There’s nothing like the ambience of candles — and nothing quite like hardened candle wax to try to pry off your furniture or floors. Here’s how to get the wax stains off; there’s even a bonus MacGuyver tip for carpets.
Photo by Banjo Brown.
Large pieces of hardened wax will probably pull off very easily, but for the little pieces still stuck, you can use either heat or freezing cold to help you remove wax from cloth, walls, floors or wood surfaces.
The Cold Method
- Take some ice or, better yet, an ice pack and apply it to the wax to freeze it.
- Then gently scrape the wax off with a thin object like a credit card. Don’t use anything too sharp like a knife or you might damage the surface you’re trying to remove the wax from.
- For wooden surfaces, if any wax residue remains, rub in some cream furniture wax to the area which might help get the residue out.
The Heat Method
- On hard surfaces, use a hair dryer to melt the wax and rub off with a cloth.
- For carpets, we recommend this MacGyver tip: put a paper bag on top of the wax, then iron over the bag, pressing gently until all the wax is transferred to the paper bag.
- You can also use the ironing and paper bag method to remove wax from fabrics, like tablecloths. Put one bag (or some newspaper) under the cloth and one on top and iron on medium heat until all the wax is transferred to the bag. Repeat as necessary.
That’s it! No more melted wax troubles, hopefully.
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