How to get candle wax out of carpet or fabric

Everyone loves the warm smells and the relaxing atmosphere that candlelight provides, but the fun can be quickly over as soon as wax drips all over the rug. Knowing how to remove candle wax from carpet is a must for anyone who loves entertaining (or maybe just a little clumsy like yours truly). Thankfully, the removal process is easy and uses materials you likely already have at home so you won’t need to jump in a car or shop online for anything special. As long as you have paper towels to ice on hand and can tackle the problem right away, you’ll be able to get your rug wax-free and get back to enjoying the relaxing atmosphere once again.

First things first, let’s ready your supplies needed to remove candle wax from carpet

• Ice. Whether it is a bag of ice, an ice pack or a bag of frozen veggies­—grab it & and a towel
• Iron (a hair dryer can work in a pinch)
• Paper towel, terry-cloth towel, or brown paper bag
• Carpet cleaner or rubbing alcohol
• Butter knife
• Vacuum

 

Steps:

1. Freeze the wax.

Place a plastic bag of ice cubes, an ice pack or even those frozen veggies on the wax. The goal here is to get the wax as cold as possible so the wax will solidify and lift up from the carpet fibers more easily.Try not to get the wax wet with the condensation from the ice. If that starts to happen, just wrap the “ice” in a towel when applying.

 

2. Scrape the wax off.

Once the wax stain is frozen, use your knife to scrape off as much of the wax as you can. If you were super speedy and were able to get all of the wax off skip step 4. However, if you are still seeing some remaining wax, please continue to step 4.

 

3. Prepare and iron the stain.

Place a paper towel, terry-cloth towel, or paper bag on top of the wax stain. Grab your iron and turn it on at a low temperature. DO NOT use steam. DO NOT get the iron too hot, or you are at risk of the fibers of your carpet can melting! Slowly rub the iron over the towel or bag, which will absorb the wax like magic. Keep repositioning the towel or bag on fresh areas and repeat until all the wax has been absorbed.

 

4. Clean the carpet.

Get any remaining bits of wax out of the rug with a commercial cleaning solution or rubbing alcohol. Blot the carpet until the moisture is gone.

 

5. Vacuum the carpet.

Once the carpet is dry, you can restore the texture of your carpet by vacuuming it with an upholstery brush attachment. Good as new! It’s as if the wax stain never happened. Turns out, getting the wax out of carpet is a lot easier than you might of thought! You can even remove wax from fabric, too, following the same method of icing the wax and then scraping it off.

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