Do you wash your car with dish soap and wondering if it’s getting the job done? Or are you curious if using dish soap will be safe for your car’s paint?
Unlike what the TV commercials and other marketing labels tell you, dish soap is an option to use for washing your car.
In this article, I’ll cover what you need to know about using dish soap on your car.
Yes, It’s Okay To Use Dish Soap
To keep it simple for you, yes, you can use the soap you use for your dishes on your car’s paint. It has cleaning agents that will cut through the gunk and dirt that you’ve accumulated during your daily driving.
However, the problem, if you consider it a problem, is if you have a coat of wax on your car, the dish soap will probably remove the wax since the dish soap is a pretty aggressive cleaner.
So if you like to keep your car protected with a coat of wax or you like the shine that the wax gives your car, using dish soap may remove it entirely.
This will happen every time you decide to wash your car with dish soap.
The Alternative To Dish Soap
Although it may be convenient to grab the soap from the kitchen and squirt it into a bucket of water, you’ll always be removing your car’s wax. The next best thing to do is to buy a car wash soap that is wax friendly- which most of them will be.
You’ll have to read the labels a little bit, but it will say whether or not the wash soap will remove the wax or will simply wash the car.
Most people know about the soap that makes all the suds and bubbles. People love to have suds while they’re washing the car, it makes it feel like it’s getting a good cleaning.
But there are two other types of wash solution on the market. Those are:
- Rinseless wash
- Waterless wash
A rinseless wash is great if you don’t want to use that much water. When you’re using a soap that creates a lot of suds and bubbles, you’ll have to rinse off your car so you can take all the excessive soap off the paint.
When you use a waterless wash, it does not have the same suds so you do not have to rinse your car off once you’re done with the wash, you can go straight to the drying phase.
A waterless wash is a wash solution that uses no water (hence the name waterless). Instead of a wash bucket with a wash mitt, you’ll use 5 to 10 towels plus a 32oz sprayer to mist the waterless solution onto the paint and wipe it off with the towels.
Conclusion
Just keep in mind that you can use dish soap, but there are other wash solutions and methods that you can use to make washing your car easier and more convenient for you.
And if you have a wax on your car, don’t use dish soap as that will remove the protective coating and the shine (as the wax adds a layer of protection and shine).