Car Care Advice

Yes, some waxes are better for light or dark cars. Some will even tell you on the back of the bottle.

That was the simple answer, read on if you want to know why.
Some people think that the more wax you put on a car, the more glossy it will be… this isn’t actually the case. If you put 20 sheets of glass in front of a mirror, would it make it more reflective? Of course not. The reflected light would have to fight it’s way through all that glass and all it’s impurities, and wax isn’t nearly as clear and pure as glass!

So on your car, much of the reflected light is going through the wax, not just bouncing of of it. If you polish a car you can make it really shiny without the need of a wax, and in such a case what you want is a wax that goes on really thin, is really clear and doesn’t interfear with the reflected light. However, this isn’t a perfect world and not all cars are polished to a high degree. So what you get are micro-scratches that are caused by bits of grit scraping the paintwork as you are washing (See picture left). These can be much improved by using a wax that contains fillers and diffusers such as AutoGlym Ultra Deep shine. Fillers fill these scratches, but they still let light pass through - so these micro scratches will still catch the light. Diffusers refract the light and scatter it in all directions and this makes these micro-scratches far less noticable. However, this is the exact opposite to what were saying was the ideal… a wax which doesn’t interfear with the light and so gives clarity of reflection. Waxes with diffusers won’t look quite as shiny and glossy as those without. So you see, it’s a trade off.

What does this have to do with light and dark cars? Not much really, except that dark coloured cars show micro-scratches and other imperfections more than light coloured cars. So you are more likely to want a wax which contains a diffusers on a black car than you are on a silver car. On a brand new car, or on a car which is cared for and reguarly polished, you won’t want diffusers even if the car is black.