I stopped faucet watermarks with candle wax | Homes & Gardens

Oct 29, 2024

Watermarks are no match for candle wax

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You can never have too many candles. Adding a pleasing scent to spaces far and wide, acting as a source of light and helping you create a tablescape of dreams – candles are the gift that keeps on giving. But now there’s one more purpose candles serve – and that’s helping keep pesky watermarks at bay.

After spotting the candle wax cleaning hack on social media and trying it out for myself, I can confirm rubbing candle wax into your faucets can help create an impenetrable barrier that water and its mineral deposits can’t get through, stopping watermark in their tracks.

Learning how to clean a bathroom effectively will keep this high-traffic room fresh, but to help add a shine factor that lasts. However experts warned me this hack comes with a few caveats.

Like most great cleaning tips, when it comes to the candle wax hack, the premise is simple: you grab a candle, rub the wax into your faucets and use a microfiber cloth, available at Walmart, to buff it in.

Explaining how this hack works, Carolina Kazimierski, president at Sophia's Cleaning Service says, ‘Candle wax won't remove existing water stains, but it will do a good job of creating a barrier that will prevent those stains in the first place.'

That’s because wax is an oil-based substance, and oil and water don't mix. 'This means that water can't dissolve it or penetrate it,' the expert adds.

Now, I’m all for making items in my home go further. For example, I reuse lemons in my dishwasher to help add a zesty scent and I'll be using vanilla to freshen up my freezer after experts have confirmed it's perfectly safe to do so.

But what do cleaning gurus think about using candle wax on faucets?

‘Candle wax has a lot in common with various forms of metal polish so it's not going to damage your fixtures by itself,’ Kazimierski confirms. However, ‘if you use a candle with scents and dyes, there are compounds that could be harmful to some finishes.’

Therefore, when cleaning your faucets, the expert advises using plain, unscented wax like good quality beeswax. ‘Beeswax is not only eco-friendly but also softer than most forms of candle wax, making it easier to rub on,’ the cleaning whizz adds.

Multi-use

Used colored microfiber clothes to zone your cleaning supplies. Pink for bathroom, yellow for kitchen etc. to stop cross contamination. These ones are machine washable and have reinforced stitching to help them stand the test of time. Just skip fabric softener to preserve their absorbancy.

Amazon's Choice

Burn these natural honey scented beeswax candles around the home for a gentle, pleasing aroma. Then, when you blow it out, use a small amount of the wax on your faucets to prevent limescale. We love multi-functional home items such as these travel friendly tinned candles, which are great for blackouts or sudden loss of power.

Easy alternative

Use these instead of messier melted candle wax, or if your candles are in jars or tins and not accessible for rubbing directly onto a faucet. You can use the rest for easy food storage. Slide them between burger patties before freezing for easier defrosting or separation after freezing.

Just look how shiny my faucet is after trying out the candle wax hack

Minutes. That’s how long it took to take my faucets from stain-ridden to shiny.

At first, it felt a bit like sacrilege rubbing my perfectly pink candlesticks over my taps (I tried the hack out before experts suggested I used specially formulated wax – oops!). It also took a bit of elbow grease to actually get the candle wax to 'rub' onto the silver surfaces.

But after buffing it in and seeing the shiny results appear almost instantly, I knew this wasn’t just another social media gimmick – but one of the best viral cleaning hacks that actually works.

My faucet after rubbing wax onto it

In some social media hacks floating around, people have started dropping hot wax from a lit candle onto the faucet.

But as cleaning guru Taylor flags, ‘That’s way too much wax.' Let's face it, you wouldn't want to drop any wax on your sink or down your plughole because at best, this gives you another chore to do (i.e clean your bathroom sink) and at worst, it could block your plughole.

Instead, ‘My favorite way to do this cleaning method is by rubbing the faucet with a piece of wax paper and then polishing it with a microfiber cloth,' Taylor adds.

I rubbed wax into my faucets just once over a seven-day period and that worked great

There is nothing quite like shiny silverware staring back at you in a bathroom or kitchen. But, as I touched on earlier, this hack doesn’t get rid of watermarks, it prevents them from occurring in the first place.

As Taylor reiterates, ‘Wax is a great way to create a barrier on your faucets and finishes that repels water and prevents watermarks'.

After discovering how often you should clean your bathroom, I do so once a week religiously. But after trying out this hack, I found that seven days in, my faucets still looked stain-free. This meant I didn't have to clean my fixtures and fittings as often as I usually would. Result!

Water stains did return after a week or so.

I think it took about 5-7 days in total for watermarks to really make a noticeable appearance on my faucets. Which isn't bad at all considering their usual daily appearance.

But after speaking to Kazimierski, there’s one major reason why the protective wax barrier didn’t last longer. ‘Temperature is a big factor here,’ the expert notes. ‘Hot water will soften and melt the wax, causing it to wear off faster. If you run a lot of hot water from a tap, you'll probably need to re-wax once a month or so.’

Personally speaking, along with the use of hot water, I also think the wax barrier didn't stretch further because I used a generic wax candle, instead of a specifically formulated one for metal.

I used a pink candle and generic cloth to try out the trick. But I'll be switching these out for a microfiber option and specially formulated wax.

As I’ve seen with my own eyes, prevention is better than cure – and this cleaning hack is a game-changer.

However, going forward, I plan on using my dinner candles around the table and investing in some nickel protective wax, like HOPE'S Brass Polish and Cleaner, which comes with a fast-acting formula to help protect the metal before watermarks can strike. So watch this space!

Next up, learn how to get rid of hard water stains with our expert-approved tips. Or discover the best cleaning methods for stainless steel that will leave your sink gleaming.

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Rebecca was a senior digital writer at Hearst Magazines before leaving her role to go freelance in 2019. Since then, she has written homes and lifestyle content for several brands including Livingetc, Real Homes, Good Housekeeping, Kitchens, Bedrooms & Bathrooms and House Beautiful. When she's not writing, Becks is trying out the latest viral cleaning hacks to see if they actually work, decluttering her home (because less is more), or color-coding her bookshelf.

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