How to Remove Candle Wax from your walls, carpets, and warmers

I am sure you can all agree….candles are a joyful part of the home’s decorations and scent. BUT what happens when its accidentally knocked over by a small child or a large dog?

I am convinced that wiping it up immediately is sacrilegious or something. Because no one ever tells Mom when it happens. They get the closest older sibling and hope that child can figure out how to best cover it up.

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For example, a Scentsy plug-in was recently elbowed by a small person. Instead of getting me to help, my middle child decided that she would just turn it off and tell on the culprit when I finally noticed it (several days later). Another situation, dog gets pushed into another Scentsy plug-in and the OLDEST child merely unplugs it and moves it to a different outlet. 🤦‍♀️

Well, I have to determine the best way to remove the wax the walls and carpet. The wax is already dry so I cannot just wipe it up and hope there isn’t a lot of residue….it’s too late for that option.

I think we will do this MythBuster’s style 🧪 . I will read an anecdote, try it out, and give you proof (or lack thereof) in pictures.

Hair dryer

The idea for this method came from Cleanipedia.

And a million other places…..but the idea is that you reheat the wax, slowly with a hair dryer, and wipe it up with a paper towel. You know, like you would have done if you had known when it happened.

Ironing

This method came from This Old House.

Apparently placing a towel over the wax-laden area and running the iron over it will make the wax adhere to the towel….however, I guess we should use a paper towel because if it were a cloth towel, we’d be back to square one…right??!?!!

Scraping

This scraping idea comes from Healthy Home Cleaning.

She says we should use a stoneware scraper to remove the wax. Well, I don’t have a Pampered Chef one, but I have one for the Lodge Cast Iron stuff we have, this exact kit in fact.

Dissolving

Today.com says that we can remove candle wax from fabrics, such as clothing and walls by rubbing with nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol. I used all my nail polish remover during our spa day at the Beach House a few weeks ago and have not replaced it yet. SO – I will use rubbing alcohol.

Cotton Balls

I think the best part about candles and Scentsy is that we can change the entire mood with a change in the wax smell in our home. So what do you do when you are tired of the current smell?

Removing Scentsy wax from a Scentsy warmer is actually easy….wish I had known this a long time ago….but that’s ok. While the wax is still hot (warm) and the warmer is still on, place a handful of cotton balls in the warming plate.

Overall, I would say that all these myths have some level of truth to them.

Some of them MUST be used as part of a step-by-step process.

The only fail (and maybe it’s different for clothing) was the rubbing alcohol. It started to strip the paint, and even some of those reference sites recommended using rubbing alcohol to clean off the residue – I don’t recommend that.

Scraping worked but it could not get all the pieces up. However, I imagine using ONLY the hair dryer on those larger puddles would take time. SO good combo for the floors for sure! Nonetheless, I cleaned up 3 messes I’ve been putting off for a LONG time…now I know – it’s actually easy!

My MythBuster’s episode is complete! I hope it helps you. Even if you just try one…..that means you are cleaning up a mess…just sayin’.

Happy Clean Up,