When Candles Drip
My family and I love candles. We have candelabras, tea cups, wall sconces and large pillar candles. My favorite is our Hartwell Candle Sconce by Grace Feyock, and we purchased two that I use to create a complimenting design around some of our other wall décor. My lovely wife, however, enjoys the smell and warm glow from large round pillar candles. Which brings me to the point of this tip.
How To Remove Candle Wax From Carpet
We had a little mishap the other day, a large pillar candle melted thru the side of the candle, allowing a large amount of hot, liquid wax to run down the front of my Cerwin Vega speakers and pool on the front of our carpet. By the time we saw the accident, the damage was done as wax set and hardened into the fabric of the speaker front and soaked into the fiber of the carpet.
In true guy fashion, I was more worried about my speakers, while my smarter counterpart was taking in the disaster as a whole. Her first step was to break the large chunks off the front of the speaker, but the wax had literally soaked into the fibers, so there was a nasty residue left. As for the carpet, we had a hardened pool of wax about a foot in diameter that had soaked to the pad, and hardened.
We thought of several ways to remove the wax: cutting the wax was beyond question, scrubbing would do anything and I couldn’t think of anyway to add heat without burning the carpet (and with my luck, the house). So, here is what we came up with:
First we took the cloth cover off of the speakers and placed them on a large towel. Next we took an old dampened dish towel and placed it over the wax stained fabric. On the bottom side of the cloth I place a thick dry towel. Now, take an ordinary iron, place it on high steam. Once it heats up, apply the iron to the damp cloth over the wax stain. You will likely have to do this several times of different areas of the towel to pull out all the wax.
For your carpet I placed a damp towel over the stain, and place the iron on top of that. After a few seconds I moved the towel and re-applied the heat. I ruined four old towels doing this, but saved myself hundreds. If your wax leaves a stain, keep repeating the process until you do not see a stain. Our candle was red on a rich tan carpet, so if we can do it, so can you.
