How to Get Wax Out of Fabric, Clothes, Carpet & Couch

Hi, everyone! How are you doing? Today I’m going to talking about how to get wax out of fabric, clothes, carpet, and upholstery.

We use candles on many occasions like bright candles on a birthday cake, and sophisticated candles on our family dinner. Candle makes many occasions more special. Also, Sometimes a candle makes a romantic moment for us.

Sometimes good things can bring bad things. By the way, dripping wax can transform clean fabric, upholstery, or clothing into a wax mess.

Also, wax from candles, room diffusers, and skincare products can be tricky to clean when it pills on your upholstery, fabrics, carpets, and rugs. If you know how to handle it and get wax off from clothes, fabrics, upholstery, or any other fabric materials this isn’t a problem for you. 

In this article, I’m going to show you how to remove wax from fabric, carpet, upholstery, and clothing. So, if you’re looking for it, then read the full article, I hope this content will help you to do your job easily at home in your free time.

Learn More About How to Get Wax Out of Fabric. Clothes, Carpet, Upholstery:

1. Remove Wax from Fabric, Clothes and Carpets

Some Tools and Materials You’ll Need:

At First, Let The Wax for Dry Completely:

Don’t just try to clean/remove wax from your fabrics, clothes, carpets while it’s wet.

When you get wax on your fabric, clothes, or carpet before you start cleaning, you must give the wax enough time to dry completely. 

If you don’t dry wax, and if you try to remove it up when it’s wet, you risk pushing the wax deeper into the fibers.

It’s not gonna take a long time because wax doesn’t take a long time to get dry. I think for small amounts of wax you have to wait for a couple of minutes.

For large amounts of wax, you have to wait for 20 to 25 minutes. If you want to speed up the process, you can apply an ice cube to the affected area to get dry the wax quickly.

Scrape Up The Wax With a Spoon:

After you’ve dried the wax, use a spoon, or you can use a butter knife to break the wax-up and scrape the wax-up.

You must try not to tear the material or pull any threads by carefully skimming your spoon over the surface rather than digging in.

Once you’ve done the scrape and break the wax-up, pick up large pieces that flake off and throw them in the garbage.

You must avoid spreading the loose wax flakes around as much as possible because this could make clean up more difficult.

If it’s on fabric, peel the fabric away from the back of the wax to dislodge the large pieces, work gently.

Now Vacuum The Area:

If you’re cleaning wax from your rug or carpet, then vacuum the wax mess area thoroughly to suck up any flakes or pieces of wax that you’ve scraped off from your rug or carpet.

If you do this, it will prevent the wax from melting into the carpet or rug in a large area, when you want to or going to remove it.

But if you use a vacuum on fabrics, take your material outside and shake it out to remove the loose wax pieces out.

You Must Test The Area for Heat Sensitivity:

I think, and many people said that the easiest way to get off the wax from fabrics, clothing, and carpeting is with an iron.

You must be careful because if your material can’t withstand the heat don’t go with iron, but if your material can withstand the heat, then you can use an iron.

To find out this, take an iron and set it to low and let your iron preheat.

When you see the iron is hot, apply your iron to an inconspicuous area of your fabric or carpet for 25 to 30 seconds, not for a long time.

After 30 seconds remove your iron, and then check/inspect for damage, warping, or melting.

Focus on the material during the test, if you see your carpet or materials start to smoke, melt, or smell like burning, remove the iron immediately.

Cover The Wax Mess Area With a Paper Towel:

Take two pieces of paper towel and then lay the double layer on top of your fabric wax mess area.

Also, for your moveable carpets, rugs, fabrics place two sheets of paper towel on the underside of the wax mess area as well.

You’ll see when you heat the area with iron paper towels will absorb the wax. If you don’t have paper towels, you can use a single layer of a brown or white paper bag. 

But if you use a paper bag make sure that there’s no ink, printing or wax on your paper bag.

Also, you have another option you can use blotting papers, which is an absorbent material meant to soak up oil and any other liquid. Just always make sure there’s no ink, printing, or wax.

Now Heat The Area With an Iron:

Plug on your iron and turn it on to the low-temperature setting and you can wait for your iron to get heat up. Once your iron is hot, take your iron and press it into the paper towel.

You must move the iron slowly from side to side to make the wax mess area warm. You’ll see, as the wax heats up and a re-melts paper towel will absorb the wax.

I recommend you that, don’t use steam settings for heat the wax, because it will soak paper towels and prevent them from absorbing the wax.

This method you can use on your carpeting, leather, denim, faux leather, suede, and other materials for remove wax.

You Can Use a Blow Dryer Instead:

This method for those materials that didn’t pass the heat up test, those materials use a blow dryer on the hot setting to heat the wax mess area, I mean the wax.

You have to hold the dyer 7 to 10 inches from your materials. Put the hot air on the wax spill, and you must apply gentle pressure to the paper towel with your other hand.

I think you may have to use a blow dryer instead of iron for those materials that can melt. For example, synthetic fabrics like polyester, faux fur materials, and polymer-based fabrics.

Replace The Paper Towels, and Continue Until The Area Get Cleaned:

When the paper towels become saturated with wax, just replace both sheets above and below and put new sheets.

If you do this, it will allow the wax to continue absorbing and also it will prevent it from spreading to larger areas.

You should continue heating the wax with your iron, saturating the paper towels, and replacing paper towels until your paper towels stop absorbing the wax.

The Last Step, You Have to Wash The Area:

If your fabrics are machine washable like tablecloth, clothing, so treat the areas with a stain remover and after that put them in the washing machine for a wash.

But if your materials are non-washable like carpet, you can spray the area with a carpet cleaner and then blot the area with a clean white cloth until the area get clean and dry.

Do you know why washing is necessary? If you don’t know! here’s the answer, after you remove wax from the area, there may still be a colorant residue left on your material, and this is why washing is necessary.

2. Remove Wax from Upholstery (Sofa, Couch, Chair Seat)

If you follow this method you can able to remove wax from your couch, sofa, chair, and any other type of upholstery fabric.

Warning: Please don’t use this upholstery wax cleaning method on leather or vinyl.

Stuff You’ll Need:

A. Remove Dye Free Wax:

Especially you can use this method on your fabric sofa, couch. At first, allow the wax to get harden.

To speed up the process take few ice cubes and put them inside a resealable plastic bag, and then lay the bag on the wax mess area and leave it in place for 7 to 10 minutes or until the wax is hard.

Once the wax is hard, scrape the wax gently from your upholstery with a butter knife, and discard the pieces.

After that, apply dry-cleaning solvent to a clean and dry white cloth and then sponge the wax-stained areas.

You should shift your white cloth to a dry portion, and blot the area.

Continue this until the wax is completely removed from your material. You can use additional white cloth if needed.

Once you’ve removed the wax from your material, rinse the area with a sponge dampened in warm water to remove the solvent residue. After that blot the area with a dry and clean white towel.

Note: Before you use this method, read your material cleaning code.

B. Remove Dyed Wax:

In this method, you have to use iron. Take your iron and plug in your iron, and turn the dial to the lowest setting with no steam.

Here also apply a dry cleaning solvent to a white and sponge the wax spill area while your iron warms up.

And shift the cloth to a dry portion and blot the area. Continue applying solvent and blotting until the stain is lighted as much as possible. You can also use additional white clothes if needed.

Now lay a few sheets of paper towels over the wax stain area, and then move the iron evenly over the paper towels.

If necessary, in order to reach the sofa/couch, unplug your iron. Do the ironing over the paper towels, and replace the towels with new ones until the wax stop transfers.

Now apply a small amount of liquid laundry detergent over the stained area.

And then dampen a clean white cloth in warm water and rub the stained area in a circular motion, and repeat it until the stain is completely removed.

Almost you’ve done, rinse the area with a sponge dampened in warm water to remove soap or solvent residue.

After that, blot the area with a dry white towel and leave it for dry before you use again.

Note: Before you start this method, carefully read your material cleaning code.

Some Great Tips for Preventing Wax Spills:

1. Better to Use Candle Holders:

Candle wax often occurs, When lit candles are not secured properly, and fall over.

If you want you can prevent this from happening by using candle holders that are the appropriate size for your candle that you’re using.

The candleholders are especially important for taper candles, and the tall skinny candles and these candles aren’t designed to stand up on their own.

Additionally, if you want to burn a taper candle that is slightly small for the holders, you can warp the base of your candle with aluminum foil before you insert it into your candle holder.

2. Just Place Candles on Plates:

If you put plates under the candles, this will protect your tablecloth and table underneath from runoff and wax spills, so try this.

There’s no problem you can use an aluminum pie plate, ceramic plate, or any other flat dish.

It’s very especially important for votive and pillar candles, that don’t need the candle holders. 

Also, A protective base is also important for taper candles, why you know? because wax can drip off the side of the candle holder and onto the surface below as well.

3. You Must Not Move Lit Candles:

Lit candles have liquid wax on top of it, That’s why they can easily spill on your material. for preventing from this happening, It’s imperative that you don’t move with a candle when it’s light on.

4. You Must Remove Rugs Before You Using Hair Removal Wax:

Did you know? hot hair removal wax is another kind of wax that can cause spills on your carpets and fabrics.

You can prevent from this happening, to prevent always you must use wax in an uncarpeted area of your house such as a washroom.

But if there’re any area rugs in your washroom, just move them out of the washroom, and then you can melt the wax.

5. Keep Your Candles Away from Edges:

If you light your candle and you put that too close to a table edge or ledge, you create a risk of being knocked over.

It doesn’t only leave spill wax on your carpeting, clothing, and other materials but also it’s a fire hazard.

So, when you burning candles, make sure that you put your candles in the center of the table.

A Video Guide on How to Get Candle Wax Out of Fabric

Conclusion:

I hope this how to remove candle wax from fabric article will help you to get off the wax from your fabrics, couch, sofa, carpet, and clothing.

Before you’ve got a wax mess on your materials, try to prevent it by following my tips.

If you think or you are afraid of damage, you can contact your nearest professional cleaner instead. See you soon with another topic, Take care! Bye, Bye.

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