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A Safe Detailers Car Wash Is The Foundation To All Detailing...

The wash stages are the most important part of any detail, it doesn't matter if it's routine maintenance, a periodic deep cleaning, or a car wash in preparation for other car detailing stages such as paintwork decontamination and machine polishing. The car wash it's also the of the process where you risk inflicting damage such as swirl-marks and scratches Even if you're planning on fully correcting your car later, there's no point in making the job harder by inflicting more defects during the wet work, is there?

Routine maintenance is as much about holding the value and protecting from the onset of corrosion as it is keeping your car looking amazing. Washing your car in the safest way by following the basic pro valeting and car detailing principles is the foundation of all detailing.

This isn't so much about pampered show cars, that can be taken care of with a show wash (you can see more on that in our article - How To: Indoor Car Wash And Show Car Detail). Here we're talking about maintaining the kind of cars that we drive every day - those that get used on the streets.

In truth the safe car wash process is straightforward and the same no matter what you drive. And we have the best detailing products to help you keep your car wash safe along the way. So, here's our most in-depth guide on how it's done…

First, Look At The Weather Conditions...

Summertime is normally when you'll want your car to look its best. That could be for a car show or two, or simply because you want it look great in the sun, there's nothing wrong with that. But, beware of the sunshine and heat when cleaning your car. It might not be our favourite washing a car in the cold and rain, or having to get up early, but it's far better when looking to remove contamination in the safest possible way. We never clean any car in direct sunshine, or while the vehicle is hot to the touch, because we're always looking to avoid premature drying.

Using car cleaning agents is essential to break the bonds of contaminants. This is how we release them from surfaces and allow them to be removed safely. Over the course of your car wash you'll use a combination of chemical cleaning, along with a little mechanical (or physical) cleaning. Remember that, both the cleaning chemicals and your rinse water are your cleaning agents, and neither should be allowed to dry on the car naturally. Put simply, it prevents them from doing their job of safely removing contamination.

There are a range of cleaners we utilise - like snow foam, pre-cleaners and car shampoo - these are all designed to lift particulates and residues, trapping them within their solution and allowing them to be rinsed away without physically touching the surfaces.

This chemical cleaning method prevents scratching, swirl marks and abrading previously applied protection layers. There are exceptions, such as solvent-based cleaners and powerful decontamination products that are used for specific tasks, but for the most part the protection-safe chemical cleaners we use on exterior surfaces are classed as aqueous cleaning agents. This means that they contain water molecules. By mixing the water with special polar molecules called surfactants - which are attracted to the water at one end, and the grime at the other - a chemical cleaning agent pulls contaminants from surfaces by using both the surfactants and the water. In short, one cannot work without the other. You can get the full lowdown on car cleaning products in our article: How Cleaning Products Work

What's important here is that, when any aqueous agent is applied to any hot surface, the water will quickly evaporate off leaving behind the other chemicals. This prevents the surfactant molecules from pulling bonded grime off of surfaces, and also prevents the cleaner from trapping the grime in the solution for safe rinsing. Essentially, you're leaving both the harmful particles and the actual cleaning agents on the surface.

The tap water you're using to clean your car doesn't contain surfactants but it will contain mineral impurities and other hard deposits. Unless you're using pure distilled water, technically you'll always be rinsing your car with another solution - a mixture of pure water, minerals and all sorts of other trace contaminants. Even tap water that's safe to drink contains traces of limescale, fluoride, lead, microplastics, aluminium, copper, chlorine and more. This means that, when your water is allowed to dry on the vehicle, you'll these will be left behind as water spots, some being harmful and hard to remove.

This is why the No.1 wash stage rule is not to leave water or your other cleaning agents to dry naturally. We always keep any vehicle wet all through the wash stage until we're ready to remove any surface water and impurities together with a suitable drying towel. Hot weather and hot surfaces make avoiding premature drying almost impossible. It's also why you see many professional details using a canopy to ensure the vehicle is shaded, or an assistant to keep car wet.

How Often Should I Wash My Car?

Some say once a fortnight, or once a month in the winter, but the truth is that, assuming you follow the safe washing process using cleaners that won't harm protection layers, you can wash your car as much as you like! Anytime you want it to look good.

There are other detailing steps such as polishing or paintwork decontamination where you should limit how often they're carried out.

Take full paint correction as an example - we're taking away a layer paint or lacquer every time, if you did that every day there would soon be nothing left to polish. Machine polishing your car once or twice a year and adequately protecting surfaces is the only way to keep your paint in the best condition.

When it comes to washing your car though, you can perform your safe maintenance wash as and when you feel you need it.

Make Sure You Get The Right Kit

The key to avoiding scratches and swirl marks in your car wash is having the right kit and the right exterior detailing products - there are a few pieces of kit that will always be important to your success…

Is It Best To Use A Hose Or A Pressure Washer?

Your car wash will always require a good supply of fresh water for rinsing, and yes, a garden hosepipe will supply that. But what makes a pressure washer best for detailing though is the way it delivers the water. Rinsing is an example of mechanical cleaning - we use water pressure to physically lift and remove contamination. Even with a hose nozzle increasing the pressure, it's unlikely that you'll have enough to mechanically remove the worst contamination. The reason why we always rinse down a dirty vehicle first is that some loose, heavy grime will be removed by the pressure alone, this allows your cleaning agents to get to work where they're most needed. We remove as much dirt as possible first, to save on products and ultimately get a deeper clean.

A pressure washer is designed to "mist', atomising the water, and cutting down the surface tension at the nozzle for better coverage, this helps to keep your vehicle wet for longer. Water applied from a bucket or a hose comes out in one large mass because of the surface tension that holds the molecules together. This is why it rolls off the car, hardly touching the surface. Without a pressure washer you'll also use more water to wash your car.

It's also hard to get the best from your snow foam without a pressure washer. Snow foam is a vital part of the pre-wash stages. For a professional foam, such as our Avalanche Snow Foam, to work, it has to be whipped up effectively to activate the cleaning agents and create a thick lingering foam. To do this the best way is to push the concentrate through a metal gauze in a specially designed Snow Foam Lance. Without the water pressure you don't get that deep-cleaning foam we're looking for.

How Many Buckets Do I Need?

A bucket isn't just a bucket, and there's a few reasons why having the correct Pro Detailing Buckets (and indeed, enough of them) can make your contact wash as safe as possible.

Your buckets should help you avoid spreading contamination around the vehicle or transferring grime back onto surfaces as you wash. When contact washing, detailers use two buckets - one for the shampoo solution, and the other with fresh water to rinse our their wash media. Once you've passed your shampoo over the surface, the grime will be picked up by your mitt, so it's safer to rinse these out in a rinse bucket with plain water to avoid mixing them with your shampoo and risk transferring the grime back to the vehicle later. With an extra bucket you can keep your wash solution as clean as possible for as long as possible.

We always use a separate, bucket and wash media for cleaning wheels. You'll find some of the harshest contamination here, and in the heaviest concentration. Sharp metal particles derived from brake dust, along with heavy particles, salt and other gritty road grime are all contaminants that you don't want lingering in a bucket ready to be transfered to your paintwork. Alloy wheels are usually finished in special paint or powdercoat to withstand this kind of contamination and the most intense cleaning but your paintwork will be more at risk to swirls and scratches. But why not simply wash out your wheel bucket when and carry on with your car wash? The bad news is that that these sharp particles can often embed themselves in the buckets themselves and remain there even after you've washed them out. Even if the bucket looks clean, it may present a risk. Having a seperate wheel bucket eliminates the problem at the source.

Professional grit guards are another reason we use pro detailing buckets. A grit guard at the bottom of your bucket is a simple but effective solution to prevent picking up sunken grit and grime with your wash media. Grime particles are far heavier than water, so they sink to the bottom and the grit gaurd stops you picking them back up. . The last safety precaution comes is the capacity. Our Detailing Buckets hold a large amount of water or wash solution, and this extra capacity helps prevent recirculation of grime. The more liquid in the bucket, the less likely it is that any stray grime will float around and end up back on your mitt. All this is why Detailing Buckets aren't just buckets, there specially-designed, essential detailing tools.

Use The Best Wash Media And Accessories

Utlising the safest possible wash media and car wash accessories is another important step to getting the best swirl-free wash. Aside from keeping your wheel cleaning equipment separate from the rest, the type and construction of the tools you use for different cleaning tasks is also important to consider.

Many cleaning products are most effective through agitation, which is why accessories such as scratch-free Detailing Brushes are essential. Most of the time agitation isn't so much to physically (mechanically) scrub the surface, it's more about moving spent solution away and replacing it with fresh solution for the most effective cleaning.

Chemical cleaners use surfactants to lock on to and trap contamination, but there's only so much each surfactant molecule can hold on to before it's spent (essentially full up). When agitating a cleaning product the process is designed to move away the spent part of the solution and move in fresh solution to work on any remaining contamination. This means that surfaces are getting the best possible contact with the cleaning agent and allowing the solution to do the best job before we rinse it away. For the best results this type of agitation should be performed with a dedicated brush for each part of the vehicle, being sure not to mix brushes used for dirty areas (like wheels and engine bays) with those used for more sensitive surfaces such as paintwork and gloss plastics.

That's not to say that mechanical cleaning isn't used at all, and this is why having correct accessories for the task in hand is crucial. Our Barrel Brush is a great example. While this wheel cleaning tool agitate your wheel cleaner and mechanically scrub away grime at the same time, the long-reach bristles have been developed as non-scratch, meaning it won't harm the painted/powdercoated surface underneath. Our Rubber Scrubber is another example. This is specifically designed for heavy duty cleaning on tyres, so it has bristles that are extremely stiff to physically draw out remove the harshest contamination - but it's not suitable for sensitive surfaces such as the wheels themselves or the paintwork.

When you choose your exterior cleaning accessories and wash media, it's important to consider that each item may be designed to be most effective for a specific task.

For paintwork and other sensitive surfaces, the safest wash method is to physically touch the vehicle as little as possible to prevent inflicting damage. This is why all details should include a pre-wash and snow foam to rid the car of as much grime as possible before contact washing. Even after the most thorough pre-wash there will be some stuck-on contamination left behind, and although they're significantly smaller particles, they can still scratch. We want to avoid pushing those around our paintwork.

This is where your wash mitt comes in. Although there is elements of both agitation and mechanical cleaning in any contact wash, the mechanical cleaning is less about physically breaking the bonds of contamination and more about picking up foreign particles and getting them safely off the car. Professional wash media does not scrub away at the surface it merely glides over it picking the up the grime encapsulated by your car shampoo.

Wash mitts are constructed from material such as microfibre or lambswool which are the best for grabbing particulates and holding them deep within the fibres (and away from the paintwork) until they're rinsed out in bucket. It's a very different type of mechanical cleaning than the sort of scrubbing we use on tyres.

A sponge cannot lift and trap grime in this way, which is why we choose professional wash mitts and pads. Some mitts, such as our Plush Wash Mitts, are designed to absorb the maximum possible amount of cleaning solution. Others are designed for specific areas such as our Plush Wheel Mitt. We also have our Plush Wash Pad for those who prefer the feel of a pad. What's important is that, in terms of safe washing, all our pro wash media is safe to use. Simply pick the one you like the use most.

How Do I Keep My Wash Media In The Best Condition?

Do not put your wash media on the floor, ever. Your wash media is specifically designed to grab grit and grime, so if you leave yours on the floor or a brick wall, it will grab hold of the largest and most harmful particles. Worse of all these are almost impossible to wash out effectively. Remember that prevention is far easier.

It's the same with your Detailing Brushes and Wheel Brushes, while they're far easier to clean, leaving them on the floor or at the bottom of your bucket increases the risk of transferring harmful contaminants the next time they're in use.

Don't leave your wash media around to get mouldy and dusty in-between washes, either. Keep them safely locked away in your kitbag, or utilise some Bucket Lids. You can clean them out and seal them in their respective detailing buckets. That way they'll be ready for action every time you wash your car.

Always Use A Drying Towel

Professional Drying Towels are designed to rid the vehicle of water safely. In short they eliminate all of the impurities found in the water by removing them while they're still in the water.

Drying towels work through absorption, they're not designed to physically push the water off the vehicle, like a drying blade or chamois leather (which will always risk scratching). Instead they soak it up trapping the molecules in the microfibre itself. This heavy absorption can only be achieved through the use of extremely high GSM microfibre.

GSM stands for grams per square metre, and it denotes the 'weight' of the material. A higher the GSM can absorb more water more quickly. This is why our dedicated dying towels, such as our Aqua Deluxe Drying Towel, are constructed using ultra-absorbent 1200GSM, plush microfibre. This is what makes them superior for safely drying the most sensitive surfaces.

Multi-purpose microfibre cloths are still absorbent and they won't scratch surfaces. Our Microfibre Work Cloths are 300GSM and a short pile construction. But these are most ideal for cleaning and finishing tasks. Our drying towels are simply engineered more towards absorption than they are cleaning - this is why it's crucial to choose the correct tool for the job to get the best results.

Obviously a larger cloth can soak up more water, too. This is why our drying towels are designed to be large enough to complete a whole car without needing more towels. But, the surface area of the microfibre weave is also key to the science.

Technically the word "microfibre' refers to the single fibres, rather than the material as a whole. To be classed as a microfibre these single fibres have to be finer than 1 denier, which roughly equates to a single strand of silk. Most of the cloths we use in the automotive industry have microfibres between 0.1 and 0.3 denier, which is up to 200 times finer than a human hair. These fibres are what grab the water molecules and other impurities. The more of these you have available, the more the material can grab.

When microfibre material is manufactured, these single fibres are split to increase their effective surface area. How a microfibre cloth differs to other materials (such as cotton) is that the fibres themselves are what trap the dirt and moisture, holding on to it, rather than merely relying on the space between the fibres. This is what makes them so effective for cleaning and drying, because they hook on, rather than simply push the contaminants around. When these are woven into a detailing cloth or a towel, they can also be designed to further increase the surface area. Our Silk Drying Towel is a great example here. The material is a twist-loop design, consisting of long microfibre fingers which significantly increases surface area. This type of material construction increases how much the material can absorb, and how quickly.

Step-By-Step Safe Wash Guide

Now you know the detailing essentials you need, and when you should be washing your car. So we can move onto the definitive steps of the detailer's safe wash. Lets see how to use the right detailing products, on the right part of the vehicle, in the right order…

Stage 1: Engine Bay

Obviously this stage won't be for every detail, but when it is we do it first. The idea is to avoid the transference of heavy grime - such as grit, oil and grease - to the rest of the vehicle which will likely have less harmful contamination. Besides that, if some grime is transferred at leas the the rest of the car is cleaned after. If you cleaned the exterior first, you may have to do it again after the engine bay. That's double the work.

The heavy oil and grease-based contaminants found in your engine bay need a heavy-hitting cleaner to lift and safely remove. Eradicate Engine Degreaser will cut through both of the types of grime but it's safe for use on all areas including plastics, rubber, metal and painted surfaces. This is what makes it most ideal for engine bays, because you can apply it all over, agitate with a Detailing Brush, and rinse the grime away safely.

What makes Eradicate different to the products we use on other parts of the car is the high concentration of degreasers. A degreaser is a special kind of surfactant that can break down fatty oils, making these relatively large molecules small enough to be encapsulated by the solution. Combined with other surfactants to take care of the other particulates it's a combination that's ideal for engine bays. Eradicate is supplied ready-to-use but you can also use a 1:2-1:5 dilution of Verso All Purpose Cleaner here. Verso is a versatile dilute-to-suit cleaner that also contains degreasers, and while it's designed to take care of a number of tasks.

After rinsing away the grime encapsulated in your cleaning solution, you can also finish your bay with Dressle All Purpose Dressing. This water-based dressing is a"spray and walk away' product that's applied while the bay is still wet. The solution is designed to bring back to life all faded plastics and rubber. It's also and safe for use on all the materials in your engine bay. Just apply liberally over the whole area, close the bonnet and leave the solution to spread and cure while you complete the rest of your detail.

See more on cleaning and finishing your bay in our full guide: The Easy Way To Clean Your Engine Bay.

Stage 2: Alloy Wheels

This is indeed where most details, especially when it comes to routine maintenance, will start. There's a lot to consider when it comes to all the different types of aftermarket wheels and what type of wheel cleaning products to use. For a full rundown on the most specialist wheels in our full article: Cleaning Alloy Wheels: A Detailers Guide.

We'll use the most common powdercoated and painted/lacquered wheels as the example here, and this can be adapted to more specialist finishes when required. Just remember that wheels, tyres and arches are always cleaned before the rest of the exterior to prevent transference of the most harmful contamination.

Again, the products and the wheel cleaning accessories you use should be different to those and they should be kept separate. Don't forget that these areas are typically susceptible to a larger concentration of the most harmful - and most difficult to safely-remove - contamination. Dedicated cleaners such as our non-acidic Imperial Wheel Cleaner and Reactive Wheel Cleaner are designed to safely remove heavy road grime and salt using powerful surfactants to lift and encapsulate them. Simply spray on, agitate with a selection of suitable brushes and wash media and, only when you've contacted every part of the wheel, you can rinse away the grime trapped in the solution.

Brake dust (technically sharp metal shrapnel that embeds itself into surfaces) is a little more difficult to remove because it needs to be chemically dissolved into the solution. This is the only way to form a solute that can be safely rinsed away. Even though they're safe enough to maintain wheels with previously applied waxes or coatings, all of our dedicated wheel cleaning products are capable of intensive brake dust removal. This characteristic is a key part of how our wheel cleaners differ from the type of cleaning agents you'd use on the other parts of your vehicle.

These spray-on cleaners can also be given more cleaning power and particle lubrication properties by using some additional Revolution Wheel Soap. Revolution is ideal for this task because it can be used as a stand-alone cleaner on the most sensitive finishes but it's also ideal for helping get the most effective deep clean when 'brushing-in' other wheel cleaners.

Periodic Decontamination For Wheels

Most types of alloy wheel can also be periodically cleaned and decontaminated using Iron Out Contaminant Remover.

Although this heavy-hitting fallout remover is has been chiefly developed to eradicate ferrous deposits from sensitive paintwork, the combination of metal-reactive chemical agents and degreasers is extremely effective at removing the worst contamination, even on the most neglected wheels. We tend to carry out the process once a month for the most intensive brake dust removal. Just to keep wheel tip-top and combat the onset of corrosion… embedded metal is seriously corrosive, after all.

A couple of time as year, it may be a good idea to get the wheels off for a full deep-clean, too. This allows you to clean and protect the parts that may not always be accessible during routine maintenance. The parts are just as susceptible to the corrosion brought on by salt and brake dust and it also gives you easy access to deep clean your arches and inner tyres at the same time.

Tyres And Inner Arches

Cleaning tyres and inner arches is unlike any other part of the exterior because here we'll physically scrub surfaces to draw out as much grime as possible. It's here you'll find plenty of mud, salt and ingrained heavy grime, so we'll need to use cleaning products containing powerful degreasers and surfactants capable of removing this kind of harsh contamination and leaving behind surface that won't block the adhesion of finishing products such as Satin Tyre Creme on your tyres, and Dressle All-Purpose Dressing or Revive Trim Dressing on your plastic inner arches. A suitable (1:5) dilution of Verso All Purpose Cleaner will take care of these contaminants quickly, effectively and safely.

As we're not going to damage our tyres or plastic arch liners through mechanical cleaning, we'll scrub in our cleaners with a stiff brush like our Rubber Scrubber Tyre Brush. This agitation process gives your Verso even more bite. You can also carry out this step at the same time as cleaning your wheels, before rinsing away the dirt trapped your Verso and wheel cleaners together.

Stage 3: Pre-Rinse

Rising the car from top to bottom, before applying any cleaning agents, removes the worst of the loose grime. Allowing your surfactant-based cleaners get to work where they're most needed, instead of being wasted on the grime that can be removed by water pressure alone.

We're also sure to flush out any panel gaps, shuts, around wing mirrors and fuel flaps during the pre-rinsing process. This reduces the risk of trapped grit and grime coming out later and interfering with the rest of your detail.

In other words, always pre-rinse, it makes you car wash so much safer and easer.

Stage 4: Pre-Wash

The all-important pre-wash stage is where we use a suitable pre-cleaner to remove the most harmful contamination from the most sensitive exterior surfaces. Baked-on grime, bugs, traffic films and heavy particulates are targeted here. And it's important to get these removed before you physically touch the vehicle to eradicate the risk of dragging them around with your wash media - the No.1 cause of scratches and swirl marks.

Regardless of how clean any car looks, if it has paint or a vinyl wrap, or if there's any previously applied protection, the pre-wash stages should always be carried out thoroughly. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's a winter-only job, acidic bug splatter - of which you'll find a far higher concentration in the summer - can be just as risky to paintwork as heavy grime.

Our pre-cleaner is applied to the whole vehicle, including the glass and trim. A good pro tip is to start on the dirtiest bits to give a little more dwell time. All pre-cleaners are another example of aqueous agents - they use surfactants to pull contamination from surfaces, trapping it in the solution and allowing it to be rinsed away safely.

Our spray-on pre-cleaners include our ready-to-use Citrus Power Bug & Grime Remover and our "dilute to suit' heavy-hitter, Dynamite Traffic Film Remover. Crucially these products are protection-friendly meaning they won't degrade or strip away any previously-applied protection layers.

For the vast majority of details, (including deep-cleans, full details and routine maintenance washes) Citrus Power is our go-to product. For extremely dirty vehicles Dynamite offers even more cleaning power because you can change the dilution to suit the intensity of contamination. A 1:10 dilution of Verso All Purpose Cleaner can also be used as a pre-cleaner, it won't quite be as kind to your protection layers but this can be useful if you're planning on polishing, and will be reapplying protection later.

When rinsing your pre-cleaner (and all the grime it's encapsulating), always flush out the panel gaps and rinse from top to bottom thoroughly. During your pre-wash it's also good practice to brush a little pre-cleaner into the door jams and boot/bonnet shuts (using a soft Detailing Brush).

Stage 5: Snow Foam

Our pre-cleaner will remove the worst of the large particulates so we can move onto using snow foam to work on the bonded grime. A thick foam will linger on the vehicle - and stay wet - for an extended period, giving it far more time to break down the smaller particle contamination.

Avalanche Snow Foam is a citrus-infused, wax sealant and coating-safe pre-cleaner that uses advanced surfactants to break the bonds of, and lift, the stuck-on grime. This product is applied over the whole vehicle using a Snow Foam Lance or a Foaming Pressure Sprayer designed to activate the cleaning agents and whip it up for the maximum possible dwell time. Snow foam also works its way into all the panel gaps, cleaning out these, too.

Even when using snow foam it's crucial not to skip the use of your pre-cleaners first. This is because your pre-cleaner removes the heavier particulates, leaving the snow foam to work on the bonded grime. In other words, you're not wasting your snow foam. The snow foam stage is also where you can use a Detailing Brush to agitate your foam into awkward recesses such as grilles and window rubbers. This gives the solution maximum contact and a little more bite for these common dirt traps. Using a pre-cleaner first cuts down on the risk associated with contacting the car.

Contra to many articles out there, snow foam is best applied from the top of the car downwards rather than from the bottom of the vehicle to the top. While it's true that any foam running down will replenish the foam lower down, spent snow foam from the top isn't going to do much for cleaning. Applying from the bottom also risks pushing heavier contamination upwards. In our book this is simply an unnecessary risk.

Once you've applied your Avalanche, always let it dwell for as long as possible without drying out - the longer your foam is on there - the more contamination it can remove. A good pro detailer will keep an eye on the windows as this is where it'll start to dry out first. When it starts to dry, rinse thoroughly from top to bottom.

Stage 6: Contact Wash

We've seen the reasons why you need two buckets and the correct wash media for the safest and most effective contact wash. With all that said, it's also important to choose the right car shampoo.

Our specialist car shampoos are aqueous agents containing surfactants capable of lifting and encapsulating grime, for safe removal. What makes them different to other cleaning agents is that they're also classed as lubricants, which allow any harsh, sharp particles to slip and slide with without contacting the surfaces. This increases the ability of getting them off the car safely.

Lather Car Shampoo is the go-to product for most details, it's powerful but pH-neutral, so it won't degrade waxes, sealants and coatings. This product is a pure cleaner, meaning that it cleans and nothing else because contains no waxes, coatings or glossing agents. Lather doesn't leave behind any protection layers that may interfere with other detailing processes such as paint decontamination or polishing - if there's going to be further steps during your detail, there's no advantage in adding gloss or protection now.

If you're simply looking to clean and maintain your wax and sealant protection layers Lather is the best product. But, while this powerful cleaner won't degrade ceramic coatings, it won't install or top them up, either.

Ceramic Protection At The Contact Wash Stage

Wash N Gloss Car Shampoo offers the solution for installing and enhancing ceramic protection on paintwork and all exterior surfaces. This product is powerful enough to install ceramic protection but also designed to strengthen, and boost the life of, any previously-applied ceramic coatings.

An advanced SiO2-infused shampoo, Wash 'N' Gloss has the same surfactant-based cleaning power as Lather, but it also installs a layer of Silicon Dioxide, which is the main ingredient in glass and all ceramic coatings. The SiO2 forms a hard layer that's ultra hydrophobic for long-lasting protection, meaning this product is a useful substitute for Lather if you're looking to boost or install ceramic protection at the same time you wash. It's an easy way to wash and add shine to your car if the contact wash is the last stage of your detail and there's no previously applied wax layers. There's no need to change the way you contact wash your car, either. Just use this shampoo in your bucket and wash as normal.

The Wash Process

When we come to the wash the process is just as important as the product you choose. Here we're talking about the actual route you take route around vehicle. To avoid spreading any heavier contamination to cleaner areas we always start by cleaning the least contaminated areas first. For most details this means starting with the roof and upper sides, before moving on to the bonnet, lowers sides, front bumper and the rear end.

To further avoid swirling always clean out your mitt in your rinse bucket after every pass and wash in straight lines rather than circular motions.

After a final rinse, the maintenance side of our wet work is complete. So, we could simply dry and be finished. But with that said, there's a few more processes you need to know about, if you're looking to push your detailing further.

3-Stage Paintwork Decontamination

If you're looking to go further with your detail - especiallay when t comes to hand or machine polishing, it's always advisable to perform a full 3-stage paint decontamination before you dry your car.

This process removes the kind of embedded or sticky contamination that washing alone won't be able to, but shouldn't be carried out during routine maintenance, because it will also strip any previously applied protection layers.

The first of our 3-stages is using Iron Out Contaminant Remover to safely dissolve ferrous metal particles embedded in the paintwork. Then we use a powerful solvent, ObliTARate Tar & Glue Remover, to eradicate sticky tar and glue residues. Finally we can use a detailers Clay Bar (and Glide Clay Lube) to physically pull out embedded organic contaminants and industrial fallout. For a full, in-depth guide on these decontamination steps, see our article: Safely Decontaminating Your Paintwork.

Bear in mind that you should always polish after a "decon wash' and you'll always have to add protection to safeguard the finish and the work you've put in. For more information on these detailing stages, and a full guide on the products to use along the way, check out our articles: Understanding Car Polishes And Compounds, and A Basic Guide To Machine Polishing.

Topping Up Protection

No car should be left without adequate protection because a wax, sealant or ceramic coating doesn't just make your paintwork look glossy, it offers a durable barrier to the elements. Protection layers also make your car easier to clean the next time you want to carry out your routine maintenance.

Topping up your protection is another useful stage, and depending on the protection you have present, this can even be performed before or after you dry your car.

For wax and sealant protection layers, dry your car first, and then add your chosen product - whether that's a sealant like Graphene Filler Liquid Wax, a liquid wax like Glisten Spray Wax, or for the ultimate finish you can utilise one of our flagship Signature Hard Waxes. You can also quickly and easily top up ceramic protection on a dry car with our Ceramic Spray Wax.

If you're looking to top up your ceramic layers, this can also be performed just before drying using Aqua Coat Hydrophobic Rinse Aid or Lavish Ceramic Foam. Aqua Coat is a simple spray-on and rinse product that offers up to 3 months durability, and Lavish can be applied via your Foam Lance and rinsed away for up to 6-months protection. Both of these advanced ceramic products install gloss, enhanced water beading and non-stick, easy-clean properties.

Stage 7: Drying

As we said earlier drying your vehicle safely is crucial. We always use a suitable Drying Towel to absorb surface water and impurities (rather than simply pushing them around) before the water molecules have a chance to evaporate off naturally. This will stop the water spots and streaks before they form.

Dry from top or the car to the bottom, or tackle any areas that look like they're drying out first. And don't forget that window rubbers, wheels, grilles and wing mirrors will almost always trap your rinse water, letting it drip out as soon as you move the car. This is why the pros often use an air blower or compressed air to get all the stray water out, so it can quickly be mopped up.

For those without a blower it pays to move the car slightly and travel around it a few times mopping up any stray drips on the body and wheels with a smaller plush microfibre cloth - like our Ultra Plush Microfibre.

Step 8: A Trio of Top Finishing Essentials

There are of course are a few essentials we always recommend for pushing your detail to the next level. Why not use these quick and easy products to finish your car wash like a pro?

What's Next?

And that's everything you need to know about safe cleaning your car exterior. This can be seen as the bread and butter of car detailing, but don't forget that making the inside a nice place to be, is a good idea, too. Check out our article: The Ultimate Guide: Interior Car Cleaning for the full lowdown on how to get the best from your interior.

In the meantime, too, check out the Guides Section Of Our Blog for more pro tips and detailing professional guides.