If you want to give your surroundings a warmer, more intimate feel with the added benefit of a pleasant odour, nothing does this better than candlelight. But as you know, candles are made of wax, and when wax drips on your carpet it can cause a small headache. If your carpet is made of wool, we have a solution for removing spilled candle wax from it. PLEASE NOTE, WE DON’T RECOMMEND USING THIS APPROACH ON SYNTHETIC CARPETS DUE TO THEIR LOW MELTING POINT. With that said, let me outline the simple process you can follow to remove candle wax yourself, instead of having to call your local carpet cleaner.
You’ll need the following items: A paper bag or terry towel, a butter knife and an iron.
First of all let the wax harden, as solid wax is much easier to remove than semi-solid wax is. It shouldn’t take long for the wax to harden on its own, but if you’re in a rush you can aid the process by placing a bag of ice cubes on the warm wax. If you decide to do this make sure you use a transparent bag without anything printed on it, the last thing we want to do is exacerbate the problem by having dye from the bag transfer onto the carpet!
Now that the wax has solidified, get the butter knife and use it to remove as much wax as you can. You should be able to remove most of it this way, but there will still be some wax present on the carpet.
Take the paper bag or terry towel and place it on top of the wax spot. Now you’ll need to get your iron and turn it on. You need to be cautious here and set your iron to a low temperature, we don’t want to burn the carpet! Place the iron over the terry towel/paper bag and slowly slide it along. Doing so will gradually melt the wax, which in turn will be absorbed into the terry towel or paper bag. Do the same on other areas that have wax until all of the wax has gone.
Use a cloth and some cleaning solution to blot the area clean. If your candles had dye in them, the dye may have transferred onto the carpet. If this is the case you may need to call on the services of a professional to see if the dye stain can be removed.
Assuming you’ve managed to clean the area with no problems and the carpet is now dry, your next step will be to vacuum the carpet to realign the pile. Ideally, you’ll want to use one with a brush to achieve this goal.