Waxing Poetic About Hairdryers

My computer is in the sunny front window of my kitchen. I love to be able to look out at the kindergarteners coming home for lunch after a busy morning at school. Asher the Yorkie sleeps in my lap, waking up only occasionally to bark at a dog being walked by the house.

For the last while however my view has been marred by unsightly candle wax on the panes of glass. As I contemplated getting to work to clean away the wax and write a blog post about it I started trying to remember how long the wax had been there. Perhaps I had put a Chanukah Menorah in this window last year?

When I took out my box of Halloween decorations and wondered where I should put the candlesticks with the orange candles to beckon trick or treaters it all came back to me. Last year, or maybe even the year before, I put the candlesticks in the front window. The constant opening and closing of the front door as I handed out candy caused the candles to sputter, splattering the window with candle wax.

I know I should have cleaned it up when it happened. It would have taken far less time than I've spent worrying about how hard it's going to be and how long it's going to take.  I'm finally ready to tackle this task so here we go:

1. Clear off the space in front of the window so you'll have lots of room to work. This will be a challenge for me to do because I'm trying to use the computer at the same time and it's right in front of the window. I'll just shift it to the side.
2. When I Googled "remove candle wax from glass window" I came up with two opposite approaches.The most recommended method is to let the wax harden and then scrape it off carefully with a fresh razor blade, box cutter or paint scraper. Washing the window with warm soapy water when you're finished. On the other hand you can get the wax really hot, wipe it off with a soft cloth or paper towel and then wash the window. Since I have two panes of glass to work with I will now attempt both methods.
3. Gather your supplies. I'll use an exacto knife for the left side, followed by windex and a soft cloth. For the right side I've grabbed a hairdryer to melt the wax, paper towel to try to soak up the melted wax, and the windex and cloth to finish up. Don't forget to lay out a dish towel to catch the wax scrapings.

Mummy's little helper

The results are in! 

Scraping the window with the exacto knife was messy, time consuming and left an unacceptable amount of residue even after scrubbing with Windex.

Heating the wax with the hairdryer was quick, easy and 100% effective! In fact, it was so easy that I'll be putting the candles back in the window next Halloween and not worrying if they sputter!