Tigressa Carpet: Is It Worth Buying?

If you’re looking for new flooring, you might have come across Tigressa carpet—and you’re probably wondering if it’s any good. 

We can help with that!

This guide to Tigressa carpet will give you all the answers you need. Below, we’ll explain exactly what Tigressa carpet is, who makes it, and explain all the different collections Tigressa offers.

Finally, we’ll walk you through all the pros and cons of this brand—which we’ve compiled using hundreds of Tigressa carpet reviews from actual buyers.

So: is Tigressa carpet worth buying? Let’s find out!

Want to skip right to our: “is Tigressa carpet worth it” judgment call? Click here!

Why Choose Carpet in the First Place?

Before we get to Tigressa carpet, let’s take a look at carpet in general (and yes, this stuff will be important later on in this Tigressa carpet review!)

So: carpet has the honor of being the only widely available soft-surface flooring option (along with the best cork flooring and some less-widely-used rubber floors). Which means that, if you’re looking for the best flooring for comfort, carpet’s going to be your go-to. 

But a lot of buyers still have a hard time deciding whether to put carpet or hardwood in a bedroom—or carpet vs. laminate, for that matter (or any other hardwood floor alternative). 

On the one hand, carpet can be so cozy, especially during the colder months of the year. And it’s easy on joints.

On the other hand, hardwood has a classy, timeless look that’s really hard to ignore. Plus, it’ll last much longer and does wonders for resale value, which carpet does not.

So carpet feels (and still looks) great, but it doesn’t necessarily offer the same appeal that the best hardwood floors offer. And when it comes to selling homes, even high-quality fake wood flooring products like the best vinyl plank floors will offer more return on investment than carpet will.

Oh, but good carpet is so soft. Like, really soft. So what’s our point? Choosing carpet is a personal decision! If you treasure comfort over the look of hardwood, then to heck with the naysayers!

What Is Tigressa Carpet?

On to the main event! 

What is Tigressa carpet? It’s a brand marketed as a super-soft-yet-equally-durable flooring choice for buyers of all budgets. It’s widely available and mostly receives good reviews. 

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Tigressa carpet only comes in a traditional style—the brand doesn’t offer peel-and-stick carpet tiles (no relation to peel-and-stick vinyl plank flooring). Just your run-of-the-mill (pun intended) broadloom.

Tigressa Carpet Is Made of Nylon

All Tigressa carpet is made of nylon—specifically, type 6 nylon. This material performs well against the rigors of heavy foot traffic without sacrificing an ounce of comfort. It’s supremely durable, and in terms of residential use, should stack up well against even the most durable wood flooring. 

The nylon in Tigressa carpet also offers great stain resistance. While we wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the best flooring for dogs and pets, it should do well so long as you clean up any messes quickly. However, we wouldn’t go so far as to say you can use Tigressa carpet for mudroom flooring or anything like that—let’s be reasonable here!

Most Products Are Made With a Microfiber Design…

Aside from the Passages line (we’ll talk about all the Tigressa collections below, that one included), most Tigressa carpet is made with microfiber nylon—which just means that the fibers are very small. 

But don’t worry, this isn’t the same microfiber that’s used to clean phone screens or glasses; this iteration is much more durable. And best of all, it feels great. 

…Which Allows Tigressa to Offer Vibrant Colors and a Soft Feel

This microfiber design makes Tigressa carpet supremely comfortable—but just as important, it allows the carpet to take on a huge variety of tones, colors, and patterns. 

Sidenote: this is another area of the carpet vs. hardwood debate buyers might appreciate. Wood floor colors are fairly limited compared to carpet. With products like Tigressa carpet, you can find flooring that matches virtually any color pallet (great for home designers). 

With hardwood, you can have light wood floors or dark wood floors. Or red, brown, gray, or honey tones. Have you ever seen green wood flooring? Or purple? We’re genuinely asking. Could be neat. 

Anyway! The point we’re making here is that carpet opens a lot of doors color-wise (though you may have more options with wood floor designs or patterns). 

Tigressa Carpet Mostly Sold by Carpet One, Flooring America, and Prosource Wholesale

Tigressa carpet is sold at many stores across the United States, but you’ll probably find the biggest selections at Carpet One (which also sells Lees carpet), Flooring America, and Prosource Wholesale. Carpet One, in fact, used to carry Tigressa exclusively.

One note, each store seems to carry specific Tigressa products—so you may want to check each retailer to see your full range of options.

How Much Does Tigressa Carpet Cost?

Tigressa carpet offers a wide range of products, seemingly catering to different budgets. The budget products cost a little over $2/sq. ft. while the luxury choices cost as much as $9–$10/sq. ft., which is closer to what you might expect to pay when buying a hardwood floor!

Who Makes Tigressa Carpet?

Tigressa carpet reviews are generally quite positive—and that’s no surprise, given that it’s made by the second-largest flooring manufacturer in the world.

Tigressa Carpet is Actually Made by Shaw 

That’s right—Tigressa carpet is made by Shaw. While you won’t find any mentions of Tigressa on Shaw’s website, they do manufacture the brand.

If the name Shaw sounds familiar, it’s because it is, as we mentioned, the second-biggest flooring manufacturer in the world. Shaw dabbles in most types of flooring—and along with carpet, they’re one of the best engineered wood flooring brands, one of the best vinyl plank flooring brands, and… well, you get the picture. Even Shaw’s laminate flooring is popular. 

And Tigressa Carpets Are Made in the U.S.

For buyers who care about this sort of thing, Tigressa Carpets are indeed made in the United States. 

For buyers who don’t care about this sort of thing, flooring made in the U.S. can have significantly fewer issues compared to flooring made elsewhere. Just read about LL Flooring, (who makes CoreLuxe), the debacle with Armstrong laminate flooring, etc.—you’ll see what we mean.

How Many Collections of Tigressa Carpet Are There?

There are currently 3 different collections of Tigressa carpet, each offering hundreds of style choices.

Tigressa Soft Style Is (Mostly) the Budget Line 

Price: $2 to $7/sq. ft.

Tigressa Soft Style is the brand’s most touted product line, but we have to point out that this collection is kind of odd (not necessarily in a bad way). You’ll find a large variety of products stretching across quality, pricing, style options, and more. 

Our initial thought was to label Soft Style as the budget option, but some versions are actually more expensive than the next tier up. After looking through hundreds of product listings, the only thing that seems to separate the Soft Style line from Cherish line is, well, the name!

Cherish and Soft Style have the same warranty (15 years for stains and texture), many shared styles, and in some cases, a very similar price tag. However, we noticed that Soft Style has more variance in its catalog, so you may see some options with different kinds of backing, pile lengths, and so on. 

Otherwise, Cherish and Soft Style are very similar.

Tigressa Cherish Is the Mid-Tier Collection

Price: $5 to $6/sq. ft.

We’re calling Tigressa Cherish the “mid-tier collection” only because of its average price, which is a few dollars more than Soft Style. Otherwise, it’s important to remember that some versions of Soft Style are more expensive than Tigressa carpet products from the Cherish collection.

Passages by Tigressa Is the Luxury Line

Price: $9 to $10/sq. ft.

Fortunately, the difference between the Passages collection and Tigressa’s other carpet lines is much easier to discern. Passages products are notably more expensive (as in, cost-of-wood-flooring expensive) but they also target luxury buyers.

While most options are still single-tone, there are visible patterns in each. 

It’s also worth noting that these Tigressa carpets have better warranties than the Soft Style or Cherish lines. 

The Brand Used to Offer Waterproof Carpets Called Tigressa H2O

It’s not clear when, but there used to be a waterproof line of Tigressa Carpets called H2O. However, the line appears to have either been discontinued or shuffled into the Soft Style and Cherish lines.

We should note that these carpets were closer to water-resistant wood flooring than waterproof vinyl flooring (like EVP flooring) in terms of waterproofing. Nylon is naturally water resistant but liquid can still penetrate it after a time.

Tigressa Carpet Pros and Cons

After parsing through hundreds of online Tigressa carpet reviews available via Google (so you don’t have to!), we’ve condensed them into this list of Tigressa carpet pros and cons.

Advantages of Tigressa Carpet

Let’s start with the good stuff!

Tigressa Carpet Is Recyclable…

Seriously! You might not think of carpet as something that can be recycled, but it’s true! Remember, Tigressa carpet is made of nylon, which is perfectly recyclable (like the best vinyl flooring is). 

So, while we wouldn’t say Tigressa Carpet is the most environmentally friendly flooring product in the world, it certainly wins some green points.

…And Also Made From Recycled (and Low-VOC) Materials 

And on that note, Tigressa carpet is also made of recycled nylon, which further lessens its environmental impact. 

Better yet, there’s another benefit of being made from recycled nylon: it’s naturally durable so there’s little need for it to be treated with protective coatings that typically contain high concentrations of VOCs (volatile organic compounds). 

Ironically, most recycled flooring can’t be called low-VOC flooring because the recycling process can’t remove VOCs, but nylon escapes this trend because there aren’t many VOCs in it to begin with!

So: while Tigressa carpet products are not marketed as low-VOC carpet, there’s a decent chance they score well here (kind of like non-toxic laminate flooring or low-VOC vinyl flooring). 

However, we should again point out that the brand doesn’t seem to have any green certifications beyond general labels like “eco-friendly”. And nylon is fully artificial, so if you want the best in eco-friendly flooring you may still want to consider something like hemp flooring or the best bamboo flooring instead.

There’s an Option for Every Budget

Like PVC flooring, there seems to be a Tigressa carpet product for every budget. The cheaper options start at just above $2/sq. ft., yet luxury buyers can still find high-price products with the features they desire.

The Disadvantages of Tigressa Carpet

Though Tigressa carpet offers a lot to this point, it’s not all good. Here are a few more things worth considering!

It’s Hard to Find a Catalog of the Passages Collection Online

With the exception of Prosource Wholesale’s website, you can’t really find an online catalog that includes the Passages collection—even though it seems to be sold by Carpet One, Flooring America, etc.

The Passages Collection Is Very Expensive for Carpet (but It’s Marketed to Luxury Buyers)

The best hardwood floor brands tend to cost around $10/sq. ft. or more, plus installation. The Passages collection of Tigressa carpet costs the same. For carpet. 

While it’s not exactly rare to find carpet at that price, it’s also not hard to find a good carpet for half that price!

Tigressa Carpet Warranties Are Just Okay (From What We Can See)

Viewing product warranties is important any time you’re exploring different flooring ideas.

Tigressa’s Soft Style and Cherish collections come with 15-year, prorated warranties for stains and texture damage. Passages’ warranty has the same stipulations, except it lasts for 20 years. 

Length-wise, these warranties aren’t bad (for carpet), but finding details seems to be impossible—which is weird. One possibility: there may be a lot of exclusions in the warranty (i.e. certain stains aren’t covered, has to be installed by pros, etc.).

Online Listings Don’t Mention Fade Protection

Now, we’re not saying that Tigressa carpet fades in sunlight so it may still be a good sunroom flooring option. But the stores that carry it don’t mention anything about fade protection, which is a common problem for nylon (it’s also one of the problems with luxury vinyl tile and disadvantages of vinyl plank flooring, if you were curious). 

If fade protection is really important to you—maybe you have a lot of windows—the best laminate flooring is essentially immune to fading.

Conclusion: Is Tigressa Worth Buying? Tigressa Carpet Reviews (Mostly) Say So.

First: Tigressa carpet reviews are largely positive. There are complaints, sure—but we couldn’t identify any super-common themes in the negative ones. 

However, the high cost of Tigressa carpet and the absence of warranty details don’t mix very well. We’re definitely not saying the warranties are bad, but not knowing what’s included doesn’t inspire confidence in a product. 

Overall, though, Tigressa carpet seems like a solid option for anyone considering carpet for their home. And on that note, we can’t recommend your local, top-rated flooring stores enough! Local stores carry the best products and actually hire flooring experts versus run-of-the-mill contractors. 

But, if you’re still not sure about your next flooring choice, we highly recommend checking out the articles below for more ideas!