There is no more beautiful and luxurious floor covering than a genuine alpaca fur rug. Real alpaca rugs are unbeatably soft and alluring and make a perfect centerpiece of any room.

Alpaca skin rugs are extremely versatile, odorless and hardwearing.

You can use them as a luxurious fire accent, to cuddle up on during those cold winter months, or as a gorgeous wall hanging which makes a sumptuous centerpiece to any room.

Try placing one under a coffee table which really brings that piece of furniture to life or place over a bedspread to set off a dull bedroom.

To buy it is to love it.

Known in incan times as "the fiber of the gods" alpaca wool has long been prized in South American culture for its unique properties, unbeatable softness, strength and luxurious warmth. It is as soft as cashmere, comparable to silk in smoothness and 3 times stonger than wool. Generations of evolution in the harsh Andean envirnment bred a hardy breed of Alpaca whose wool coat adapted perfectly to the conditions. Each hair is hollow, which traps warmth inside each hair whilst keeping the cold out and making the wool and any product of the wool, incredibly lightweight compared to other animal fibers. Once only reserved for Incan royalty, alpaca wool is now available to us all and once you've tried it, you'll never look elsewhere again.

How do you clean an alpaca rug? Well, alpaca hair contains oils for insulation hich make it naturally resistant to stains but as with everything else, it will get grubby over time.

For recent spillages, wipe and blot away gently as much of the liquid as possible and then sprinkle with cornmeal, leave to dry and vacuum off the residue.

Set in grime and older stains ar another issue. You can not machine wash alpaca, as it washed out the natural oils and will cause it to become stiffer, less soft and ultimately ruin the rug over time. Instead, you rug must be sent to a specialist dry cleaner and preferably a professional fur cleaner.

If you alpaca rug becomes scruffy looking or matted you can brush it out with a hair brush or pet brush which will solve the problem. In fact, this is a good idea to do occassionally anyway to spruce it up before it becomes scruffy. Sprinkle with baby powder occassionally too and vacuum off using tool attachments only to freshen it up. Doing so, will keep your alpaca fur rug looking fresh and new for a long time.

Should you need to put your alpaca rug into storage then store it in way which allows the natural fibers to breathe. Don't used one of those suffocating plastic vacuum bags and avoid dampness as this might lead to mold growth.