Category Archives: Professional Detailing

Safely removing stubborn contamination from car paint using chemical decontamination
09
Oct
Guides & Tips, Paint Correction, Professional Detailing

Why Chemistry Should Come Before Scrubbing Your Paint

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

When something is stuck to your paint, most people have the same instinct: scrub harder. I understand why. You wash the car, the contamination is still there, so the natural reaction is to apply more pressure, grab something more aggressive or start scraping. In detailing, that is often exactly the wrong direction to go. One […]

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Comparison of 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and lifetime ceramic coating durability
02
Oct
Ceramic Coatings, Exterior Detailing, Guides & Tips, Matte Car Care, Matte Ceramic Coating, Professional Detailing

1-Year vs. 3-Year vs. 5-Year vs. Lifetime Ceramic Coatings: What’s the Real Difference?

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

Shop for a ceramic coating and you’ll quickly run into a confusing set of choices: 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, lifetime. It’s easy to assume a 5-year coating must be five times better than a 1-year coating, or that “lifetime” means your paint will stay protected forever. It isn’t that simple. The […]

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Water spots and mineral deposits on car paint after summer
25
Sep
Ceramic Coatings, Exterior Detailing, Guides & Tips, Paint Correction, Professional Detailing

Why Your Car Is Covered in Water Spots After Summer

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

Summer Leaves Evidence Behind Every September, we see the same thing at the shop. A customer brings in a car they have washed faithfully all summer. It looks clean from ten feet away, but under proper lighting we see rings across the hood, cloudy patches on the roof and a roughness on the trunk lid […]

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Lovebug residue covering a car's front end during Florida lovebug season
18
Sep
Guides & Tips, Matte Car Detailing Basics, Matte Car Washing, Professional Detailing

Lovebug Season in Florida: What Bugs Actually Do to Your Paint

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

If you’ve driven through Florida during lovebug season, you already know the drill. A few miles on the highway and the front of a clean car turns into a mess of black insect remains across the bumper, mirrors, hood, grille and windshield. During a heavy season it can feel pointless to even bother, because they’re […]

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urfactant Chemistry: How the Right Cleaner Matches the Soil
10
Sep
Guides & Tips, Interior Detailing, Professional Detailing

Lab Notes: Surfactant Class Alone Doesn’t Tell You What a Cleaner Is Good At

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

In the piece on why one interior cleaner can’t clean every stain, I made the case that strength is the wrong axis to think about. The real variable is chemistry matched to soil. That piece stayed at the practical level on purpose. This one goes underneath it, into the formulation chemistry that actually explains why […]

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Back-to-school car messes and the right cleaners for each
10
Sep
Guides & Tips, Interior Detailing, Professional Detailing

Back to School: 3 Messes That Need 3 Specific Cleaners

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

Early in the days of Simon’s Shine Shop, a detailer brought me a car that was almost finished. The interior looked immaculate except for one stain on the headliner that the team could not get out. They had already tried the strongest cleaner in the shop, and it hadn’t touched it. Their next move was […]

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Blue sports car hood with black racing stripes
20
Aug
Ceramic Coatings, Exterior Detailing, Featured, Guides & Tips, Interior Detailing, Professional Detailing

August Sun: Does Ceramic Technology Really Protect Against UV?

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

Park a vehicle outside on a sunny August afternoon and you can feel what the sun is doing before you ever see it. The paint becomes almost too hot to touch. The dashboard heats up. Leather, vinyl, plastics, rubber and exterior trim spend hours exposed to sunlight and elevated temperatures. Do that occasionally and very […]

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Gloved hand sprays cleaner on wet car exterior
17
Jul
Exterior Detailing, Featured, Guides & Tips, Interior Detailing, Professional Detailing

When Does Cleaning Chemistry Actually Stop?

Posted on by Jim Lafeber

The Science Behind Dr. Beasley’s Adaptive Buffer Technology™  Every product we retire teaches us something.  Sometimes it means the product wasn’t good enough, and sometimes it means we’ve found a better way to solve a problem an existing product already solved well. pH Neutralizer falls firmly into the  second category: it worked exactly as intended, […]

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Detailing Business, Improvement, Matte Vehicles
14
Feb
Behind the Detail, Professional Detailing

Improve your Detailing Business by Offering Matte Services

Posted on by Will MacNeil

This isn’t going to be a blog on how to operate a detailing business, but it will tell you how to step up your game and rise above your competition. You got it, matte finishes is the trade to know to improve your detailing business. This is the part where you say, “Why? Hardly anyone […]

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