After you just had a fresh car detail, you’re almost certainly going to be obsessive over the cleanliness of your car for the weeks to come.
You’ll do your best to avoid eating in your car, and might spend your time searching for specks of dust on your dashboard with a magnifying glass. It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again.
If you really do want to hold onto this new car appearance for as long as you can, a microfiber cloth will become your absolute best friend. It’s something you should always keep in your car.
Despite being so cheap, and so simplistic in nature, this cleaning accessory is such an essential tool in keeping your car spotless.
Microfiber cloths are made unique by their incredibly small fibers, measuring less than 1/10th the thickness of a strand of hair! This makes them exceptional at cleaning nearly every surface you can imagine, and even professional car detailers will have a large array of microfiber cloths they swear by.
Vehicle exteriors, wheel bays, interiors, glass, electronics – they really do it all!
How you can use them
In a new freshly detailed car, it’s only a matter of time before dust and dirt shows up.
Microfiber cloths have excellent absorbent properties, don’t carry lint, and have gentle non-abrasive fibers which makes them the perfect tool to fix this problem.
- Dust or dog hairs on your dashboard and screens? Microfiber cloth.
- Window condensation? Microfiber cloth.
- Dirt and dust in your cup holders? Microfiber cloth.
- Spill? You know it – microfiber cloth.
- Dirty windows? Bust out some window cleaner, and wipe it up with a microfiber cloth for streak-free cleaning.
The best part after all of this is that you can wash them, and reuse them as much as you want! Just throw one in with your laundry loads, or wash by hand, and never again drive without one!
*Note that microfiber cloths are best washed with mild, unscented detergents and without fabric softeners.
But what makes them so worth it? Why not just keep a paper towel roll with you?
Strong Absorbency
Due to their complex fiber structure, they are exceptional at absorbing liquids. So exceptional in fact that they can hold up to 7x their weight in water!
This makes them perfect for cleaning up small spills, wiping off that condensation, and drying surfaces with streak free cleaning.
Lots of spills require quick action to avoid staining, so if you always have a cloth on you, this isn’t something you really need to worry about.
No lint
Paper towels can leave lint behind, which ends up creating another mess for you to deal with. That’s not a problem with microfiber cloths, as their fibers are better able to trap dust, dirt and particles and entirely prevent them from being rubbed back onto the clean surface.
The lint in paper towels is an unavoidable result from their production process, which requires compressing wood pulp or other plant fibers into a thin absorbent sheet. Microfiber towels are made from tightly woven synthetic materials, which considerably reduces the risk of ‘shedding,’ also known as lint.
They’re also designed for durability, and to be reused unlike paper towels. Although paper towels definitely have a important purpose, they are single-use and the difference of quality is evident.
Gentleness
If you haven’t got it by now, I don’t like paper towels for car cleaning. The main reason why is because they can be so abrasive, and can leave scratches and swirl marks on any surface they touch.
Microfiber cloths on the other hand are quite gentle, which makes them ideal for cleaning glass, screens and sensitive areas without any damage. For example, if you ever buy one of those phone cleaning kits at a store, a mini microfiber cloth will always be included.
If you can trust them with your phone screen (which can cost over $1,000+ nowadays… Looking at you, Apple) you can surely trust them with your car surfaces.
But also don’t be afraid to just abuse them. You don’t have to use them for gentle surfaces only. Use them on your wheels, use them when changing oil – who cares. Just make sure to wash or dispose of them after, they’re dirt cheap.
Personally, I always keep one in my glove box since the day I became obsessed with car cleanliness, and I’m really surprised more people don’t. I like to just do a quick wipe down of my dashboard, wheel and various plastic surfaces to get rid of dust that inevitably builds up. It makes my car look consistently clean, yet takes so little effort.