollen and there is a bright yellow or orange stain right in the middle of the carpet, Nightmare!

Well I’m going to explain How to remove flower pollen stains from carpets, this is no easy task and you have to follow the step by step or you just won’t achieve the right result, but don’t let one accident put you off spreading flowers around your home.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

I know that isn’t going to help you if you have found this article while searching for ways to remove the stain you have just found but on the off chance you are just being curious or to help prevent a repeat, please remember that prevention is always better. Pollen is notoriously difficult to remove from any fabric, so where possible cut out the pollen stems over the sink and dispose of them before they can cause an issue, alternatively put the flowers somewhere the pollen doesn’t just drop straight on the floor and always avoid placing flowers where people can brush them as they walk past, especially lilies or the next google search your doing could be how to remove pollen from clothes.

Keep It Dry, Do Not Rub, Do Not Touch With Your Hands

Pollen is relatively dry so it will sit on top of the service for at least a short period of time, avoid wetting it further as it will soak into the carpet and become very difficult to remove. The first step should always be to remove the excess. Don’t touch it with you hands either, not only is it difficult to apply a light enough pressure, the oil in our hands can cause the pollen to absorb into the fibres too.

Whatever you do avoid rubbing pollen, you need to remove any excess before attempting any sort of cleaning. You can do this by using a vacuum hovering over the pollen but not touching it, or you can use sellotape just gently touch the area and let it stick to the tape and then throw it away.

Dab The Stain With Vodka

Whether or not it’s a waste of Vodka will depend on how much you like Vodka and your carpet but if you don’t want to waste the Vodka you can use a Alcohol based stain remover, just make sure you have done the above first and removed as much dry excess as possible. Next continually dab the area with plenty of Vodka (or your chosen Alcohol based stain remover), keep going until it looks as though the stain has gone and then dab as dry as possible with a dry cloth or paper towel. If it looks as though the stain has gone use some warm water and dab the area again to rinse the Vodka out or it could cause dirt to stick to it and go black, then leave to dry.

If the stain remains when you dab dry repeat again a few times and if there is no improvement move on to one of the other methods, don’t leave it to dry and think you will try another day because by that time it will be too late.

Use Laundry Detergent

This does come with risks and if your carpet is brightly coloured be careful to choose the right one, it is also advisable to do a trial clean somewhere you won’t see it. However laundry detergent can be very effective on a number of carpet stains not just pollen stains.

So first of all pour a small amount of detergent over the area and gently dab at it to push it into the fibres, leave it to rest for a few minutes and then using warm water dab the detergent away, ensuring you rinse repeatedly, any detergent remaining in the carpet will go black as it attracts the dirt to it.

Persil small and mighty is great for this or the other one which is good but you do have to be careful on colours is Vanish Gold Oxi Action, that is a product I swear by for clothes and can be useful on some stains in carpets too, although it isn’t the most environmentally friendly product so I would always try a more natural method first.

Armed with these few techniques you can feel a little more relaxed about having flowers in you home, no excuse for you partner not to treat you with a big bunch of lilies! Just remember prevention is better than cure, you would hate to get a “I told you so” even if you do mange to remove the stain!