We had a power outage last week. Used some old emergency candles on the workbench and the coffee table. Of course, hot wax dripped everywhere.
Wax is basically a lipid (oil-based). If you try to scrape it off a textured surface like fabric or a rough cut of wood, you'll just grind the oils deeper, leaving a dark, greasy stain. This is a problem you solve with temperature, not force.
I rely on thermal transfer. For fabrics, putting a brown paper bag over the wax and hitting it with an iron on a low setting forces the wax to melt and wick up into the paper. For hard surfaces, freezing it with a bag of ice makes it brittle enough to pop off cleanly. I learned the nuances of these methods from a guide on how to remove dried candle wax, which covers the iron trick and the freezing trick in great detail.
No chemicals needed for this one, just basic physics.