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Viscose is the single most fragile material in the modern rug market and the one most often sold without the buyer understanding what it is. Plain water, with no cleaning product at all, can damage it permanently.
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Viscose is regenerated cellulose — wood pulp chemically processed into a filament that takes dye beautifully and has a silk-like sheen. It is sold under many names including art silk, bamboo silk, banana silk and rayon. The lustre is genuine and the price is a fraction of real silk, which is why it appears in so many decorative rugs. What it does not share with silk is strength, particularly when wet.
Cellulose fibre loses a large proportion of its tensile strength when saturated. A wet viscose pile crushes under light pressure and does not recover, so a footprint or the mark of a cleaning tool can set permanently. The fibre also yellows as it dries, an oxidation reaction in the cellulose itself rather than a stain, which means it cannot be cleaned away afterwards. A glass of water knocked over on a viscose rug frequently leaves a permanent yellow ring.
Rub a few pile fibres between damp fingers; viscose feels chalky and may leave a faint residue on the skin, and real silk does not. Burn testing a single fibre from the underside produces a paper-like smell and grey ash for viscose, whereas silk smells of burnt hair and beads. Viscose also feels noticeably cool and slightly heavy, and the pile shows every footprint. If a rug was inexpensive and looks like silk, it is viscose.
Viscose is cleaned with minimal moisture, dried rapidly with forced air, and groomed while drying to keep the pile standing. Spills should be blotted immediately with a white cloth and never rubbed, and the area dried with a fan straight away rather than left. Anyone who offers to steam clean a viscose rug is either misidentifying the material or has not dealt with one before.
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