That time I had to clean melted wax crayon from the car upholstery

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Let me start by saying this – Magic erasers truly are magic! I believed I had the mother of all messes to clean- melted wax crayon on car upholstery. As mommas, I’m sure this epic fail has happened to the best of us. You can only imagine my stunned shock when I opened the backseat door and found out what melted crayons do when left in a hot car.

“Aww that’s nice…” I thought to myself yesterday as the grocery store attendant gave my son crayons and a small coloring book. I should have known better than to let him have it, but this all happened on the heels of having a root canal and I was in no mood for any whining over crayons.

We rode home, unloaded and went inside. The forgotten crayons lay discarded in the backseat waiting for the Texas sun to melt wax into the car upholstery.

The next day when it was time to go out, I see this when I opened the door….

Oh. My. God.

After my initial meltdown, I still had to figure out what to do because the worst part about this whole mess was that it’s not even my car!! It’s a rental we had while mine is in the shop from hail damage. I began to sweat just imagining the dialogue I’d have with the car rental staff when it was time to return it!

So I called around to several car detailing shops in the area in search of professional help. The minute I said “melted crayon” and “light colored upholstery” in the same sentence most people straight up told me they couldn’t give any promises.

Then I turned to my local facebook mommy group in search of advice. Some said to try ice and scrape and others said I should use an iron. One lady said I should try a magic eraser and I decided that’s what I’d try since that’s what I had under the kitchen sink. That and I was kinda scared to introduce any other cleaning products on the upholstery for fear of making it worse.

I mean.. I honestly thought this was a hopeless case…

So I got out a magic eraser and got to work.

The first round worked wonderful, but it didn’t yet have me convinced that it would solve the problem. So I went to the store and bought more Magic Erasers – this time I got the bathroom scrubber kind.

With a hope and a prayer, I got to work scrubbing…

And scrubbing..

Within about 1-2 hours of frantic scrubbing it began to look like I may have put this problem behind me. I decided to call it a day when I got to this point.

After it spent the night drying, there was all sorts of clouding  that occurred from how the residue dried. I decided to do more Magic Eraser scrubbing and see how it would help..

After 1 more magic erasering, the seat was beginning to look much better. Not perfect, but considering what I started with I’d say it’s nothing short of a miracle! Magic Erasers FTW!

I hope this helps if you ever find yourself in a melted-crayons-in-the-car disaster!

 

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