Candles can be beautiful, and their scent can bring refreshing feels to your house but have you ever had to wipe off candle wax from tablecloths, clothes, or other fabrics?
It can be very cumbersome to have to clean the often stuck stain that just a little use of your candle can cause.
Table of Contents
How to Remove Candle Wax from Fabric?
1. Melting the Wax
To clean small stains, you can use quite a few methods actually. For one, you could melt the wax on the surface of the fabric by securing the stained part of the cloth in a bowl and then pouring boiling hot water on it.
The heat from the water should melt the wax in no time and that would allow the fabric to get rid of the stone.
2. Freezing the Fabric
If melting the wax does not work for you and you want to avoid the use of boiling water that may damage your fabric, then you could go in the opposite direction and choose to freeze over the stain to get rid of it. Simply place the fabric into a freezer and wait a couple of hours.
Make sure you place the stain facing up so the maximum coldness of the freezer can freeze over the stain. Once this is done, the stain should become brittle and that would make it much easier for you to just scrape it off.
3. Using Vegetable Oils
For those of you who wish to get rid of the stain with nothing more than regular laundry, simply rub the fabric on the part that is stained after applying a generous amount of vegetable oil.
Once you have done that, wipe out the excess vegetable oil using paper towels or tissue paper. Then throw the fabric into the washing machine just like any other day of doing laundry.
4. Using an Iron
If you have a rather large stain and the other methods aren’t working out, then it might be time to bring out the big guns. Use a dull knife to scrape off as much candle wax as you can from the surface of the fabric.
Then, place a paper towel on both sides of the fabric at the part of the stain. Iron over the paper towel to melt off the wax and notice how the paper towels absorb the wax. Change your paper towels every few mins until the towels no longer absorb any wax.
Then, you can throw it into the washing machine like your usual laundry. Be careful not to burn your fabric by letting the iron get too hot. As a precaution, you can hover your iron without direct contact with the fabric. The heat from the iron should be enough to allow you to follow the same process.
5. Using Ice Cubes
If the stain is rather fresh, then you don’t need to go through the hassle of any of the other methods. Instead, you can just use an ice cube to freeze the melted wax much before it gets soaked into the fibers of the cloth.
Once it freezes, you can use a dull knife to scrape it off and your fabric will be as good as new.
What Dissolves Candle Wax?
If you are looking for a way to dissolve some of those very stubborn stains to make your fabrics as good as new, then you might have to get prepared for some bad news. Very few solvents that can dissolve candle wax are usually available at home.
Your best bet would be acetone, that you could find in most nail polish removers, or isopropyl alcohol which is a very common ingredient in the manufacturing of rubbing alcohol.
Sometimes vinegar can also do the trick, but it might not be the best way to make fresh stains go away. Other than these, there is a good chance that you will need to run to the store especially to get a solvent for candles.
What is the Easiest Way to Remove Candle Wax from Fiber?
If you wanted to list the methods in order of what is the easiest and most effective method to get rid of the candle wax on your fibers, then you would probably place using ice cubes as the easiest method out there.
Every household is sure to have some ice frozen over in the freezer, and you don’t need to buy anything or do anything much different from your regular laundry when you are faced with regular stains.
Next, you could place using vegetable oils. It follows almost the same process as the ice cube method except you need to rub the fabric before it is ready to be put into the washing machine for laundry. The most difficult method seems to be melting the wax.
Sure, you don’t need to go out and buy something special for the process but all the same, you need to go through the hassle of boiling up water for use and also risking ruining the fabric.
Not all fabrics do well with steaming hot boiling water being poured on them and they may end up getting damaged or losing their color.
Final Remarks
As fun as burning candles can be, it can without a doubt be a hassle to clean up after the wax has melted. Of course, you could pick candles that are made of a different kind of wax that is known to create less of a mess, but regardless there is always going to be some wax that you are going to need to clean up.
It would be a good idea to place a metal plate or any other container under the candle that will leave little chance for a stain on the fabric, but all the same, it can be very annoying to have to go through the process of cleaning even the tiniest stains.
Depending on the stain, take a look at the methods above and see what suits you best. If they help you clean up the mess then maybe you won’t think twice before lighting up candles on the regular.
My name is Candice and I have always loved candles since I was a kid. I continue to buy candles and try out new candle brands to this day! I started this blog to share my love of candles so I’m glad you’re here and hope that my content helps you out in some way!
