Materials, quality, and cost often go hand in hand. For instance, cheaper rugs usually use synthetic materials, which you can easily recognize. When you’re shopping for rugs,
make sure you take a hands-on approach. Feel free to touch everything. You’ll notice that cheaper,lower-quality rugs feel more rough, since the carpet fibers aren’t as soft.
If you’re searching for rugs that fall somewhere in the middle, you’ll have an endless variety of quality picks.Materials include wool and cotton, both of which feel soft and smooth
beneath your feet. The styles of mid-range rugs are different as well. Look for flat-woven kilim rugs or those featuring shag fibers or even indoor/outdoor materials.
Top-quality rugs are almost exclusively made of wool, cotton, and even silk. They’re rich, opulent, and generally exquisite.Handmade rugs have an altogether different texture.
Walking on a high-quality carpet often feels like walking on clouds.

Wool Rugs...
Wool is a natural fiber rug that’s traditionally handwoven, hand-tufted, hand-knotted, or hand-loomed. There are machine-loomed wool rugs as well, but these are typically made with synthetic fibers and not true wool. True wool rugs are more expensive due to the extensive work that goes into designing and building them, but the quality is excellent. In fact, wool rugs are often passed down from generation to generation, making them an heirloom investment. Given its robustness, this type of rug is ideal for high-traffic spaces, like the living room, bedroom, and entryway.
  “Wool is my material of choice. It holds color beautifully and cleans up easily when spills may occur, and my favorite feature about this type of rug is how soft wool feels,” says certified interior designer Liz Toombs, president of PDR Interiors. “The cost of this type of rug can be higher than other materials, but it is worth it for the repellency. Also, wool does shed for a while, so it requires regular vacuuming in those first few months.”

Silk Rugs
“Whether 100 percent silk or a silk blend, the inclusion of silk in a rug creates a luxurious shine that’s unmatched by other fibers,” says Alessandra Wood, the vice president of style at online interior decorating service Modsy. In addition to its sheen, silk rugs are often thin, fine, and soft to the touch. “Silk rugs are incredibly delicate and can be difficult to clean, so this rug type is best in spaces that are low-traffic,” Wood says. Rayon and viscose are synthetic alternatives to true silk and are considered slightly less durable than the real deal. Try: Hagues Hand-Knotted Silk Dove Area Rug, starting at $460; perigold.com.