The #1 Complaint I Get About My Detailing Products.....
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So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine that was actually trying my products for the first time,
mainly because he doesn't detail cars that often anymore, hardly at all,
and he brought up the same complaint that I've gotten over and over and over about my products,
and it really rocks me to the core because it has everything to do with the whole philosophy behind
why I started a car care brand, but it even goes beyond that.
It goes way back to the day of why I even started a YouTube channel,
and the whole reason why I started a YouTube channel is because I was incredibly frustrated.
I was incredibly frustrated with what was in the bottle,
didn't always match what the label said,
and this was even confirmed more when I got my first sales job at one of the blending houses that are local to me
when they would literally talk about how it didn't matter what the label said,
just make something up, just put whatever on it, just change the SDS, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
And so that's hence why I was so jaded,
but also ultimately was motivation to start my own brand,
but this led to the number one complaint that I get with my product line kind of across the board,
whether that's a YouTube comment, an Amazon review, someone messaging me,
a competitor trying to take a jab, a DM I got,
or ultimately what happened over the weekend was a friend of mine actually said the same thing.
And it happens, it's quite honestly the number one complaint that I get,
but it goes to my whole thesis, my whole kind of core value for my product brand,
and the number one complaint I get is that my products are too easy to use.
I feel like this is basically how the complaint comes.
The problem with your coding, your spray or whatever, it's too easy to apply.
I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
It can't be this easy.
I feel like with my friend over the weekend, he's like, it seems like, you know,
he's using tuff a show and he's like, it seems like, you know,
I'm just spraying water on the car and that's it.
It's like not streaking.
It's not doing anything, right?
And one of the biggest uphill battles that I've had to do with my own product brand
is explain why this is because we've gotten to a place with a lot of products
that we don't trust products that are easy to use
because we automatically think that the products that are difficult to use are better.
I don't know how that happened, but maybe it's because the more steps
and we think the more effort that we put into something, the better the result.
And maybe that stems all the way back to like paste waxes
where you really had to put like, you know, a bunch of effort into it.
I remember back when I, before I even started the detailing business,
I had a neighbor that his car always looked just top notch.
And I talked to him one time and I said, you know, how do you keep your car,
your truck looking so good all the time?
And he said, you know, he washes it every other week.
And then he said about every six months I put a good wax on it, a real good, you know, deep wax.
And what he was insinuating is that he put a lot of effort into wax in his car
and that really helped.
So I think we have this long standing idea and kind of it's deep rooted in the industry
that the more effort and energy we have to put into something,
the better the result is.
However, that's just not necessarily true.
And so I think, and then you compound on that, like this pro only idea
when coatings first started coming out, like, oh, this is designed for, you know, professionals
and we have territories and, you know, a professional, only a professional can install this
because we have, you know, superpower knowledge that, you know, the general consumer don't, right?
But and I think that there's, there is a lot of money to be made in the over complicating
and the overselling of difficulty.
I think that's really what it comes down to.
And as the environment becomes more and more competitive, there's, you know,
a lot of detailing brands, a lot of different products that are relatively the same or similar,
sometimes coming from the same place, sometimes not.
But when that starts to happen, brands look for ways to make their products stand out,
to be different, right? Which can't fault that of anyone.
But in doing that, they tend to make things more difficult, right?
And I think I saw this as well in a similar vein when ceramic sprays started first coming out
and they smelt really bad or even ceramic coatings and they had a really, really bad solvent smell.
People automatically assume because I talk about the scent in a lot of my videos,
especially the cheap parts expensive and the torture tests, I talk a lot about scent
and people a lot of the time associated a strong smell with a product that works really well, right?
There is no, no, no correlation to that.
Just like there's no correlation to a thicker car wash soap being a better soap.
There's zero correlation other than what we perceive, right?
And so this is, you know, in this saturated world where everyone's looking to differentiate themselves
and most brands go for the difficulty angle, right?
Or the complicated angle I thought differently.
So this is kind of how I thought with my brand.
One, my core value, the motivation behind starting a YouTube channel way back in the day.
Anyway, was just to test the claims on the back of the bottle.
That's all I wanted to do.
That's still what I currently do.
It's just, hey, let me test the claims.
Let me see if what this brand is saying on the back of the bottle is what the product actually does.
And then that way we can make more informed decisions, right?
That's a big one for me.
That's my genesis.
That's where everything started from, right?
And then as it has morphed into my own product brand,
instead of making things more difficult, adding more steps, telling people, you know,
a very specific way of how things need to work, I thought simpler is better.
I mean, I have found this time and time and time again that the more simple we can make things,
the better things are.
This is when I was mobile detailing, I whittled my, you know, how many chemicals I used down to
as little amount of chemicals as possible because it just was simpler.
It was just easier.
It was just made things more efficient.
When I, you know, look at marketing or video, YouTube videos that I do or marketing campaigns
that I like myself, simpler is always better.
I bring this up all the time to people in real life, but I get my stickers from a place called Sticker Mule.
Stickermule.com, right?
I get my stickers there.
And Stickermule, every, I don't know if it's once a week, I don't know the frequency,
but they send out these super, super basic emails and they're like three line emails.
And it talks about their deal of that week, right?
19, you know, $19 for 50 stickers or whatever it is, right?
And they're very, very simple, easy to digest marketing emails.
And I started to really pay attention to this because every other email that I get is like,
has a super flashy infographic, tons of buttons, very long and usually annoying to read through, right?
And, but they look really nice.
And I contrasted that to these Stickermule emails that I get that I find myself not wanting to unsubscribe to
because they're so easy to digest.
They're simple.
It's just plain text with a simple link sent from the founder.
It's very simple, right?
And so, again, when I look at my own product brand and what I'm trying to build and everything,
I just thought simple is better.
Tough as shell.
It doesn't smell.
It's a water-based product.
It's, you just spray and wipe.
It applies like a detail spray.
But what people are starting to realize is that the results that they get from it are much better.
So the number one complaint is that they're too easy to use and they feel like they need to put more effort into it, right?
But here's what I thought is like customers shouldn't have to be chemists.
They shouldn't have to be pros.
You're chasing a result, not the process, right?
So you want to be able to enjoy the process.
I mean, shoot, even that goes back to my days helping that brand projade.
Their tagline is enjoy the process, which is a tagline I made up for them.
You could actually go look at, I think that's still their tagline to enjoy the process because this philosophy, this way of detailing cars,
this way of doing things that I am.
It's finally, I have this outlet with my own brand to do it, but it's what my core beliefs are.
Simpler is better.
Customers shouldn't have to jump through 18,000 steps to use the product.
Product label should be honest.
Processes should always be safe.
Formulas should always be the safest possible, right?
Easy to use is builds confidence in your ability to detail the car on your own to get the result that you want on your own, right?
So this is my mission and this is why I'm obviously so excited to have finally the outlet to be able to showcase this of things, you know, how things can be done.
And even though this is a by far, the number one complaint that I get, I mean, literally by far is that people just don't think,
they don't think they're going to get the result that they're after because it's too easy to get that result, right?
And this, I mean, the most recent example of this is with the picture perfect polish.
Like people think that you need a heavy cut compound and a polish to get perfect paint correction, but the truth is you don't.
People think that you can't have a, you know, 3D1 is my all time favorite polish compound, whatever you want to call it, right?
But there's a couple of things that I didn't like about it.
One, it really dries out my hands when I use it and just makes my hands feel weird and it smells really bad to me, right?
Those were two things that I wanted to change.
And what I found out is you could actually easily change those things and the brands are actually actively not doing those things on purpose to save money.
A solvent that doesn't smell is significantly more expensive than a solvent that smells significantly more expensive.
However, for me, because my truth and my mission and all that is to be different, I wanted a compound and a polish that one didn't dry out your hands,
didn't smell, didn't dust, didn't make it so you needed two different products.
I just wanted one, right?
And so I went on a mission to do that and come to find out you actually can do that.
It just takes an incredible amount of work and incredibly talented team of people around you to do it, right?
But the same was true with Tough as Shell.
People expect Ceramic Spray to streak a little bit and there's a ton of brands that their products do streak and then they have a damp towel or a wet towel or whatever
and it's like, hey, there's ways to do it without it streaking, right?
Same thing with the Super Soap or Complete Cabin Cleaner.
Can we clean an interior that repels dust, doesn't leave a high shine but also doesn't dry out a panel, right?
And so these, every product that I bring to the market is just another example of what kind of I believe can be done and my way of doing it differently
but doing it more simple or simpler.
I don't know if simpler is a word, right?
But honestly, the biggest complaint I get is that it's too easy but then it works too well, right?
And another complaint I get with Tough as Shell is like, man, like two to three days later my car is even shinier.
Like how is that possible?
I felt like it just took no effort to apply this to my car and my car looks better and better and better, you know?
So anyway, I think the biggest complaint I get is that my stuff works too well and it's too easy.
I think we're doing all right.
And so I'm inviting other people that are looking for products like that that are also safe.
Another thing that I see floating around is that people are finding ingredients in some of these chemicals that are forever chemicals or whatever
are totally safe and should be cautious of using them and that's true.
And Pure Magic Cleaner, it's an acid-based cleaner.
Like acids can be very dangerous, right?
But it's actually a much safer acid than hydrofluoric acid, right?
Which is why I went that route.
And so it's not always possible and I definitely don't blame other companies for the chemistry that they currently have
because sometimes you're limited to the knowledge of the chemist that is making it, right?
Or the blending facility that you're getting it.
And so I think there's no fault to that and I think it's helpful to have other people kind of chiming in
and telling you what chemicals may be dangerous and getting kind of groupthink around that.
But again, for me, my goal is to always make products that, one, actually work, right?
Don't lie to you.
Make detailing fun again.
And for whatever reason, people have a hard time wrapping their brain around that.
Detailing can be fun.
Products can be easy to use.
And they don't have to be super, super labor intensive because not everyone has a ton of time to clean their car
but they want to result, you know?
And same thing with, I think the Gloss Boss is, you know, the most unique ceramic coating on the market
because when we were building it out, one thing I wanted was very long work times
because after you do a paint correction, honestly, the last thing you want to do is lay down the coating.
But it's the most important part, right?
But I thought how can we shortcut this? How can we make it faster?
And so the Gloss Boss is, I think, the most unique ceramic coating on the market
because you can apply it to literally half a car before you have to level it.
And then when you go back to level, it almost has that invisible technology.
It's very hard to see where it even was because so much of it is bonding to the surface correctly, right?
Especially when you use it after the picture perfect polish.
And so, again, try to be honest, try to be fair, try to be unique.
And I try to rally around and find people that are interested in that
and people that want an easier product. They don't want a ton of steps.
I feel like the market is super saturated with products like that.
And so, yeah, I thought it would be fun to just share the number one complaint
because it really is the number one complaint that I get from my product line.
And so I put out these podcasts, these videos to try to help explain why that is.
So hopefully you found that useful.
If so, leave a comment below and let me know.
And as always, thank you for your support.
It means a ton.
Helps with product development, helps me to launch new products that are easy.
A couple of new products that I'm looking at developing for 2026
is the Foamon Rents Off Paint Protection.
We're not quite there yet.
Looks like I will have another sample of that here soon.
I have some pretty stringent requirements for that.
I really want to get down to the one ounce in a foam cannon.
I think that would make it like incredibly, incredibly economical, cost wise.
And so I just need no streaking.
Last one I totally messed up my car.
Anyway, so that one, and then I'm also looking at a tire cleaner.
I have a very good rim cleaner, multi-purpose cleaner, really,
water spots, bug guts, all that in pure magic cleaner.
But I'm looking for a tire.
I'm looking at a tire cleaner.
I have a couple unique features that I want done with that
that I'm not quite ready to share, but I will share in future videos.
So those are kind of the two products that I'm looking at,
at least for the first quarter of 2026 to possibly launch
with probably the foam on rinse off paint protectant being the number one.
So hopefully have another video on that soon.
But yeah, make sure you subscribe and follow along
so that you can catch up on those videos.
And of course, JimbosDetailing.com for everything else.
Appreciate your guys' support.
Catch you on the next one. See ya.
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About this episode
A deep dive into the common complaint that detailing products are 'too easy to use.' The host shares personal experiences and frustrations that led to the creation of his own car care brand, emphasizing that simplicity doesn't compromise quality. He challenges the long-held belief that more complicated products yield better results, advocating for user-friendly solutions that deliver impressive outcomes. The discussion also touches on the importance of honest labeling and the evolution of detailing products, aiming to make the process enjoyable and accessible for everyone.
Original notes
The number one complaint I get about my detailing products has nothing to do with performance or durability. It's that they are too easy to use and they actually do what the label says.
In this video, I break down why simple, effective products often get criticized, why the detailing world is conditioned to expect complicated systems, and why I intentionally design products that save time and deliver real results.
What we cover:
→ Why "too easy" gets treated like a flaw
→ The mindset and misinformation in the detailing space
→ Why simple products often outperform complicated ones
→ How this approach shapes my entire product line
Products Mentioned:
Tough As Shell Ceramic Spray
→ https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/hard-as-shell-ceramic-spray
→ Amazon: https://amzn.to/43bHBWC
The Super Soaper
→ https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/the-super-soaper
Picture Perfect Polish
→ https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/picture-perfect-polish
All Dressed Up
→ https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/all-dressed-up
Complete Cabin Cleaner
→ https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/complete-cabin-cleaner
Jimbo's Detailing on Amazon: https://www.jimbosdetailing.com/amazon
Subscribe for more detailing talk, honest reviews, and behind-the-scenes product development.
→ https://www.youtube.com/jbalaam
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Jimbo Balaam interviews guest like Barry Meguiar, Jason Rose, Yvan Lacroix,
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