Crayons + Sun + Car = Mess

The other day Grace carried a handful of crayons in her chubby little hands out to the car...and left them under her car seat.  A couple of days later, a heat wave made the car an instant oven, and when I went to remove the car seat, I found the melted mess underneath.

The initial mess.

To be honest, I kinda panicked, threw what remained of the paper and wax onto the plastic floor mat, and frantically scraped up what I could.  Hence the smeary appearance.

I procrastinated cleaning up the mess for a week and a half, because ya know, why not let it get well dried and deeply stained?

Anyways, I finally googled "remove melted crayon from car seat" and VOILA! I discovered I was not alone.   Someone suggested spraying the melted spots with WD-40.  They said to let it sit for 5-10 minutes and then use a scrub brush to loosen the wax.  Since Ben and I were considering having the car detailed, I figured my frugal attempt couldn't hurt if it failed.

I followed the directions carefully, and the results are impressive but not miraculous.  It also takes A LOT of elbow grease.  I spent the greater part of an hour working on those spots, and while it looks much better, the blue and green are definitely still visible.

This was about halfway through the clean-up.

I found that spraying with WD-40, then quickly blotting up as much as possible with a dry cloth was the most effective method to remove the crayon wax.  I went through three washcloth-size rags while working, and each looked like a tie-dye job gone bad by the time I was done.

Vastly improved, but still visible when I finally called it quits.

Another solution that someone mentioned was placing a dry towel over the spots and running a hot iron over top.  I didn't try this method, but it certainly would be something to consider.  You wouldn't have the fumes from the WD-40, but I wonder just how much would be absorbed, as there would be no way to draw the wax into the towel, except by blotting.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday, Tackle it Tuesday, Tip Me Tuesday, Tuesday Tips .