Use of carpet tape for turning a bowl

I have read you can use something called "turners tape" to hold the bottom of a bowl to a face plate.

In this video, Mike Peace demonstrates using turner's tape for holding small items. He says he uses it sometimes for reversing a small bowl, lids for boxes, etc. What's nice about it is that you don't need to leave a tenon for the chuck to grab onto. Also, it's flexible, so the mating surfaces don't necessarily have to be flat as long as they fit together well.

Notice that the taped part of the bowl in the video is a significant portion of the overall diameter of the workpiece. Turner's tape would likely not be a good choice for large or even medium sized bowl where the foot is small compared to the bowl's diameter.

Does carpet tape work as well?

No. At least, Mike emphasizes several times in the video that turner's tape is not carpet tape, and he talks about the very strong bond that you can get with turner's tape. Turner's tape is a cloth tape with strong adhesive, so it's more likely to bond well to slightly irregular surfaces.

I use carpet tape all the time for things like holding a template in place for routing. It works very well for that, but there's no way I'd trust it to hold a workpiece spinning at hundreds of RPM.

If a proper four-jaw scroll chuck isn't an option (three-jaw chucks are used more for metal work), and if you can't get turner's tape right away, consider a different option such as gluing the bottom of the bowl to a sacrificial piece that's screwed to a face plate. And again, without a chuck, keep the work small.

Will I end up ruining my work piece if my tool catches and I'm using carpet tape?

If your tool catches you might ruin your piece anyway, but if it catches while you're using carpet tape it might ruin your day as well. Be sure to stand outside the line of fire if you try it.