Turtle Wax - Car Wax

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Makes your car shiny
Disadvantages:	Can be hard work, and you need to take your time .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Seeing as I've been using a lot of this recently - as well as other products, I thought I'd do a review on it.

*History of Tutle Wax*

Turtle Wax is an American Company, and has been producing car care products for about 50 years. The founder of Turtle Wax, Ben Hirsch, worked in the grocery business and invented many products such as chocolate-covered bananas, dessert toppings and a detergent. When Ben met his wife, Marie, they set out to create the first liquid car polish - which later became known as Plastone.

It was on a trip to Wisconsin in the 1950s that Ben discovered Turtle Creek, and made the connection between the tutle's protective shell and his product, Plastone. He renamed Plastone 'Super Hard Shell' and changed the company name to 'Tutle Wax'.

Turtle Wax now have their own car wash centres in the USA, and also sell non-car products such as household cleaners and shoe care.

*About Tutle Wax the Product.*

The Turtle Wax that I'm reviewing is the 'hard' wax rather than the liquid kind. It comes in a round 12oz tin, green and cream in colour, and I purchased it from Motormania for £5.99.

According to the tin it contains Brazilian carnauba wax to give your car brilliant shine, corrects fine abrasions and wipes off clean, leaving no hard to remove residue.

The wax is light beige in colour and it smells like, well, wax. If anyone's used wax on bare wood before, it smells pretty much the same as that. It's not an unpleasant smell, let me put it that way.

*Directions*

You first need to wash and dry your car. Once dry, use the applicator included with the tin (damp) to apply a thin layer of wax on the car, one section at a time. Allow the product to slightly haze, then lightly wipe off with a cotton towel. Finally, use a clean cloth to buff.

*My Experience*

The first times I used this, I made several mistakes with the wax, applying it far too thickly and as a consequence finding it hard to remove and buff. It took a few attempt but I think I've finally got it right.

The wax is very difficult to get out of the tin, and the only time I didn't struggle with this was when the tin had got warmed slightly from the sun. I wouldn't recommend heating the wax up though as it's combustible!

The sponge they supply is quite small, and even with my small hands I found it awkward to use. However it may be a good thing as from trial and error I've learned to only do a small section of the car at a time. Obviously if the sponge was bigger you may get ahead of yourself.

You need several cloths handy ready for wiping off the wax. I've found places like Tesco and Wilkinsons sell special packs of cloths in the car products section, that are ideal for this purpose and cost less than a pound.

After wiping off all the excess wax, use a soft cloth to buff up the car. With this wax there's no need to rub too hard, but you do need to buff for quite a while to make it shiny. Once finished, move onto the next section.

Be careful not to get the wax onto other parts of the car like bumpers or round the edges of windows. If you do accidentally catch somewhere, make sure you wipe it off straight away, otherwise it will leave a mark - as I recently found out.

Once finished, stand back and admire your work. You could even fetch all your family and neighbours out to look how well you've done - just like I did!

This wax should last around three months, but different products last different lengths of time so be sure to check the bottle or tin. Try not to apply the wax more often than recommended as it creates build up on your car, and if used too often may dull the paintwork rather than making it shine.

*Verdict*

For this particular wax you need to make sure you have plenty of time, and are prepared to put the effort in, otherwise you won't get such good results - again, I learnt this from my own experiences.

If you do put the work in though, you will be rewarded with a really nice shiny car. Wax doesn't just make your car look better though, it also helps to protect your car, so it's well worth doing if you have a bit of free time.

If you have even more time there are other products you can use that will give you a better finish, but these are also more expensive, so it depends how serious about it you are. Also, there are products now that can save you time - such as 'wax it wet' which you can apply straight from washing your car, but this doesn't give you as good a result as dry waxing.

Overall, I was very pleased with the effect, especially since my car's about 12 years old!