If all you want is a shine, you can have it. Wash the car or run it through a car wash. Apply car wax or one of the cleaner/wax combination products. Buff with a clean cloth. The finish will shine-but it won't be "detailed."

For some car owners, a shine is enough, because, as the miles and months and years go by, they forget the mirror-like brilliance and vibrant color perfection of their car's finish when it was fresh from the factory. However, that "wet look," as though the finish had been applied only moments before, was probably a key reason they bought the car!

Detailing aims to do nothing less than recapture, insofar as possible, a car's showroom look. And to restore the factory-fresh "wet look" to its finish. A mere wash and wax won't do it.

To understand why not is to understand how to refresh and restore its showroom look: how to detail its finish.

Two progressive afflictions, oxidation and scratches, first dim, then dull, and finally degrade a car's finish, as described below.

Oxidation

Oxidation is a chemical reaction between atmospheric pollutants and the paint's pigments. The oxidation of conventional car paint (and, to a lesser extent, the newer clearcoat finishes) creates an ever-growing layer of scum on the paint's surface. In conventional finishes, the scum is "dead paint": the oxidized top color layer of paint. In clearcoat finishes, what's oxidized is the see-through protective top layer of the clearcoat. Unless the finish is regularly detailed and the scum removed, the oxidation layer thickens and builds and dulls the paint.

Waxing does not remove the oxidation. It merely covers it up. No amount of waxing alone can recapture oxidized paint's original color or vibrancy. Only detailing can.

Scratches

Look closely at your car's finish. Better, examine it with a magnifying glass. The finish, whether conventional or clearcoat, is cross-hatched by a myriad of tiny scratches. Wear and tear from many sources-from car wash brushes to wind friction- cause car paint scratches. Whether in conventional paint or in the top layer of clearcoat, scratches have the same effect: they opaque the paint, bending (refracting) light rays from their normal straight paths. The result is ever-diminishing clarity. (Professional detailers call clarity "DOI"-Distinction of Image.)

Waxing does not remove or correct a finish's light refracting hairline scratches; however, detailing can. Detailing removes the oxidation, the finish's "dead paint." Doing so, it uncovers and exposes a fresh, original color layer once covered and obscured by oxidation; or, in the case of clearcoat, removes what amounts to a film that blurs its see-through clarity. Detailing also removes or fills in the light-bending scratches and, with oxidation removed and scratches filled in, protects the revitalized finish from further oxidation or scratching.

Detailing products
See Figures 1 through 5

You can pick and choose from dozens of car products formulated to remove the oxidized paint layer, fill in the scratches, and protect the revitalized paint or clearcoat from further degradation. Here is how finish detailing products are generally classified:

• Oxidation removers (in order, from the most abrasive to the least abrasive): rubbing compounds, polishing compounds, cleaners, and polishes.
• Scratch removers: polish and glaze.
• Scratch fillers: glaze and sealer.
• Finish protectors: wax.

If, reading various product labels, you're confused as to what is a "cleaner" and what is a "polish," to say nothing of "compounds," you aren't alone. Even their makers only hazily differentiate between "cleaners" and "polishes."

There is, however, a critical difference between the four types of oxidation-removers. The critical difference is their degree of abrasives. Whatever their type, most oxidation removers contain grit, a sand-like abrasive that acts much like sandpaper to remove surface imperfections. Oxidation is a surface imperfection.

Polishes, cleaners and compounds

In detailing your car's finish, start with the least abrasive, a polish. (So fine are some grits used in the polishes and cleaners especially formulated for clearcoat finishes, which cannot tolerate abrasion, that they produce a paste that is not abrasive in the usual sense.) If polish doesn't remove the oxidation, progress to a slightly more abrasive oxidation remover, a cleaner. If you are absolutely convinced that something even more abrasive is needed to remove badly oxidized finish, usually found on long neglected paint services, use the even more abrasive product, a polishing compound- but use it with great care and with minimum application pressure SO as not to cut right through the finish and down to base metal. Rubbing compounds are 50 abrasive ("aggressive," in detailing lingo) that they should probably only be used by professional detailers and paint shop experts. Improper use of such products puts your paint service at risk.

Glazes

Often a watery, sometimes transparent liquid, glaze has two primary services: to fill in tiny scratches and, buffed, to produce a brilliant shine. Glaze is applied with a clean, non-abrasive 100% cotton cloth and allowed to dry. The glaze dries as a haze, which is buffed to a lustrous shine. Buffed semi-wet, either by hand or machine, glaze often produces an ultimate shine-a shine which, almost immediately, must be protected by wax. If left unwaxed, glaze and its benefits are quickly dissipated by sunlight.

Sealers

Sealers perform and are applied much like glaze. The chief difference between a sealer and a glaze is the visible effect on the finish. Glaze gives the finish a higher luster than does sealer. However, sealers generally do a better service of enhancing a finish's depth of color and reflective clarity (DOI). Like glaze, most sealers lose their effect unless protected by wax.

Wax
See Figures 6 and 7

Wax, in car detailing, has four important functions:

1. It protects the newly exposed fresh paint or clear-coat layer.
2. It protects the scratch-filling glaze or sealer.
3. It produces a brilliant, mirror-like shine.
4. It weather and waterproofs the finish.

What about combination products which claim to do two, even three, things in one step? Among combination products are cleaner/waxes, sealer/waxes, polish/waxes, and wash/waxes. Most combinations are easy and quick to apply, but the combinations seldom if ever do either service as well as do single-purpose products. Exceptions may be some sealer/glazes and some cleaner/polishes. Both partners in these combinations do essentially the same service.

If it's simply a shine you want, the combinations may deliver it, and in considerably less time than the sequential application of two to four single-purpose detailing products. However, if you want your car's finish to be the best it can be, detailing's ultimate promise, stick with single-purpose products.

Before you begin detailing the finish, you need to know whether your car has a conventional finish or the newer clear-coated finish. Abrasive polishes and cleaners, as previously noted, must never be used on clearcoat finish. Abrasives can permanently scratch the clearcoat, destroying its see-through clarity.

If you are unsure whether your car's finish is conventional or clearcoat, ask the dealer from whom you bought the car. A quick test of the finish may also help you to decide: With a non-abrasive cloth, apply wax or a mild polish to a few inches of finish in some out-of-sight place. Rub firmly but gently. If finish color comes off on the cloth, the car probably has a conventional finish. If no paint shows on the cloth, the finish is probably clearcoat.

One last decision remains before you set to work. Should you randomly select various finish-detailing products, such as cleaner, polish, glaze, and wax? Or should you use a step-by-step, product-by-product detailing "system" as formulated and tested by the various product makers? While finish restorative systems invariably use only a particular maker's products, these maker-recommended products-and their step-by-step application-all but guarantee superlative results. The systems take the guesswork out of product selection and help you avoid finish-damaging mistakes.

If you are in doubt about whether your paint service is conventional or clearcoat, treat it and detail it as though it were clearcoat finish. Use only products whose labels specify that they may be used on clearcoat finish.

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