For anyone getting into detailing, it's often hard to know where to start getting it clean, never mind high end detailing. Car detailing requires a lot of tools and processes specific to different surfaces and defects. It’s not just polishing a car, it involves deep cleaning, polishing and protecting both the interior and exterior of the vehicle. In this blog we will guide you through some of the techniques, theories, and levels of car detailing - this is as basic as a proper detail gets.

Pre Wash

Pre-washing is a must to help reduce the chances of inflicting swirl marks and scratches.. We’d recommend our Citrus Pre-Wash as your first step after an initial rinse. Its cleaning agents make it the perfect product for all around your car (in different strengths). Citrus Pre-Wash can be used strong (around 100ml-900ml) for pre-washing, engine bays, wheel arches, tyres and as a bug remover. We spray it all over a car after rinsing and then brush out the panel gaps, arches and rubber trim areas. For a weaker pre wash you could use it at 50ml to 950ml to great effect still. As an APC (All Purpose Cleaner) suitable for interiors we mix it 30ml to 970ml.

Snow Foam

There are so many benefits of using Snow foam, the main is they help not to strip dirt like a citrus wash or TFR but soften any stubborn remaining dirt and grime, a little like steeping your dishes before washing them. This may not strip every last bit remaining but will make it much easier to wash the car without having to agitate the mitts aggressively to shift stubborn dirt. It makes washing a breeze and much safer. Use our Pro HD snow foam lance and snow foam (Cyclone snow foam is a customer favourite) to blanket the car in foam that will soften and loosen the remaining dirt and allow it to dwell for 5-15 minutes.

Wheel Cleaning

For maximum efficiency we like to clean the wheels while the snow foam is dwelling. Spray on your wheel cleaner and allow a little dwelling time before agitating. After that you are best using multiple approaches to get the best results and avoid missing spots. We start with a detailing brush for faces, a longer reach brush for barrels and finish with one of our Wheel Mate wheel mitts then rinse thoroughly.

Use The Two Bucket Method

The basic premise of the two bucket wash method consists of your standard 20 litre bucket filled with Soor Apple Car Shampoo but then adds a second bucket filled with just clean water and put a grit guard in each bucket and also use a wash mitt in place of a traditional foam sponge. This system stops you from polluting your wash solution and ensures you are always using pure and clean wash solution on your car.

Dry It Up

Before drying your vehicle should be freshly rinsed and free of visible dirt, and grease. Once you’ve done that, Using a drying towel make your way from top-to-bottom drying and make sure to cover each panel. If you want a large towel to dry/. your car buy a 50x80 1400gsm dual twist drying towel, fold it over once or twice to get a better grip and control over it.

Decontamination

It is important to thoroughly and regularly decontaminate a car not only to keep it looking good but to avoid premature rusting and to maintain any coatings you may have on the car. We always wash the car before doing this to get the most from the more expensive decontamination products so they’re interacting with the actual contamination and not just surface dirt. First, TARantula tar remover, we spray onto a microfibre towel away from the car and then wipe over all the panels to remove tar spots. The microfibre used for tar remover should be washed separately by hand and stored so you remember that’s your tar removal towel, machine washing with the rest will make them all stink...and your washing machine. Next up, Redemption fallout remover, spray all over the car and wheels and allow to dwell and “bleed” before rinsing off. We also like to use a detailing brush on wheels and a separate one for any heavily reacting areas to lightly agitate and aid in removal. 

With decontamination products once isn’t always enough. We’ll more often than not do a quick walk around and find a few extra tar spots needing attention and on the fallout stage it’s meant to be used until it has stopped reacting, we’ll usually use it at least twice. 

Claying will get the paint smooth as glass but will cause marring, best only done if machine polishing is to follow. Use Soor Apple shampoo and water as a lubricant. 

Polishing

Keeping your cars looking new with MonsterShine’s polishing products or polishing machine and kits, polish by hand or using a machine polisher it depends on you, but polishing by machine will give you a better result in terms of correction. GlossLock followed by a wax an hour or so later is an excellent combo also. If you want to try both we have products for both applications, check it out.

Waxing

Each one of these steps is as necessary as the other, but waxing is right up there in the must-do list for the purists. Lock  in that showroom-fresh shine applying a layer of wax like Dominator Hybrid Wax or Ceramic Wax and many more at MonsterShine Car Care.  You can wax without all the prep but it may not last as long, for a nice quick glossy wax our spray wax #WaxIt is fantastic. 

Finally  a wipe down with a quick detailer will add even more gloss and make sure you haven’t missed any spots of wax. If you’ve got any additional questions DM us, or you’re not sure on any aspect, drop us an email at sales@monstershine.co.uk and we’ll get back to you.

Top Tip: never let anything dry on your paint. If you think it’s a bit hot then work in small sections or if something is drying out rinse it off.