The primary materials used in carpets are wool and silk In some cases, cotton, flax and synthetics are also used just to make the product cheaper. Most tribal or nomadic rugs are wool pile and wool foundation. However, the natural fibers are most commonly used in the hand-made carpets because of its softness and smoothness. Natural fibers incorporate the advantages of durability, beauty and value that synthetic materials can never match. The most durable, and cleanable fiber is wool. Silk carpet, however, looks more luxurious and beautiful but not so suitable to be often cleaned and thus not often used in high traffic areas.

Wool Woll is the oldest fiber that is used to produce the carpets. It looks luxurious, feels warm, weighs not heavy and difficult to get wrinkled, but it's easy to get dirty. Therefore, wool carpet is not a good choice in humid areas because it tends to hold moisture. Compared with synthetic fibers, wool is more expensive but less than silk. The quality of wool is graded in different levels. Generally wool from high altitude areas is better than low altitude areas. Also the wool taken from the young and healthy sheep is with good quality and wool from the neck and belly part of the sheep is also quite good.

Silk Silk is the most expensive fiber used in hand-made carpets. Silk comes from the cocoons of silk worms and China was the first country to produce the carpet with silk. Today China is still one of the places where best silk carpets are produced. When making carpets, silk can be used alone or in combination with wool. Pure silk carpet moth caterpillar cocoon s are very light and feel quite smooth. Fine silk carpet looks gorgeous and they are usually used as decorations on floors or on walls. Therefore, it also requires special care and people often get them in right places i.e. away from the walkways.

Cotton Cotton is used generally as warp and weft yarns in the foundation of carpets. It is, however, easily to get dirty and moist but it costs less.

Artificial silk Aritificial silk looks exactly like real silk but it doesn't come from the silkworm cocoon. It is mainly made from the mercerized cotton and in some cases from the chemical fibers.Like cotton, Artificial silk is made of almost pure cellulose but this cellulose is rather human-made instead of being grown naturally. It's firstly taken from dissolved cellulose (obtained from cotton or wood pulp) to produce a thick yellow liquid which is called viscose. The viscose is then extruded through tiny holes and later spun into thread and yarn. Artificial silk does not look so beautiful as real silk but it's much cheaper and thus can greatly lower down the total cost of manufacturing a carpet.

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