Majestic Solutions: the best detailing products you’ve never heard of.

Published on December 23, 2009

I could just as easily put this in “Unsung Heroes,” or in “Cheap Finds,” but really, Majestic Solutions deserves higher accolades than that.  –Karl

There are certain items that I wouldn’t be without as a detailer.  A lot of those products are from a company you may have never heard of: Majestic Solutions.  Majestic Solutions (MS for short) is a small, family owned company in Raleigh, NC, that makes many of its products right there in the back of their building.  Mostly, they service NC area auto dealers and car washes through their delivery truck business.  They also have a small, but well stocked, retail store up front.  And it’s here where I (and my buddy JL) buy a whole bunch of the products I use the most of.  Here are my three favorites.

Just for a start, their flagship car soap, Ultra Gloss, is my absolute favorite soap.  It’s seriously slick.  It suds up great.  It smells like cherries.  And it’s loaded with polymers, so it’s like washing a car with a big bucket of high-end quick detailer.  I’ve tried many of the high end, “boutique” soaps, and Ultra Gloss is my easy favorite.  Price independent.  Nevermind that the stuff costs $20…a gallon.

Super Green Stuff all-purpose cleaner is another one that I use every time I detail a car.  It’s my de-facto wheel cleaner.  I use it in engine bays and wheel wells, on tires, on rubber trim, anything that needs a thorough cleaning.  You cut it 3:1 (water:product) for the toughest tasks, so it’s very cost effective.  It even smells good.  And it’s only $12/gallon!

Maybe most impressive, though, is one of their carpet cleaners, called Extraction Plus.  Seriously.  I don’t know how it’s possible, but stains just…disappear.  It’s eerie.  You spray it on, agitate, blot it up, and that’s it.  I can not overstate how amazing this stuff is.  And you cut it 10:1 (water:product), so a quart bottle lasts for a really long time.  It smells great, too.  I’ll put it this way.  My mother has three cats and three dogs.  She needs a good carpet cleaner.  She’s hooked on Extraction Plus.  Only problem is, it works so well, that it leaves the surrounding, uncleaned areas looking a little dingy.  It’s that good.

I’ve probably got a dozen or more Majestic Solutions products in regular rotation, but those three are the real standouts.  Their website doesn’t look like much, and they don’t have fancy bottles and boutique labels.  But try them out anyway.  Excellent, excellent stuff.

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Filed in Automotive, Detailing, Product Reviews | No replies

Cheap Find #1: Pro Line grout sponge

Published on November 30, 2009

This will be the first in what I hope will be a series of articles.  ”Cheap Finds” are usually locally found, or found in unlikely stores.  They also tend to be unlikely products altogether – stuff that you wouldn’t think is serviceable in detailing, but actually, does a hell of a good job.  –Karl

Credit for this goes to the guys on Detailing Bliss.

Sort of like ice cream, when it comes to “wash media,” everybody has a favorite.  Some detailers insist on lamb’s wool mitts.  Others are sea sponge advocates.  There are microfiber mitts, hundreds of different sponges, and all sorts of “clever” ideas that often don’t work.  I’ve tried a handful of different wash media, and I keep returning to a grout sponge you can buy at Lowe’s Home Improvement for two bucks.

It’s perfectly sized.  It’s large, but not so large that you empty your entire wash bucket using it to wash the roof of a small car.  :)  It’s super soft.  It fits your hand well.  It creates a lot of suds when you squeeze it.  And don’t forget…it’s two bucks!  I wish I could remember who it was that originally discovered this little gem.  It wasn’t me.

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Unsung Hero #1: Vinylex

Published on November 28, 2009

This will be the first in what I hope will be a series of articles.  ”Unsung Heroes” are detailing products that I feel are overlooked, underappreciated, or forgotten, and are worth consideration.  –Karl

I love Vinylex, which is made by the Lexol folks.  I’ve tried a bunch of other plastic/vinyl/rubber dressings, even dating back many, many years ago, when I was 16 and used Dad’s Armor All.  The man who first introduced me to proper detailing products suggested that I try Vinylex instead of Armor All.  I did, and I loved it.  That was probably 18 years ago.  Since then, I’ve used a handful of the many boutique dressings, and some of the more mainstream ones too.  I keep returning to Vinylex.

I use Vinylex on interior trim (dashboards, control panels, etc) where I want to darken up the plastic or vinyl and bring some life back into it.  Vinylex can be shiny if you use a lot of it; some people like shiny, and that’s fine.  Me, I don’t care for shiny.  So, I don’t get all heavy handed with the Vinylex, and in spots where I do, I simply buff it with a clean, dry microfiber towel.  This evens up the look, reduces some of the shine, yet still leaves plastic and vinyl looking great.

It’s also excellent on stuff like rubber weatherstripping.  It’ll keep your weatherstripping nice and pliant, and will help those of you in cold climates when opening your doors.  It won’t rub off onto your pants leg when you get in and out of your car, either.  It also works great under the hood, on things like radiator hoses and vacuum lines.

I’ve used it on the black plastic trim (which I wrote about redying recently), too.  As with all dressings, it’s not permanent, but it makes a nice difference to black plastic.  Vinylex is even an excellent tire dressing.  If you like your tires to look black and new, but not “used car lot shiny,” give Vinylex a try.  It looks great.

People on detailing forums rave about 303 Aerospace Protectant.  And they’re right, it’s a great product.  Vinylex is just as good, costs a lot less, and is much easier to find.

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Filed in Automotive, Detailing, Unsung Heroes | No replies

Black plastic trim. I hate it.

Published on November 1, 2009

I’m not sure when it became the norm, but I’m guessing that somewhere around the 1980s, automobile manufacturers started putting unpainted, black plastic trim all over everything.  And I hate the stuff.  You’ve seen it, heck, you might even own a vehicle so equipped.  Bumpers, rub strips, windshield wiper cowling, mirror housings, grilles.  The stuff is all over the place, and it seems like an inevitability that it will, eventually, look like crap.

Dressings can make it look a lot better.  Clean the item well, and apply the dressing per the directions on its label.  Detailing e-stores and auto parts store shelves are crowded with products called “Black Eternity” and “Trim Fixer Upper.”  Some of them work pretty well.  But most of them don’t.  Inevitably – even with the best trim dressings – your trim will look gray, weatherbeaten, and ragged again.  Hopefully, your dressing won’t have run down all over the rest of your car in the meantime (you did wipe off the excess, correct?)

Anyway, we’ve all had it with this stuff.  I’ve found the fix.  Re-dye it.

This is a process that isn’t always practical; it’s best when done on trim that can be removed from the vehicle.  On an E46 BMW 330i ZHP I recently did, for example, there was a large expanse of black plastic honeycomb covering the air intake for the radiator.  The car owner might know how to remove this piece, but I, as a detailer, certainly shouldn’t disassemble the front bumper of a $40K+ car.

If it’s something that can be removed somewhat easily, though, I think re-dyeing the trim is the way to go.  Here’s a re-dye of the mirrors on my personal F250.

Before starting, they looked rough, weatherbeaten and fading.  They’re famous for this, and dressings only make them look better temporarily:

I took them off the truck and masked off the glass so I wouldn’t get any overspray onto it.

Wipe them down with some sort of body solvent:

Spray with the plastic dye of your choice.  The one I used is made by Malco:

After you’ve applied the dye, reinstall the items, and admire the improvement:

So, there you have it.  If the plastic trim you’re working with can be removed from the vehicle without damaging it, try redying it.  It’ll look much better, for much longer, than it ever could with simple dressing.

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Filed in Automotive, Detailing | One reply

The small things.

Published on October 24, 2009

Detailing suits me.  If you’ve ever seen the BBS television show Top Gear, you’ve no doubt met “Captain Slow,” James May.  James and I share an affliction for having our cars just so.

  • James May claims that there is one item in his car – a paintbrush, to brush dust out of the crevices between buttons and whatnot.  I do that too (although mine doesn’t happen to be a paintbrush)
  • During the “Cheap Porsche Challenge (Season 5, episode 6),” the other two presenters do outlandish things to their cars to impress the Porsche Club judges.  James has his engine bay detailed.  Which is what I’d have done.
  • There is a similar challenge involving Alfa Romeos (Season 11, episode 3).  Similarly to the Cheap Porsche Challenge, there is a car show that the guys take their cars to.  True to form, Jeremy and Richard do ridiculous things.  James polishes the paint on his.  Which is what I’d have done.
  • James has often spoken of his compulsion regarding the vent registers in his car.  They all have to be pointing in exactly the same direction.  I’m the same way.  When I’ve got passengers, and they move the vents, I don’t stop them – but as soon as I’m finished carrying them around, I return them to their correct position.

This kind of compulsion is what drives me to do something like polish the bare metal under the hood of my S2000.  I started off with the hard A/C lines.  They’re made out of aluminum, and are uninsulated in parts.  They were looking oxidized and white, like aluminum often does.  So, I polished them.  Shortly after doing so, I discovered that the lettering on the spark plug cover is unpainted.  So, it all had to match:

More shiny A/C line goodness:

Now, a “before” photo of the spark plug cover lettering:

After polishing:

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Filed in Automotive, Detailing, S2000 | No replies