FAQs - It Turned Pink?

Q - Jim,

We always rinse our upholstery fabrics with an acidic rinse agent regardless of the fiber type because we've been told that's the safe way to do it.

I just looked at a job where a beige synthetic velvet has turned light pink. I thought it might be some light browning or something, so I applied a stronger solution of our acid rinse, and it turned darker pink, almost red!!! What happened?

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A -
Some dyes react with acidic solutions and create what are known as "indicator dye changes". This is a rare occurrence, but easily correctable in most cases.

Simply apply household ammonia, which reverses the pH from acid to alkaline. The great thing about ammonia is that it will then self neutralize as the ammonia gas leaves the fabric and in the end it will leave the fabric neutral.

NOTE: "Use household ammonia undiluted from the bottle. Do not use "lemon scent" or "sudsy ammonia" or ammoniated cleaners, as they have additives that may leave a residue"

In the future, you might decide to rinse synthetic fiber fabrics with neutral detergents, such as Avenge Clean Rinse to prevent this problem.

However, since this problem is truly very rare, the advantages of rinsing upholstery with an acidic rinse agent to prevent color bleeding, cellulose browning, and stiffening from detergent residue far outweigh the extremely rare event of an indicator dye change.