Nanoscrub Clay Bar Mitt

Detailing 101 stipulates that if you’re going to wax/polish your car, then you MUST clay bar first to remove all of the surface contaminants. If you don’t clay first, you’ll be buffing all of the rust, dust, tar, and other road debris straight into your paint, ultimately making things worse and not better.  The problem is that clay barring your car is such a huge pain in the butt – it’s very time consuming and tedious, and it actually makes the car look worse at first (or at least not noticeably better). In fact, I dislike clay barring so much that I put off detailing all together because of it – but not anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, the Nanoscrub wash mitt (or pad) is a GAME CHANGER for detailing your car.What used to take at least an hour can now be done in 10 minutes or less, just wash your car like normal and then go over it with the mitt and you can feel it pull everything off the car. You can buy it on Amazon or DetailedImage for just under $50. While this product costs 10 times as much as a bar of clay, it will save you so much time and hassle that it will be the best money you’ve spent on detailing products in your life.

You may think I’m exaggerating or being hyperbolic thus far, but I really am this excited about a wash mitt. It does a great job too; while my car didn’t have a ton of contaminants built up, I could tell a big difference after doing a few passes on the trunk/bumper and behind the wheels where most of the road grime accumulates…the car goes from being a little rough to smooth as a baby’s butt, just like normal clay. Nanoskin offers both a fine grade and a medium grade option, but like normal clay the fine grade is going to more than sufficient for most cars – save the medium grade for the really rough cars like work trucks or severely abused paint. To use it, start by washing your car like normal with a normal mitt or foam gun to create the lubrication, then use the Nanoscrub mitt in your clean bucket and keep the surface well lubed at all times…then go over the surface like a normal wash mitt with light pressure until it feels smooth. The nice part about not spending forever on claying is that you get right to the good stuff (paint correction/polish) where you start to see results.

The end result on my paint was awesome – I’ve done minimal editing to these photos and as you can see the paint looks incredible. After claying I used Menzerna 3-in-1 Cut, Gloss & Wax with a white foam pad for the end result, and couldn’t be happier with the result. The best part was that my entire detail was done in <4 hours, and that included some paint correcting on the hood, roof, and trunk (Meguiars DA Microfiber Disc + Paint Correction Compound for that) and some lollygagging too. Stay tuned for the next post where I talk about the paint correction & polish products I used to wrap up this detail and made my 10 year old car look showroom new.