What are Clay Bars?

Clay bars are for quickly removing things that regular washing cannot, like paint over spray, embedded dirt, tree sap, light tar, bug residue and just about any other contaminants that want to bond to your paint, glass or hard chrome surface. 

Our clay bars and towels are a fast and easy way to help prepare your paint before applying a cleanser, wax or sealant. Made to safely remove stronger embedded contaminants and grime from your paint and glass, that normal washing won’t budge. They create a beautiful smooth surface so the Paint Cleanse & Restore works better and allows our Carnauba Waxes, Fully Slick and Bead Machine sealants to protect your paint for longer. Use them whenever your paint feels rough, or before you paint cleanse and wax.

All clay towels and bars use a super fine abrasive in them, making it important to use a good lubricant like our Boss Gloss, Nanolicious Wash or Wax Wash with them, so they glide over the surface, rather than touch it and create micro marring.

Previous to the clay bars arrival, you would have machine polished your paint to remove the top layer from the paints surface to take away these bonded contaminants. Those days are now gone, as good quality clay bars won't remove your paint when used correctly - they glide over it with a suitable lubricant in between the clay bar and the paint. This allows the tacky compound to grab and safely shear off the contaminants that protrude from the paint surface, and embed them in the sticky bar, leaving a beautiful smooth finish. Unlike machine polisihing, clay bars are not wearing down your paints surface every time you use them, something we see as very important with modern clear coated paints. 

Clay bars are a synthetic engineered resin compound, that feel a little bit like blue tack. They are not abrasive in the way they work, but they do however contain a very fine component of different abrasive materials in them. On the less aggressive bars, the abrasives won't affect the hard surfaces they are used on, as long as you have a good quality lubricant. 

Our custom made Fine Clay Bar is what we see as best for enthusiasts to use on their cars, using super fine abrasive content in a non drying bar. This formula takes away the risk of using the more common heavier grades of industrial clay bars, that can potentially micro-marr or scratch your paints' surface. It's that fine, it wont remove your carnauba wax coat or paint sealant either. 

It’s important to note that clay bars are not for removing fine scratches, swirls marks, heavier water marks or paint etching. For these issues you will need to look at traditional machine polishing to rectify them correctly.

We strongly reccomend using Clay Bars as the start of many detailing jobs, (even for brand new cars) as they make our Paint Cleanse & Restore preparation product work better and easier and most importantly helps any carnauba wax or paint sealant look better and last longer.

To check if your paint really needs to be clayed is easy; after washing a section of your car, run your fingers over the paint. If it feels rough or gritty in any way, use the Fine Clay Bar to bring it back to a glass like smoothness. 

You'll find the clay bar is a remarkable product and well worth becoming part of your regular car care regimen. Read on to see how easy they are to use.