How to Remove a Grease Stain from Carpet
Have you ever had one of those really terrible, horrible, no good very bad days. Whenever I have a bad day it always makes me think of this kids book? (affiliate link) Monday was one of those days for me. It really didn’t start out bad but when grease ended up on the carpet, it was bad.
How My Monday Started
My Monday didn’t really start out bad at all. I called Banquet because we like their Brown and Serve sausage and the last three packages only had 8 instead of 10 links in them. While this really isn’t a big deal, I thought I would give them a call. After talking with a really nice customer service lady, she said they would send me a coupon. Which is great, because I love saving money with coupons.
After that task was out of the way, I helped my son get his school done for the day. While my daughter was working on her schoolwork, I had my son help me with our swivel, reclining, rocking chair. You see the night before when I got up from this chair I heard a big bang.
My Chair Breaks
I thought it was a spring that had broke, so I picked up the chair to turn it over and the whole base came off. Evidently, the bolt in the middle of the base gave way and broke in two. So the ball bearings were loose and very greasy. Since it was late, I left it for the next day and went to bed.
How the Stain Came to Be
My son was going to help me vacuum all the crumbs out of the chair since the base was off and we could easily get inside the chair to clean. But I had to move the chair out.
I grabbed the chair to move it, to the middle of the room and turn it upside down. But I grabbed the wrong part of the chair. It slipped out of my hands and bounced on the carpet twice.
Leaving rings of black grease in the middle of the light colored carpet. (the photo above is after I had already cleaned two of the rings off the carpet. It wasn’t until, I had cleaned two of them off the carpet, that I thought to take photos)
Cleaning the Stained Carpet
At first, I grabbed a rag and tried to get the grease up. It was no use the stain wouldn’t budge, it just smeared.
As I thought to myself, why couldn’t this had happened in the corner or where the chair sits, so I could just cover it up. Why did this have to happen in the middle of the room?
As thoughts of how much it would cost to replace the carpet if I couldn’t get it out, raced through my brain, I came up with an idea.
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I thought I would get my steam cleaner out and steam the stain out of the carpet. It’s not really made for carpet cleaning, but it does work well to get out small carpet stains.
But this stain wasn’t small at all. I started to get the steam cleaner out of the closet, then I remembered that I read somewhere that Fels-Naptha Bar Soap (affiliate link) works really well on grease.
I had nothing to lose, after all, I had a black grease stain in the middle of my family room carpet. How much worse could it get?
How I Scrubbed the Grease Out of the Carpet
I took the Fels-Naptha Bar Soap and wet it with warm water and rubbed it directly on the grease stain. I kept dipping the Fels Naptha bar into the water to keep it moist as I rubbed it on the stain.
Then I added a little water to the soap rubbed carpet. We have a concrete floor under the rug so I didn’t have to worry about damaging the floor under the carpet.
After the carpet was slightly damp I took a towel and rubbed and scrubbed. Adding more water as needed to work the stain out.
Once the stain was out, I took a dry towel and pressed on the carpet to get any remaining soapy water.
The stain came out and the carpet was saved, I breathed a sigh of relief.
This little miracle bar of soap also works on clothing stains and I use it in my homemade laundry soap recipe too. Just in case you want to know what happened to the chair. I called Lazy Boy and they are giving me a new swivel to install in the recliner at no charge. So the day didn’t turn out so bad after all.
Just so you know some of the links in this post are my affiliate links. When you use them I can make a little money without any additional cost to you. Thanks for the support. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.
The other day, I got a pretty nasty grease stain on my carpet. Thanks for sharing your experience getting a grease stain out of your carpet. I will have to look into that bar you used. If it doesn’t come out, then maybe it is just time that I get my carpets cleaned professionally anyway. Either way, Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much! We are moving and when we moved our couch, a huge grease stain was in the carpet from the reclining mechanism. We tried a carpet cleaner solution and vinegar/water with no luck. I found your post while looking for solutions. We ran to the store and found the soap. It worked! It is a miracle soap! Thank you!!!
Amy, Thanks for taking the time to let me know the soap worked so well for you to get the grease stain out. I think it’s a miracle soap too, it works on so many stains. ~Shelly
This was just the trick we needed! Our carpet is less than a year old and my husband tracked greasy footprints ALL over! 😩 totally worked! Thanks!
April, you’re welcome, I’m glad the grease came out.
Your welcome!
Thank you so much for this! My Elliptical machine has been leaving grease stains on the carpet and I was panicking on how to get them out sense I am in an apt and would like to get my deposit back. just added this soap to my amazon cart – I have high hopes!
Sara, this soap worked good on our carpet I hope you have the same results too.
Worked perfectly! Had a stain left by a keyboard, the little rubber pads on the bottom basically turned to grease. Tried multiple things to get it up. Ran across this post and figured mine as well. It worked great and will always keep this bar around now for cleanups!
So glad to hear the Fels Naptha worked well for your stain too. It’s great stuff.
This worked great! I got grease from an office chair on my carpet. I followed your directions and it came right up! Thank you!
So glad it worked well for you too Krista!
Where do you get this bar of Fels Naptha?
Linda, you can get Fels Naptha at Amazon or look in the detergent aisle of your grocery store. I’ve also seen it at Walmart too.
Where do you buy the Fels Naptha bar soap at? What stores?
I’ve purchased mine in the past at my local grocery store in the laundry aisle. But you can purchase them from Amazon too. There is a link in the article to it.
Thank you! Tried everything including professional cleaners who said they couldn’t get it out..same grease stain from recliner. Your solution worked, never would have thought of Fels Naptha.
Colleen, I’m so glad it worked for you too. Fels Naptha is like a miracle cleaning bar.
Where do you find this product?
Thank you, Linda
Linda, at our local stores they have Fels Naptha bar soap in the laundry aisle of the store. If you can’t find it there, you can get if from Amazon. I linked to it in the blog post so you can click that link or you can search Amazon. I hope that helps.
My husband laid his pants on the carpet this morning, & when they were moved, a dark black grease stain transferred off his pant hem, from his Caterpillar warehouse job. He carefully blotted it with a white paper towel & some came up. One thing I did, before any other product was applied, I sprinkled baking soda on & let it sit for an hour or more. Vacuumed that & much more came up! I have corn starch on it now, & as soon as I go buy the Fels-Naptha I’ll use it for the gray that remains. The color in the soap shouldn’t stain? I guess if yours didn’t. My carpet is cut pile, probably some different textile make-up. Its mostly Nylon, if I’m right. I’ll leave comment after I try the final step, with the Fels.
Paula, I didn’t have any problems with the color of the soap staining the carpet. I’ve used this technique on light colored pile carpet and the loop type too without any problems. I hope your stain came out.
I had picked up a Fels-Naptha bar on clearance at Walmart for $0.67, and WOW I am so glad I did – I would have paid 10x that for how well it worked. My piano keyboard had little rubber things on the bottom that had liquified into dark black grease stains on my carpet – this took it out! Thanks so much!
Nicole, I’m so glad this worked so well for you. It’s our go to for cleaning stains in carpet. I’m always amazed at how well the Fels-Naptha bar works for cleaning.