If you’ve ever spilled wine, coffee, fruit juice, or any other kind of colorful liquid on a carpet, you know that when you clean it and how you clean it can make the difference between making it disappear completely and always having a reminder of “that time when…” We’ve cleaned our fair share of carpets and then some, and are happy to note that you can get nearly anything out of anything if you have the right technique. We’ll share our step-by-step guides for cleaning out orange juice stains from most carpets by hand, by vacuum cleaner (yes!), and by carpet cleaner.
How to manually remove orange juice stains and spills from carpets and rugs (through a natural orange juice stain cleaner)
The first step to removing an orange juice stain by hand is to move quickly; the sooner the orange juice spill is treated, the less likely it is to become an orange juice stain, which reduces your odds of needing a machine-based method below. Start by immediately blotting the orange juice spill with a towel; work from the outside of the stain to the center to keep it from spreading. The more of it you absorb, the better. Once you’ve absorbed as much as you can, spray the stain with water and dab it with a clean cloth–not the one you already used. If you act quickly enough, the aforementioned steps will clean out most spills before they turn into stains.
If you can’t remove the spill through the steps above, or if you discover the spill after it set in and turned into a stain, you’ll need more than water. Add soap or detergent to the stain and use your fingers to work it into the carpet. You’ll want to be gentle to avoid pushing the stain into the carpet along with the soap. Once the detergent is embedded, add water and dab it out with a clean cloth; do this several times to rinse out both the stain and your soap solution at once. If you still see a stain, add foam-based shaving cream to it and dab it with a clean cloth. Keep checking, blotting, and rinsing the stain with clean water until it’s gone.
Once it’s gone, the final step will be to dry the area. You can let it air dry if you’ve got time to spare, but if you don’t, you’ll want to lay down several paper towels and either walk back and forth on them to absorb the water or rest a book or heavy object on the paper towels. This step is important to reduce the risk of mold, mildew, dust, or a carpet that smells like rotten oranges. Once the carpet feels fully dry to the touch, a good vacuuming will bring back the fluff and texture of your low-pile, medium-pile, or high-pile carpet.
How to remove orange juice stains from carpets with a vacuum cleaner
While we prefer natural methods when we have the time for them, the truth of the matter is that we often don’t, and unfortunately, nor do most people out there. The good news is that if you’ve got a vacuum cleaner, you might be able to do just as good of a job–or with a good vacuum, a much better job–getting that orange juice stain out. Yes! Most people don’t know how effective a vacuum cleaner can be for sucking out stains from carpeting (this technique won’t work on hard flooring). However, just as with wine or coffee, you’re not going to be able to use any vacuum cleaner. When we don’t have a good carpet cleaner at our disposal (see below), we turn to a vacuum cleaner we’d trust with $10,000 Persian rugs: the Miele Complete C3 Soft Carpet. It’s not cheap, but if there’s a vacuum cleaner capable of literally pulling stains out of carpets, this is the one. You’ll be happy with the results on low-pile, medium-pile, and high-pile carpeting.
That said, not everyone has $700 to spend on a vacuum cleaner, no matter how good of a job it does. In that case, our next best suggestion for a carpet-focused vacuum cleaner is the Miele Complete C2 Limited; for less than $400, you’ll get most of the cleaning capabilities of the Soft Carpet on low-to medium-pile carpeting for hundreds of dollars less. If you’d like the C2 Limited’s cleaning abilities but also want a machine capable of tackling every type of hardwood or solid floor out there, we’d suggest the Miele Complete C3 Calima, which, in our books, is the best household vacuum below $700. Any of these vacuums will provide a far better cleaning experience than anything you’ll find in your local department store while lasting decades longer.
The best carpet cleaners to remove orange juice stains quickly
Finally, if you’ve got a large spill or simply want the most effective way of pulling out stains–orange juice, coffee, wine, urine, vomit; it doesn’t matter–we’ll save you some time: just get a high-end carpet cleaner. It’ll do more than any vacuum can while blowing away any homemade remedies.
If you can spare a few thousand dollars, there isn’t a better carpet cleaner than the EDIC Galaxy 2000 and its model siblings. It’s designed for industrial work, and will clean out stains when nothing else will. However, if you don’t live in a million dollar home, run a business involving the lodging of humans or animals, or make money cleaning carpets, it’s probably going to be overkill.
For 99% of homes and families, on the other hand, the Bissell 86T3 Big Green will be a better compromise. It costs about $400, making it a much cheaper alternative to the EDIC. However, it’s still tough enough to pull out nearly every stain you can make in a normal home. If you own an apartment complex, a duplex or two, a bed-and-breakfast, or a hotel, then yes, you’ll want the EDIC. But in pretty much every other situation, you’ll be fine getting pretty much every kind of stain out with the Bissell, including one orange stain after another. If the Big Green costs a bit too much, we’d recommend the Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner as a good compromise; it’s almost as effective and significantly cheaper.
If you need a vacuum or carpet cleaner to clean out orange juice (or pretty much any foods) from a carpet and have a $1,000 budget, we’d recommend the Miele Complete C3 Soft Carpet, which you can buy here, and the Bissell Big Green, which you can buy here. If you’re on a much smaller budget, we’d recommend the Miele Complete C2 Limited, which you can buy here, and the Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner, which you can buy here. If you own a million dollar home, run an apartment complex, a hotel, or a carpet cleaning empire, you’ll want the EDIC Galaxy 2000, which you can buy here.
Canadians can buy the Miele Soft Carpet here, the Bissell Big Green here, and the Rug Doctor here. While the C2 Limited is unavailable, three close equivalents are: the C1 Capri, the C1 Titan, and the C3 Calima.
If you find our research on PMC helpful, you can follow our efforts to keep maniacally reviewing home cleaning tools by shopping through our links above. We promise to keep fighting the good fight against every horror children, animals, and grown, yet messy humans can inflict upon a clean home.