The candles you’ve placed around your home make lovely decorations, along with filling the space with a pleasant scent and soft, romantic lighting. Unfortunately, accidents can happen and no matter how careful you are, you can find your clothes and other fabrics marred by wax stains. Learn how to get wax out of clothes with these simple tips and techniques.
Fortunately, removing candle wax from fabric is a straightforward process that doesn’t require a ton of specialized equipment. When it comes to the techniques used to get candle wax out of clothes, you also have to address the colored stain that many candles will leave behind.
This is because most candles use dye in their recipes to color the candles. In these instances, it isn’t enough to merely remove the candle wax, but you need to treat the underlying stain as well.
How to Remove Wax from Clothing
Whether you’re hosting a dinner party or attending a children’s birthday party, celebrations often mean the presence of candles. Just as with our how to get wax out of your carpet tips, even if you take precautions, candles can drip onto the tablecloth or placemats and inadvertently get transferred to your favorite pair of pants or shirt.
Let the Wax Dry
Don’t attempt to remove the candle wax stain until it is completely dry. Trying to remove hot wax before it has had a chance to set will exacerbate the issue by spreading the stain.
Also, trying to remove hot wax can be dangerous, increasing your chances of getting burned. So, before you take any action to remove wax from your clothes, let the wax cool down completely.
Scrape the Stain
Once the wax has cooled and hardened, try to remove as much of the wax as possible by scraping the stain. Take a butter knife or the edge of a credit card and work on the wax to remove as much of the hardened wax as possible before using one of our suggestions for cleaning.
Make sure you take care when handling even a dull knife and always use strokes that go away from your body to avoid any accidents. Once you’ve removed as much of the wax as possible, leaving behind only the most embedded wax, you can use one of the following methods to get the wax out.
Scraping off the extra wax is also important for how to remove wax from a wall, like from a crayon or candle wax that spattered.
Apply Ice to the Wax
You can use an ice cube as a stain remover or place the piece of stained clothing in the freezer for 30 minutes. If you don’t want to set your clothing in the freezer, then put several ice cubes in a zippered bag and place it on top of the waxy area until the wax becomes brittle.
Once the wax has become brittle, hold the garment over the trash can and rub the material together, back and forth along the waxy area. Be sure to fold and unfold it several times to break the wax. Using your fingers, pick at the wax or scrape it away using the dull, top side, of a butter knife.
Re-Melt the Wax on the Clothes
While this may seem counter-intuitive, reheating the remaining wax is how to get wax off your favorite garment. The method is simple and is also how to remove wax from a tablecloth. Place a towel under the clothing or tablecloth, and place two paper towels over the stain.
With an iron, set at a low to medium heat, iron over the paper towels and stain. If the paper towel starts to become saturated with melted wax, you can replace it with a new sheet.
Let it Soak
By now, you should have successfully removed all the wax from the item. However, if you are dealing with a stain left by colored wax, you can let it soak in a bowl of water and an oxygen-based stain remover. Let the item soak for several hours.
If the stain is still visible, apply a few drops of laundry detergent or the below spot treatment directly to the stain and let stand for 15 minutes. Once the stain has disappeared, you can wash the piece in the usual manner.
Soaking is an excellent way to get rid of many different types of stains on your clothing. After treating the stain with a simple homemade remedy, we have all kinds of additional tips for how to get oil stains out of clothes after drying, as well as how to get grease stains out of clothes that have already been washed.
Try our solutions before you toss your favorite shirt with a stain on it into the trash.
Candle Wax Spot Treatment
Combine the rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle. Just like for the recipe to remove lipstick stains from clothes, replace the top and shake vigorously to mix the ingredients.
Spray the stain and, using a sponge, work from the outside of the stain toward the center. Squeeze the sponge dry and continue to blot the area to remove additional moisture.
Keep applying the spot treatment until you eliminate the stain. Rinse the sponge with cold water and blot the area to remove the residue.
>> Related Laundry Tip: How to get chocolate stains out of clothes
You don’t have to take drastic measures to avoid wax stains that can be left behind by your candles. Now that you know how to get wax out of fabric, you can break out your candles and start enjoying the ambiance they provide. With these simple techniques, you no longer need to worry if you happen to spill wax on your favorite shirt.
We hope you enjoyed learning how to get wax out of clothes and other fabrics. If you found the information in this article useful, please feel free to share it with your family and friends.