Where does the dirt go?
A customer recently asked...
"When using the Cimex why is it that the carpet appears to look cleaner without actually removing the soil. I tried asking this question on one of the boards but no one can answer this question. I understand the process of encapsulation just now how it changes the appearance before the encapsulation takes place." Here is the answer that I gave him... It's a trick we do with smoke and mirrors. (just kidding)
When a customer asks, where does the dirt go? There's a simple answer.
What we see as we look at the carpet is a reflection of light; that's what reaches our eyes. Our eyes perceive what's on the surface of the carpet fiber. But keep in mind, carpet fiber is made up of thousands of tiny fibers. In addition to all that carpet fiber, there's also a lot of space surrounding the individual carpet fibers.
What we're accomplishing through encap shampooing is to displace the soil from the visible surface of the fiber. The soil that's been scrubbed free from the fiber is now held in suspension in the encap solution. Since that fluid is surrounding the fibers, the majority of the soil that had formerly been on the visible surface of the fiber is greatly reduced. So at the point that the carpet is scrubbed, the appearance immediately looks clean.
Of course all of the soil that was originally in the carpet is still there, waiting to be extracted from the carpet during the post-vacuuming process.
Realistically we can expect to see a pretty major improvement in the overall appearance of the carpet right off the bat, immediately after its been scrubbed, and before it gets vacuumed. So no, its not actually a trick we do with smoke and mirrors, but sometimes the results sure do look that way.