The best quick detailer

Sometimes you want to give your car a little visual boost without having to get the wax, car shampoo and buckets out. Light contamination like dust and fingerprints shouldn’t require an afternoon spent cleaning, this is where a quick detailer steps in.

These simple and affordable sprays are fantastic for maintaining the appearance of a car in-between washes. Not only will they effortlessly lift small surface-level contamination, but they’ll also enhance the glossiness of a car’s paintwork and some premium examples will even provide a small level of protection too.

That’s not all either, the relatively humble quick detailer can perform a number of other car care duties, ranging from extra protection right down to serving as a waterless wash. We’re huge fans of these multipurpose sprays and think every car owner should have a bottle, that’s why we’ve found the best examples on sale.

The best quick detailer

Just as waxes have been upgraded with the introduction of ceramic technology (SiO2 or silicon dioxide), quick detailers are being infused with this tech to provide more durable protection. Duel Autocare Oxide Hybrid Detailer is one such example, and we think it’s fantastic.

It offers eight weeks of ceramic protection from a single application and also left a gorgeous shine in the paintwork of any car we used it on. It’s also extremely affordable for a ceramic-infused product. While it may not be explicitly designed to work as a clay lubricant or waterless wash, for protection and gloss, it’s sublime.

Bilt Hamber is an industry leader when it comes to excellent value and Auto-QD is perhaps the perfect example of this. Out of the bottle, this quick detailer is super concentrated, and dilution is required. This not only means you get much more than 500ml of product from one bottle but depending on your dilution Auto-QD can work as a waterless wash, wax enhancer, clay lubricant, drying aid and different strengths of gloss enhancement.

Auto-QD is also water-based which makes it a gem to work with and keeps the price down. Best of all, it’s designed with positively charged particles which provide anti-static properties. This means dust shouldn’t immediately settle back onto a treated panel, excellent news for keeping your car looking its best. For covering as many bases as possible, Bilt Hamber’s option is hard to beat.

If you want your quick detailer to give you a deeper gloss above all else then Project 64 from Autobrite Direct is a top pick. Bottled as a gloss enhancer, Project 64 provides a gorgeously deep shine to paintwork, alloy wheels, trim and even glass.

Beyond the gorgeous shine offered by this detailer, it also provides a reasonably durable layer of hydrophobic protection, for up to eight weeks if layered properly. It'll also serve to top-up layers of already applied protection, including ceramic options.

A strong offering from Soft99, Fukupika is designed to work as both a quick detailer and a waterless wash without the need for dilution. Soft99 claims that this spray will easily tackle light dirt while leaving behind a deep gloss in the car's paintwork, lifting away light grime without leaving scratches in the paintwork.

It also uses fluoropolymers to provide an invisible layer of protection to a car, either as a top-up for an existing wax or as a stand-alone thin layer of protection. While we doubt the claimed six months of protection, other fluoropolymer-based sealants offered by Soft99 are exceptional. Fukupika is also environmentally designed too, with no alcohol or petroleum-based solvents in its formula.

Autoglym claim its Rapid Detailer has two uses, as a gloss enhancer and as a clay lubricant. It works well at both, with the gloss enhanced and a small layer of polymeric protection left behind after a quick spray, and excellent lubrication offered for any clay bar. It may not be the most interesting of products, but it is capable, affordable and delivers great gloss.

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