How to Make Your Car Look INSANELY Shiny (and Keep It That Way)

I don't know about you,

but I'm a sucker for shiny cars.

And I think a lot of us that are in this kind of car

detailing space, whether you're an enthusiast or a pro,

having a shiny car or getting a shiny car

is kind of what it's all about

because shiny looks beautiful.

That's why I like shiny tires.

I'm not a matte tire guy,

but that's not the reason for today's episode.

Today's episode is talking about

how I think you can get the shiniest car possible.

And it's really not about one specific product

that will do that, but rather a process that will do that.

So this episode is all about kind of achieving

that level of shine that you want

and then how to maintain it so that shine kind of

stays forever or you can quickly get back to that shine.

Because I think a lot of times people think

shine will come from, oh, this, you know,

high grade Carnubo wax or, oh, this great ceramic coating

or, oh, this sealant or whatever.

And they're relying and expecting one product

to kind of carry the weight of achieving all that shine.

And in fact, I think shine comes from actually

removing things, not necessarily adding things.

It is, in fact, adding things

after you first remove them though.

And so a lot of times I get asked, oh, what's,

you know, what product is gonna give me

that Carnubo light glow?

And the problem is, is that I've talked about

with a lot of products because I develop my own products

and have worked on teams for developing

a lot of other products.

When you're chasing shine, you lose something else.

And what you usually lose when you're looking

for shine out of it, one singular product,

you usually use ease of use.

So there's this constant give and take,

this constant balance, at least for me,

I'll speak from my experience,

when you're developing products

or looking at products to release,

how do I make sure I make this easy to use,

but also the result that I'm looking for

and that balance that kind of like last 10%

is where I love to play when developing products.

But again, we're talking about how do we create shine

and then how do we keep that shine?

Because that's another problem that you run into

when you're actually developing these products is,

hey, I can develop a product very simply,

that is high shine and washes off after one car wash

and is very streaky to apply.

That's very easy to accomplish that, right?

But getting a product that is high shine,

easy to use and doesn't wash off with a car wash

is incredibly difficult, right?

And so I found plenty of products

in my years of torture testing

and all those videos that are still up on my YouTube channel.

A lot of products that will create shine

and wash off within a couple car washes,

but really making that shine last is kind of where it's at.

So, because when we think about shine,

it is just simply light reflecting off a surface.

And so what I talked about before of like

removing things from the surface actually increases shine

because you're removing what is actually blocking

the shine from really or the light

from really reflecting off the surface.

So this could be embedded contaminants,

it could be swirls and scratches,

it could just be dirt and film buildup.

Sometimes it will be from lack of maintenance, right?

And I always used to tell my customers

in my detailing business like we can't reverse wear, right?

So whether that is a driver's side seat

that you've been sliding in on for years and years and years

and you've kind of removed the pigment

or the dye from the leather seat, that is wear.

I cannot remove that.

Wear on the outside of the car could be swirls and scratches

which can be fixed or enhanced, I guess.

But if you have peeling pain or crack pain

or really sunburn pain and it's really dull and faded,

the chances of that coming back to a high luster

or highly desirable shine can be difficult

because that is just wear, that's sun damage.

And so sometimes we can't remove that

or you can't remove that.

Sometimes you can through like a polish

and I think I have the best polish,

but sometimes your paint is dull

and you can't bring it back.

Sometimes it just has contaminants in the paint,

roughness in the paint.

If your paint is rough after you wash it,

that is what we call embedded contaminants,

contaminants in the paint.

And the more of that you have,

the less light is able to reflect off the surface

because it's getting cloudy, right?

On a cloudy day, you can't see great,

but on a sunny day, you can see better, right?

So the first step into actually getting a high shine

is to remove what's blocking the shine.

And this is kind of like your foundation.

So, and this really gets into kind of my product line of,

or my, not even necessarily my product line,

but my method for detailing.

So I'm starting with like a pre-soak.

I'm foaming the car, I'm trying to make it safe,

I'm trying to make it easy.

I'm not using a super high pH.

I'm not even necessarily using a low pH.

I'm not gonna use an acid here though.

That's why I have the decon bundle

because using an acid will help remove

those embedded contaminants.

In fact, in iron removers,

the thing that is actually removing the contaminants

in the paint is an acid.

Now, an iron remover is generally pH neutral,

and this is kind of getting into the weeds a little bit,

but the ingredient in iron removers

that's actually removing the contamination is an acid.

And so, but again, I'm using a pre-soak

with a good high quality car wash soap,

and I'm pre-soaking, I'm rinsing, I'm foaming again,

and then I'm doing my contact wash.

Again, less scrubbing, less damage.

You're trying to get more shine,

not create more damage,

so you don't want a really aggressive wash.

You're just trying to get the dirt and grime

and build up off kind of that first layer,

and then we're gonna go in and decontaminate the car.

So we're looking to kind of loosen everything up

as much as possible.

Decontamination could be an iron remover first

if you wanna do that.

It can be just going to clean,

but again, if your paint is rough,

usually on the flat surfaces will be the roughest,

the hood, the hood of the car.

The side panels will normally have some contamination,

but it'll be considerably less.

This is where you can clay bar.

So a traditional clay bar, a clay towel, a clay mitt,

a clay sponge, a clay disc.

There's a whole host of clay material.

My favorite is usually the clay disc

because I can palm it in my hand.

In fact, I have an entire video on different clay bars

and my preferences for that.

One shortcut or one hack that I've done,

and I do personally, I literally just did it yesterday

on a very unsexy used Silver Honda core

that was not very shiny at all.

But when I looked at it today

because it's had in my shop overnight,

I was like, wow, this car's actually got some shine to it.

Like I just needed to be cleaned up a little bit,

need to be clayed.

And this is where this idea of like,

wow, by actually removing things,

I enhanced the shine, right?

And so what I did on that Silver Honda

was I pre-soaked it with the Super Soaper,

foamed the whole entire car.

I let it dwell for about five minutes.

I rinsed all that soap away.

By that point, the car is about 90 to 95% clean.

I deem that surface safe enough to touch now.

So then I foamed it again, right?

And then while the foam was on the car

because the Super Soaper has so many lubricants in it,

I actually used a clay towel.

My clay towel was newer.

I used a clay towel and I clay it

with the Super Soaper on the car, all the suds on the car,

I clayed the whole entire car

and then I rinsed all that off.

Because what happens a lot of times when you have a car

that's like heavily contaminated and you're claying it,

all those contaminates are brown.

They come out as brown and so the car looks really dirty.

So if you just wash the car traditionally,

then you bring the car in and you spray like a clay lube

and then you clay.

After you do that on a heavily contaminated car,

the chances are that you're gonna wanna re-wash that car.

And so essentially what I've aimed to do

is kind of cut out that step

or incorporate that step into my cleaning.

And so again, on the second foam of the car

and you can foam with either a foam cannon,

a pump sprayer, whatever,

I'm claying the car on that second foam

because I know that the surface of the car is very clean.

So I'm not doing any additional damage.

So I'm short cutting and kind of being more efficient

with my time by claying on that second foam.

And you know you're done claying, you'll know.

If you've never clayed before, you'll know

because when you start claying, it's super rough

and you actually feel like you're fighting it a little bit

and then it gets smoothed pretty quickly,

especially with like a clay disc or a clay towel.

It's gonna be significantly faster than a natural clay bar.

But if it's not smooth, it's not fully clean, right?

So you need to make sure that you're getting

as much of these contaminants out as you possibly can.

Where an iron remover would help,

is it kind of softens and loosens

and begins to remove a lot of that embedded contaminants.

And so I usually still will follow up with clay

because an iron remover doesn't always get all of it.

But that's also why I created the Decon package

and I'll link it below.

It's where you use the super-soaper

and you mix it with pure magic cleaner in the foam cannon

because pure magic cleaner is an acid

and it starts to loosen those contaminants.

It won't remove all of them,

especially on a heavily contaminated car,

but it will begin to loosen them.

So when you get to that second foam, clay towel,

clay bar, clay disc, whatever,

you are, it's making your life a lot easier.

So not only are you shortcutting the step,

but it's easier to remove those as well.

So, but lubrication is key

and I would encourage you to go watch that clay bar video.

I'll try to remember to link it below.

The clay bar video, I talk about claying

and talk about lubrication with claying

and I go over all the different options of clay.

So I'd highly suggest kind of checking that out.

After you've clayed, there's a big argument

over if you need to do any paint correction.

This kind of depends on your skill set,

how much time and energy and effort

you're looking to put into getting

as most shine as possible, right?

So if you wanted to do paint correction,

this would be the place.

I could spend a, and I have spent episodes

and episodes and episodes going over paint correction.

I have developed a picture perfect polish.

I documented the whole entire process here on YouTube.

I have what I think is the best liquid on the market

and it's the best because it can remove

the most amount of defects and finish out perfectly.

It's designed totally for beginners and pros.

I developed it with a longtime body shop guy

in Tom Horvath who has 30 plus years experience

with polishes and compounds and all that kind of stuff.

I did a deep dive into abrasives and oils and solvents

and all that stuff and I've talked about that before.

But after you've clayed, the paint correction process

would be where it's at.

I will say this, I got a lot of people reaching out

asking if they could use the picture perfect polish by hand.

The answer is unequivocally yes, you definitely can.

You're gonna get results.

However, and I just emailed this to someone the other day,

I would highly, highly recommend picking up

even a cheap Harbor Freight or Amazon dual action machine

because it's easy to use, you're not gonna mess anything up

with the DA and it's gonna give you a significantly

better result than by hand.

Not only is it gonna give you a significantly better result,

it is gonna be a total time saver and this is horrible.

To wax on, wax off is really bad.

You're gonna have sore arms.

It's gonna take you forever.

So though you can do it by hand,

I would definitely suggest picking up

even a cheap dual action machine

because it's gonna save you so much time

and give you such a better result.

So if you plan on doing any paint correction,

the picture perfect polish is your best bet.

I have a bundle for that as well

and you're not gonna generate a lot of heat by design

with that liquid as you would with other ones.

You could use it on PPF.

I would just highly suggest picking up a machine to do it.

One step polish is more than enough

for the vast majority of people

and the beauty of the picture perfect polish

and the pads that I have up on my site

is that you can use that exact setup

for perfect paint correction in one or two steps

if you choose or for most people, the DIYer,

you're gonna be amazed with the results that you can achieve

even if you've never polished a car ever before.

So I think polishing can be really that

pivotal step in getting maximum shine

because let's think about what we've done.

We have cleaned the surface really well.

Now, car paint is porous

and so that all those contaminants that I talked about

are sitting in the pores of the paint.

So then we've removed those, right?

Now, paint polishing is removing

kind of the surface level defects,

the scratching, the spider webbing, the swirl marks,

things like that.

So we've gone from cleaning the surface

to clearing out the surface

and now we have nothing and then polishing,

we've got very little blocking that sun shine

from reflecting and creating a high shine.

The last step is to add some type of surface protection.

Now, the argument could be made for

this is where people put like a Carnubo wax,

wax on, wax off, takes a lot of time or movement,

doesn't last a long time.

Natural wax is burn off in the sun, right?

And so that's where synthetic sealants came in.

Think Kohlenei 845, I think it is, which was a big one

and there's a whole host of liquid sealants.

Then there's ceramic sprays.

Ceramic sprays, something like mine,

I'll just use mine for an example,

Tuffa Shell, super easy to apply.

One to two sprays per panel, one microfiber towel.

You could buzz around the whole car in two minutes, right?

Works on all surfaces as well.

Then you have wipe on ceramics,

something like the gloss boss.

That's gonna be literally years of protection.

So everything from like a wax,

everything is kind of tiered.

So a wax is gonna give you maybe a month or two

worth of protection.

A sealant is gonna give you two to three months,

four months worth of protection.

A ceramic spray, a good quality one,

maybe three to six months.

And then a wipe on ceramic is like in the years.

One, two, three, four, 10,

depending upon the brand and what they're claiming, right?

For my products, I claim three to five years

with my wipe on ceramic coating.

The verdict's out on other brands, right?

The beauty, again, I talked about earlier

with kind of skipping steps with efficiency.

The beauty with my product line and my product range

is if you decide to do paint correction,

which would be an optional, additional step,

you do not need to wipe any oils or residue

off the surface before you go to your protection step.

So that is good for a whole host of reasons.

If you have soft paint, an IPA or a panel prep,

I've noticed is very aggressive.

And so you can actually induce some scratches

and swirls in this step.

And so I opted when I was developing a polish

to not overload it with oils

so that there would be nothing left on the surface.

That was a big sticking point for me in that.

And so you can go straight to your protection step,

whether you do paint correction or not.

So if you clay bar the surface using the iron mover,

you can go straight to your protection step.

If you choose to add in that paint correction,

which if you're going for as much gloss as possible,

I would definitely suggest even doing a one-step polish.

And then if you want the most protection possible

and the highest gloss possible,

I would go with a wipe-on ceramic coating

and then I would layer that or stack that

with a ceramic spray.

That is going to be the way

that you absolutely max out your shine.

I would, you know, shine is very subjective.

And so, but I would argue that a wipe-on ceramic stacked

with a spray ceramic is gonna give you way more gloss

than a Carnubo wax ever will.

I'm sure I'll get beat to death in the comments for that.

But I would argue that with the right products, you will.

And then beyond that, it's like, okay,

how do we keep this shine?

Because you just invested a ton of time,

money in products and effort.

How do we make maintenance easy, right?

You don't want to, this is kind of the part

that I always got hung up on is like,

you invest all this time, energy, effort and money

and then it's difficult to keep that.

So my thing is and my kind of motto is,

how do I make it easy to do this?

So this includes, you know, my double foam, dry foam,

car wash method that I've done a video on,

having good products that aren't degrading your products.

They're not degrading the materials on your car either.

So, you know, that's why I recommend the Super Soapr.

Pre-soak every time, dry foam or foam a dry car,

do the dry foam method, do a gentle contact wash

on that second foam if you need to,

drying the car properly with like a blower,

a big massive drying towel and then, you know,

making sure that you are, you can wash often

without degrading your protection.

And then this is why I go into Tuftfish Shell

being easy to use, super durable.

I just had someone leave a review

that they're getting like a year out of it.

I don't claim a year out of Tuftfish Shell.

I claim three to six months, but it's so easy

and it's layerable, so I use it very often.

I'm using it almost every car wash, one spray per panel,

because I think it adds a tremendous amount of gloss.

And so, you know, dry foam to a gentle contact wash

if you need to,

maintaining with a high shine, easy to use product

like Tuftfish Shell Ceramic Spray,

which is why I'm so proud of that product

because that balance that I talked about earlier

of something that's high shine, easy to use and durable

is a very, very difficult balance to find.

And I think we were able to do that.

But I think the easier the process is for you,

the more consistent you'll be with it.

I totally learned this lesson recently.

I was with protein powder, not to get into protein,

but I was using a protein powder

and it actually tasted good, which is hard to achieve

with protein powder, right?

And I really liked the brand,

but what I found was that it wasn't the most efficient

calorie to protein ratio out there, right?

So I tried a different brand of protein

that was a little bit more efficient, right?

The problem that I found was that I didn't like

the more efficient protein, it tasted gross.

So I was actually having less smoothies.

I was just incorporating it into a smoothie, right?

And so, but what I found was the more efficient protein

actually tasted different, so I used it less, right?

So I was actually getting, I didn't like the process,

so I was doing it less, right?

And so I switched back to the protein in my smoothie

that I like more and I have a smoothie every day, right?

And so products that you like and that will use

more and more that are easier to use, you know,

more consistent, they make your life easier,

you enjoy them more, you will use more often.

And so for my product brand,

because I have the option to do that,

I chose to make products like that.

They're easier to use, they're more efficient,

and they, I was gonna say they taste good,

but please don't drink them, they don't taste good,

but they're just easy to use and they're more efficient.

How about that?

I'm gonna leave that one there.

And so with that, that is my process,

that is how I achieve the most gloss possible.

I still stand back and look back at my car

after I use my products and I'm like,

wow, that thing looks very shiny.

Even that junky Honda Accord that I detailed yesterday,

after I did this exact process

that I just laid out in this video,

I even surprised myself at how shiny the car was

even a day later, right?

And it will not wash off, it doesn't, that shine will stay.

So if you're looking for the shiniest car possible,

I will make sure to link the products below.

Yes, they are my products.

It directly supports this podcast, this YouTube channel.

It helps me create new products

and helps fund all this that I'm doing here.

So I appreciate your guys support.

You will not be disappointed.

In fact, I offer a 100% lifetime guarantee

on all my products because I do not want you to have products

that you are not satisfied with.

So a lifetime 100% guarantee.

It is a questions asked guarantee, I do ask questions,

but I think it's, a lot of brands offer 100% money back

guarantee within 30 days, 110% money back guarantee

within 30 days, mine is lifetime.

I never want you to be unhappy with my products,

so ever, ever, ever, so offer that.

But with that, I'll catch you guys on the next one.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for commenting.

Thanks for supporting the channel and the product line.

I really appreciate it.

I'll catch you guys on the next one.

See ya.

How to Make Your Car Look INSANELY Shiny (and Keep It That Way)

About this episode

shiny tires

give and take

dirt and film buildup

pre-soak

foaming the car

clay bar

clay disc

foamed the whole entire car

Super Soaper

heavily contaminated

clay lube

re-wash that car

foam cannon

claying

lubrication

paint correction

dual action machine

Harbor Freight

by hand

picture perfect polish

PPF

pads

polishing

synthetic sealants

ceramic sprays

Tuffa Shell

protection longevity (months vs years)

one-step polish

gloss

maintenance easy

having good products that aren't degrading your products

layerable

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