I meant to spend some time with a few rugs this past weekend, testing out the Earth Friendly Products Carpet Shampoo. Between Fox officially crawling (and trying to crawl up the stairs) and prepping for a 30 day detox I didn't get to all of the rugs, but I did try out the goods.
The EFP shampoo is more concentrated than the Bissell (uses 1.5 oz to Bissell's recommended 2.5 oz). It also uses essential oils for fragrance rather than artificial fragrance, which meant I didn't end up with a migraine post-use. In fact, the EFP fragrance was pretty much undetectable after the rug dried, the Bissell lingered for the next 24 hours or so.
Did it clean as well? Absolutely. I cleaned this small rug from C's and my bedroom, one that sees the most traffic in that room. Though it's relatively new, it needed some attention. For several weeks M had a nighttime cough that I approached with Hyland's Cough Syrup (disappointingly, I realized it has Sodium Benzoate, so out it goes) and raw, local honey. There were spots of gunk across the carpet thanks to the combination of those 2 sticky substances plus nighttime doses.
A quick steam and the dirty water that cycled back into the tank was a murky medium brown. I still had some clean water and shampoo in the tank, so I used it up on an area of the main rug in the den...that very same rug we'd cleaned 2 weeks ago. The 3'x5' area of that rug cycled black water back into the tank. Total yuck to the nth degree.
The visible results: The sticky mess from the bedroom rug is gone. A few of the stains on the larger carpet are significantly less visible than they were after the Bissell round.
The short of it: I'm glad I researched and decided to try this particular carpet cleaner! While I'm pretty sure nothing can return our carpet to it's new glory, I can definitely breathe easier having little hands and feet playing on it all the time.
