How to get candle wax out of carpet

Let the wax harden, or hold ice in a bag on it, then lift what you can with a blunt knife and vacuum the flakes. Lay plain paper towel or brown paper over the rest and press with an iron on low, no steam, moving to clean paper as it soaks up wax. Coloured candles can leave a dye mark that needs separate treatment.

The general rules for every stain are in the carpet stain guide. This page covers wax and crayon in detail, because the method is physical first and chemical second.

How do you get the bulk of the wax out?

Wait. Wiping wet wax spreads it across more pile and pushes it down to the backing. Hard wax, by contrast, breaks off the fibre in pieces.

1. Let it set completely. On a cold winter floor that takes minutes. Speed it up with ice cubes in a sealed plastic bag held on the wax. Keep the bag sealed, because melt water on the carpet makes the next steps harder.
2. Break it up. Press the hardened wax with the back of a spoon until it cracks. On thick drips, a blunt butter knife works.
3. Scrape gently, with the pile. Lift the pieces out, working in the direction the pile lies. Do not dig at the backing.
4. Vacuum the flakes. The Carpet and Rug Institute's wax entry says to break up solids and vacuum before anything else. Go slowly over the area, in several directions.
5. Look closely. On short pile, most of the wax is often gone at this point. What remains is a thin film around the fibres, and that is what heat is for.

Crayon behaves the same way, and the same first steps apply. The CRI's crayon entry moves straight to a solvent for what is left, which is covered below.

How do you use heat without melting the carpet?

The CRI's home tips describe the method: cover the spot with brown paper and apply low heat from an iron, and the paper absorbs the wax as it melts. The difficulty is that the heat which melts wax can also melt or scorch carpet fibre. Legend Brands, which makes professional cleaning equipment, warns that olefin has a low melting temperature. Olefin is another name for polypropylene, a common fibre in broadloom and in many shag and indoor-outdoor rugs.

Done carefully, it looks like this:

1. Find out the fibre if you can. Rug labels and fitting paperwork usually say. If you cannot find out, treat it as heat-sensitive.
2. Use plain paper. Brown paper or plain white paper towel, nothing printed, because ink can transfer onto the carpet in the heat.
3. Set the iron to its lowest setting, steam off. Let it warm up and test it on the paper over a hidden corner of the carpet first.
4. Press briefly and keep moving. A few seconds at a time, then lift and look. Never rest the iron in one place.
5. Move to clean paper each time. As the paper takes up wax, shift it so a fresh area sits over the spot. Repeat until no more wax comes up.
6. Stop at any warning sign. A plastic smell, fibres that look glossy or feel stiff, or pile that has flattened and will not lift are all signs of heat damage. Those changes are permanent.

On wool, fibre that does not melt but can scorch, a wool carpet maker such as Cormar does list brown paper and a low iron for wax, followed by a solvent on the stain only. On silk or viscose, do not use heat at all.