Tuesday Tip: Wax Removal from Carpet

Yes, it’s happened to me, I fell asleep with the candle burning and wax ended up all in the carpet. No fun!

I went online and read all the different methods and decided to try the “paper bag” method, or it started out that way.

All the different methods agreed that the first step to wax removal is to scrape the wax to remove any loose wax. I used a butter knife but hindsight being what it is, I think a stoneware scraper would work much better. Don’t scrape too hard, you don’t want to rip carpet fibers out.

For the next step you’ll need a dry iron, a paper bag or an old towel you don’t mind ruining. The directions I was attempting to follow suggested laying the paper bag on the wax, using a low heat on the iron, and then ironing the paper bag to bring the wax up. This did work. It just seemed to take forever, I even tried turning up the heat a little. I finally decided to use an old hand towel. I was able to keep it at the warmer temperature and it came up very quickly. Plus, as silly as it sounds, it felt more natural ironing a hand towel instead of a paper bag. It’s important you don’t use too high of heat on your iron or you could burn your carpet.

The upside to spilling wax on your carpet, even after you’ve removed it, your room smells good every time you vacuum.