Most upholstered furniture sold in the United States carries a small tag with one of four letters on it. Most people have never seen it, because it is sewn somewhere nobody looks. When you book an upholstery clean we ask for that letter, and we test the fabric ourselves before we start anyway.
Where the tag is hiding
The tag is rarely anywhere obvious. Start by lifting a seat cushion and looking at the deck, the flat platform the cushion was sitting on. That is where most of them are.
- On the deck, under a seat cushion
- Sewn into the zipper flap of the cushion cover itself
- Under the skirt, along the bottom edge of the frame
- On the back panel, the side that faces the wall
- Stapled to the underside of the frame, which means tipping the piece over
On a sectional, one section usually carries the tag for the whole run. On a recliner it sits near the footrest mechanism, and on dining chairs it is stapled under the seat pad. If you find one tag on a matching set, say so, because a matching set is not always the same fabric throughout.
What each letter means
| Code | What the maker approved | What it means for the visit |
|---|---|---|
| W | Water based cleaning agents | A water based solution, extracted, at low moisture so the foam never soaks |
| S | Solvent based agents only, no water | A dry solvent product instead, with the room ventilated while we work |
| WS or SW | Either water based or solvent based | We pick one, based on the fabric, the soil and what the test patch shows |
| X | Vacuuming and light brushing only | No liquid on the face fabric. We vacuum, clear the crevices, clean the deck |
The code comes from the manufacturer testing that fabric when it was new. It says which family of cleaning agent it tolerated, and nothing else.
Why the tag is a starting point and not a guarantee
We treat the code as useful information, then check it. Four things can make a tag wrong about the sofa in front of us.
- The piece was reupholstered. The frame kept its original tag, and the fabric on it now was never tested by anybody.
- Cushion covers move around. A cover from another piece, or a replacement ordered years later, can carry a code that does not match the frame it sits on.
- The code was set when the fabric was new. Sun on one arm, years of body oil on two cushions and a spill somebody treated with a bottle from under the sink all change how the fabric behaves.
- The code covers the face fabric only. The stitching thread, the piping cord, the buttons and the backing are not part of it, and any of those can move color into the fabric beside them once it is damp.
There is also a group of fabrics a W code does not protect you from. Some silks, some viscose blends and older linens mark with plain water, before any cleaning product is involved. What shows up is a ring where the wet area met the dry area. The code is about the chemistry of the cleaner. That marking is about the fiber and the drying edge, which is a different problem.
What low moisture cleaning means on a W or WS sofa
A carpet is one fiber on one backing, laid flat, and it will take a lot of water. A sofa is four materials at once, and they do not agree with each other about moisture.
- The face fabric, where body oil and hair product sit
- The deck and the seams, which hold crumbs, coins and most of the pet hair
- The foam core, where odor lives and which holds water for days
- The frame, wooden in most cases, which can mark the fabric from below if it gets wet
Put carpet volumes of water through that and the padding stays wet long after the surface feels fine. So a W or WS piece gets enough solution to break the bond between the soil and the fiber, extracted straight back out, with the foam underneath never saturated. It takes longer per square foot than carpet does.
Fabric sofas are usually dry in 4 to 8 hours after that, and leather is faster because so little goes in. If the sofa is the only place to sit that evening, say so when you book and we bring air movers. There is more on drying times in our note on how long carpet takes to dry.
An S code changes the product, not the care
An S tag means the maker approved solvent based cleaning agents and not water. The visit looks much the same, with a different product in the machine and more attention paid to ventilation, windows open and air moving through the room. Less moisture goes into an S piece than into a W piece.
What an X code actually rules out
X means vacuuming and light brushing, with no liquid cleaning at all. A fabric gets an X when the manufacturer does not expect it to come through wet cleaning or solvent cleaning intact.
We will still do something for an X piece. The cushions come out, the crevices and the deck get cleared and vacuumed properly, and the pet hair goes. What we will not do is put water or solvent on the face fabric. If a cleaner offers to wet clean an X labeled piece anyway, that is their judgment against the manufacturer's.
Where the dirt actually is
Whatever letter is on the tag, the soil is never spread evenly. Walk along a three seat sofa and you see the same thing every time. Two of the three cushions are darker than the third. One arm is worse than the other, normally the one the remote lives on. And there is a shadow high on the back where somebody's head rests.
That is body oil, hair product and everyday skin contact, and it is a different soil from the crumbs and dust in the crevices. It gets pre-treated before the general clean. Skip that and you get a sofa that is clean where nobody touches it and still grey where the family sits. Under the cushions is a separate job again: coins, hair, food and most of the pet hair, emptied and cleaned before the cushion faces are touched.
When the tag is missing or unreadable
Plenty of pieces have no tag left, or one that faded to nothing after twenty years under a cushion. That does not stop the job. It moves all the weight onto the test.
We work from what the fabric tells us: how it feels, how it takes a small amount of the intended solution in a hidden spot, whether any color moves onto a white cloth, how the damp patch dries at its edge. The least aggressive method that will do the work gets used first. You get a written estimate before work starts, and if the test turns something up you hear it then, not afterwards.
When to call us
If you want a sofa, sectional, recliner or set of dining chairs cleaned in the house, that is our upholstery cleaning service. There is no storefront and nothing gets taken away. The van comes to you, anywhere across the eight North Jersey counties we cover, including Bergen County and Union County. Booking is by appointment, 24 hours a day, on (908) 545-9387. Find the letter on your tag first if you can, and say so if you cannot, because then we look for it when we arrive.
