The Benefits of Automotive Clay

Part of doing a good detail job on a car is making sure that you clay the car's paint thoroughly. Not only does the clay leave a better finish, remove many harmful surface contaminants from your paint, but it also allows your wax job to last longer.

But, what is clay? People ask me this all the time and understandably so. I mean, clay is something that auto enthusiast (you know, those people who love their cars so much that it boarders on insanity...like me for example when I had my MINI) have used for years. Clay is a piece of puddy that when rubbed on the painted surface of a car it removes any contaminants that have gotten into the pores of the paint.

That blue stuff is clay. It feels like silly puddy...and no it doesn't bounce!

You see, paint is porous like your skin and like your skin sometimes you need to use those Bio re pore strips to get all the junk that's in your pores out before you have a gnarley zit breakout! Well, that's kind of how clay works. Or think of it as a way of exfoliating paint - once you've clayed the car the paint is ultra smooth and ready for protection like when you exfoliate your skin it makes your skin soft and ready to get all lotioned up with Suave or CoCo Butter or whatever! :)

Check out these diagrams of vehicle paint before and after clay:

So, as you can see, clay really makes a huge difference! But making the surface smooth and clean is not the only benefit. In addition to allowing the wax to adhere better to the painted surface, clay also causes your car to look shinier and glossier when the wax is added. The gloss is much deeper and more rich and that is due to the fact that the wax has been applied to paint and not to paint embedded with dirt, grime, industrial fallout etc. I guess a good example would be that when you get your nails done the glossy clear they add at the end is much shinier because they polished your nails before hand rather than just slapping some clear gloss on your nails and that's it.

So, that is what clay is and that is what it does. Pretty cool stuff, huh? The Japanese invented it...I guess it makes up for their invention of Hello Kitty and Japan-imations! :)