If you feel you must go with a light color, stay away with pastels in general. A reasonable compromise is an off-white in the direction of gray . Your best choice is nylon , because it has the best resilience and resistance to yarn abrasion of all carpet yarns. Olefin , acrylic , and polyester have an affinity for oily soils, so they will need cleaning more frequently, if they are to be maintained properly. They have less resilience than nylon, so they pack down quicker.
Pathways show sooner.
And, having less resistance to abrasion, they also show wear sooner. While these three yarns resist stains better, they will also ' ugly out ' sooner. Solution dyed nylon is more resists to permanent discoloration than vat dyed nylon and is less prone to light bleaching. Just keep in mind that the higher the percentage of a given yarn type, the more that yarn's performance characteristics will tend to dominate carpet's visual performance over the long run. The shorter the pile, the better the vacuum efficiency, which helps to reduce soil abrasion.