Melted wax can get our clothes stained when we do not handle it properly. When this happens, you may wonder what alternative to adopt to remedy this situation. Fortunately, there are different methods you can try out. Besides, if one method fails, there’s hope that the next method will remove the stain. Read through to discover the magic methods!
How To Get Wax Out Of Clothes
If you have been unfortunate to have wax stain your cloth and want to know how to remove it, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Identify Your Cloth Material Type
Ensure first to identify the material type of your fabric. This is to acquire tools compatible with your material type, not to damage your cloth.
Step 2: Acquire The Necessary Tools For This Process
If your clothes get soiled with wax, locate your nearest store and acquire the following items. These items you will use in the process of removing the wax. They include An ice cube, a simple paper towel, a thin towel or a handkerchief, a stain removal wash, a blotting paper, A spoon, knife, razor, or scissors.
Step 3: Allow The Wax To Harden Up
When dealing with stains on clothes, such as color, drinks, food stains, etc., the best alternative is to clean them up as fast as possible. This is because it is very easy to remove stains on clothes when the stain has not had much time to soil the cloth deeply, compared to when the substances have had time to soil deeper into the cloth.
This is not usually the case when it comes to wax removal. Many times when we get our clothes stained by wax, we may ignorantly want to head to the nearest water supply to get it cleaned off. As smart as this action may feel, it should not be the case.
Due to the general nature of wax, the best thing you do first is to allow the wax that has soiled your clothes to harden up. When this happens, cleaning the hardened wax becomes much easier than cleaning the just-soiled wax.
Step 4: Make Use of an Ice Cube
Wax generally gets hardened naturally if you leave it under a cool temperature for a while. A much more effective procedure for hardening the wax would be using an ice cube. Placing a few ice cubes on the spot on the cloth soiled by the wax would get it hardened and dried more quickly.
Step 5: Scrape Off The Hardened Wax
After the wax has hardened up, the next procedure is to remove it. The moment the wax has hardened, it makes it even easier to get rid of it from the cloth. Using a scraper, or any material of the sort, carefully scrape the hardened wax off your clothes. A sharp knife, razor, or scissors should do.
Scrape out the wax using a motion away from your skin so as not to cause any injury. This act would only successfully remove the top section of the wax, leaving behind the layer that has gone into the inner parts of the cloth. Note that your scraping tool must be fabric compatible.
Your fabric could suffer damage if you use a scraping tool that is not compatible with your fabric. For instance, using a sharp knife on a delicate fabric such as silk will most definitely damage the material.
The edge of a tablespoon would do the work just fine when dealing with delicate fabrics like silk, light cotton, etc. Carefully skim through the surface of the affected region rather than scraping roughly.
Step 6: Use Heat To Melt The Wax
After scraping out the wax’s upper surface, you’re left with the lower part of the wax on your clothes. How, then, can you take this part out? Easy, steam it up and carefully soak the remaining part into the blotting paper you had acquired in method one.
Position your blotting paper or paper towel (depending on your use) beneath and above the region where the wax residue is located. Next, position the thin towel above the spot and press through the towel with your warm iron. The heat generated by the iron will melt the leftover residue of the wax, while the blotting paper would absorb this residue or what was left of the wax after scraping.
Step 7: Wash with Laundry Detergent and Water
After the heat melts the iron, you’ll need to wash the clothes so all debris will be removed. Ensure you wash the clothes in warm water to ensure no wax stain is left on the fabric.
What If the Wax that Stained Your Cloth Was Colorful?
If the wax that your clothes got stained by is colored and your material, on the other hand, has a light color making the colored wax stain visible enough, you’ll need to try a different procedure. If the color of your material shares the same color as the wax color, then this method would be inconsequential to you.
At this point, following method one above, most of the wax is already removed, leaving behind the dye color of the wax, which will be very obvious on the cloth. This is where you introduce the stain removal wash.
1. Wash The Cloth
You can use any Stain Removal Wash acquired in method two to pre-treatment the dye color on the fabric. All you need do is pour some amount of the Stain Removal Wash on the soiled part of the material.
After doing this, allow a little time for the cloth to absorb the liquid (note that this would depend on the type of liquid you’re using and the material in question). When this is done, give the soiled region a rub until the stain is successfully cleared. Add a little more liquid and rub the soiled spot again if it still remains.
A fast machine for washing remains the last tool needed to conclude the last process for cleaning up any lingering wax residue or for colored candle wax, its dye from any soiled spot on your clothes.
First, set up your washing machine to the required setting suitable for the kind of stained fabric. Also, ensure to use a cloth detergent that is heightened enough to remove stains that may have remained effective.
2. Examine Your Cloth After Wash
After successfully following the nine procedures mentioned above for removing wax stain from your clothes, the final procedure after washing is to examine the cloth for any remaining stain.
Where any stain is left behind on the cloth, the alternative here is to repeat the instruction mentioned above as applicable to the remaining stain level. When this is done, your clothes should be back to their original state without a stain.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can you do if your clothes get stained with melted paraffin wax?
You can easily get rid of paraffin wax with the same method as getting rid of a melted candle wax stain. Be patient until the melted wax is hardened, carefully scratch out the hardened wax, get the remaining wax melted by making use of a warm pressing iron, and then use a napkin to dap the soiled region.
What can you do to remove wax that has hardened from your cloth?
Hardened wax can easily be removed by using a sharp tool to scratch the hard wax from the surface of your cloth. Then you can melt the remaining wax from the inner parts of the fabric using a warm pressing iron and a napkin.
What can you do when you want to remove wax from a cloth without an iron?
The pressing iron is used to re-melt the wax to remove the wax. If you do not have an iron, the alternative could be to hang the cloth with a heated radiator to melt the wax.
What can you do to remove candle wax from clothes?
To remove candle wax from your cloth, you can follow the procedures mentioned above. This will very easily remove the candle wax stains from your cloth.
Conclusion
You could easily get your wax-stained cloth cleaned up from the steps above. Don’t throw away that cloth just yet. Following the procedure mentioned above meticulously would easily remove the wax from your cloth, returning it to its original state.