In just about every industry imaginable, things can always get complex and confusion. You can make any objective or goal have 100 steps in order to complete it.

The same goes for detailing your car.

There are hundreds and hundreds of choices to choose from in terms of products and tools to detail your car. Many of which claim to have a “slight” difference depending on your preference.

Car wash soap A will remove the wax, create a lot of suds, and has a cherry scent. Car wash soap B will remove the wax, create mild suds, and has a lemon scent.

Not much of a difference, right?

Yet, that’s how a lot of detailing manufactures compare their products amongst one another.

If you dive deeper and deeper into these steps, you can easily find yourself doing ten different things just to wash your car.

In this blog post, I’ll explain the main essentials to the car detailing process and show you how simple it really is.

The Main Process

Car wash > Clay > 1) If the paint is in good condition, wax it, 2) If the paint is in mild or bad condition, compound and polish the paint (2-step paint correction)> Add wax or sealant

At the most basic and essential level, that’s the entire car detailing process.

You’re first going to wash the car t o remove any loose dirt, debris, bird poo, bug guts, clean off the wheels, etc..

Next, if you need to clay bar the car due to above surface contaminants, you’ll clay bar the entire car to prep it for the paint correction or application of a wax or sealant.

If your paint is in not your desired condition, you’ll move it into the paint correction process so you can remove the swirls , scratches, and any other imperfections that you want to address.

Finally, you’ll seal the deal by applying your choice of either a wax or a sealant for protection and a little bit more shine.

As a side note, just because your paint might be in bad condition, that doesn’t mean you have to remove the swirls and scratches. That’s only if you really want the paint to look amazing.

The Detailing Process Can Be Complex

It’s always best to keep things simple. The more complex and technical you want to get with all the tools and products, the more steps that you’re going to add.

This isn’t a bad thing by any means, but it’ll add more room for error if you’re not paying attention. Not to mention that you’ll probably spend more money on different products and tools that you want to try out.

I definitely recommend going through the process and anything you’d like to add one-by-one. Don’t try to buy all the products and tools that you think you’ll need as you’ll see yourself with a lot of unused products and tools and probably a bit confused as well.