How To Get Melted Wax Out Of Carpet

Keeping all the nooks and crannies in your house clean is no picnic—whether that's figuring out how to tile clean grout or getting down to business and cleaning those blinds. While those chores might be challenging, they've got nothing on herculean efforts you need to employ to keep carpet pristine in the presence of pets, children, and yes, even you. That could mean focusing on how to remove coffee stains from carpet or removing nail polish from your carpet after an at-home spa day. These are not exactly low-maintenance tasks. Heck, there are times when a spill seems so overwhelming that you just want to rip out your current carpeting and figure out exactly just how much it will cost to install new carpet.

That brings us to the perils presented by dinner parties. What sets the tone better than candlelight? It adds the perfect ambience, but there are times when some of that mood lighting can drip right onto the carpet in the form of melted wax. Getting spilled candle wax out of your carpet may seem tough, but lucky for you, we've got you covered. This super-simple four-step process will help you get candle wax out of your carpet using items you already have around the house. Read on for the list of materials you'll need for this project and a few insider tricks on how to make your carpet look like new. After all, there's no use crying over spilled wax.

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What You'll Need

Bag of ice or ice pack
Butter knife
Iron or hair dryer
Paper towel, brown paper bag, or terry cloth towel
Carpet cleaner or rubbing alcohol
Vacuum

Step 1: Freeze the wax

First things first: It's important to remove candle wax from your carpet as soon as you notice it. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to clean the wax stain. Start by placing a plastic bag of ice or an ice pack on top of the spot. Allow the wax to freeze for about 10 minutes, making sure that the wax isn't getting wet from your ice pack. Moisture will only make the stain tougher to remove.

Step 2: Scrape off the wax

Once the wax is frozen, use a butter knife to scrape as much of the wax as you can off of the carpet. Don't be too rough with the carpet, as you don't want to cut the threads. Vacuum up the pieces you scraped off and then continue on to step 3.

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Step 3: Heat and absorb the wax

Place a paper towel, brown paper bag, or white terry cloth towel on top of the remaining wax stain. Heat up your iron to the lowest setting, turn off the steam function, and run a clean iron over the towel to heat the wax. Make sure to keep the iron constantly in motion and avoid the temptation to turn up the heat level—you don't want to accidentally burn the paper or your carpet! Once you start to see the towel absorbing the wax, reposition it over the wax stain so that a clean area can absorb more wax. Repeat this step until all of the wax is gone.

If you want to avoid running an iron over your carpet, a hair dryer can also be used to heat the wax. Simply blow hot air onto the wax stain until it's warm, then firmly press a paper towel, brown paper bag, or white terry cloth towel onto the stain to absorb the wax.

Step 4: Clean the carpet

Last but not least, go over the stained area with a carpet cleaning solution. For pesky colored candle wax, wet a white terry cloth towel with a small amount of rubbing alcohol and gently dab the stain until the color is removed. Be careful not to rub the solution into the carpet as this could hurt the fragile fibers. Once your carpet has dried, run a vacuum over the area to return the natural texture to your carpet. And voilà! You're ready to host your next dinner party.

Carmen Collins Carmen Collins is the style editor at Country Living, where she covers home decorating ideas and produces e-commerce shopping guides.

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