Detailing Brushes: Why Detailers Go Crazy For Them

Detailing brushes, it has often been said, are a detailers best friend. We’ll back up this indisputable fact, too. As experienced professional detailers ourselves - not to mention the fact that we box up and ship out thousands upon thousands of brushes every single year – we know that detailing brushes are an important tool in any detailing arsenal. Brushes are not only crucial for maximising the potential of your detailing products, but for achieving the best professional results every time you clean your car.

But, aside from the fact that you now you need them, there’s still a question or two to answer. Small things like how they do what they do, and exactly why you should have a selection of suitable detailing brushes stashed away in your detailing kit.

So, let’s delve into the world of the best detailing brushes, and address the most common queries we receive along the way…

What is a detailing brush?

While it’s obvious that a detailing brush is a tool, some might say a brush, used for detailing, what’s far more important is how they’re used to clean surfaces safely.

Detailing brushes are so useful over a wide range of cleaning processes because they’re for nothing more than to make the most of your cleaning solutions. In most cases it’s not the actual brush that does the cleaning, it simply acts as an aid to your cleaner by ensuring that is reaches every part of the surface and is refreshed when needed.

Detailing products are developed with the goal of removing potentially harmful grime safely, that means without abrading or damaging the surface underneath. Our extensive range of advanced cleaning products in particular incorporate a variety of specially-developed surfactants and degreasers designed to break down and encapsulate particles in the solutions themselves. By locking on to and surrounding these microscopic pieces of grime, it keeps them away from surfaces and allows them to be rinsed or wiped away safely. This is what’s known as chemical cleaning, and it’s the safest way to remove contamination without causing damage. But, where does your brush come in?

Well, any given portion of your cleaning agent can only encapsulate so much grime before it’s what’s known as spent. By lightly agitating your cleaner with a suitable detailing brush you’re essentially moving away any solution that contains the maximum amount of dirt particles and replacing it with fresh solution to work its magic on any remaining grime. This process not only helps your cleaning agent tackle hardier contamination, but it also ensures you’re using all the cleaning solution you apply, without wasting any when your rinse or wipe.

So, aside from processes such as dry dusting vents and facias, or heavy cleaning on tyres to draw out grime, which are both examples of mechanical cleaning, rather than physically scrubbing surfaces to clean, your brush is solely there to help your detailing products get more bite and do their job of chemical cleaning more effectively.

What are detailing brushes made of?

Detailing brushes come in all shapes and sizes and, in most cases, exactly how they’re constructed will depend on the process they’re intended to carry out. A wheel brush for example is always going to be a different size to a small detailing brush you may be using for cleaning your cupholders.

The two most obvious parts to any brush are the handle and the cleaning media. Ergonomics, comfort in use and the durability of the bit you hold in your hand is important of course, but perhaps the most important part of all is the bit you use for the actual cleaning process.

Bristles are clearly the most common cleaning media when it comes to detailing brushes, and these can be synthetic or made from natural sources such as hog hair. Both have similar characteristics in terms of durability – they last for a long time if used as intended. But there’s a couple of other main considerations for detailing brushes and where you use them.

First of all, they need to be resilient to any cleaning chemicals you’re likely to use – it’s no good if your bristles melt when they come into contact with powerful degreasers, wheel cleaners or all-purpose cleaners. They need to stand up to use time and time again over many, many details.

Second, the firmness of the bristles should always be suitable for the cleaning process and material in question. The cleaning has to be as effective as possible, but crucially, without damaging the surface underneath. And, as we all know, there are many different types of surfaces on every car. So, you’ll need to keep in mind if your brush is surface-safe where your intend to use it.

A softer, scratch-free Detailing Brush is always preferable for aiding chemical cleaning on potentially sensitive, scratchable surfaces such as soft plastics or painted wheel finishes. While stiffer bristles will be more suited to bump up the mechanical cleaning to draw our dirt on non-sensitive surfaces. Take our Rubber Scrubber Tyre Brush – unlike painted surfaces you’re not going to harm your tyres with a spot of vigorous mechanical cleaning, right?

A medium brush - like our Upholstery Brush or Interior Detail Brush - is designed to be somewhere in-between. With a medium-soft bristles, a brush can be used to draw out grime from under the surface of your upholstery, carpets, leather and even convertible roofs, but it’s not so stiff that it’ll abrade the fibres or cause irreversible damage to the material itself.

Other brushes, in particular the ones we use for the most sensitive wheel finishes, can have their cleaning media made from microfibre or lambswool. Although they’re technically brushes, in cleaning terms at least, they can be seen as more as a hybrid between a brush and a wash mitt. These clean safely in the same way as your mitt, by passing over the surface and lifting away the contamination, trapping it in the pile and way from the surface.

What about the different sizes?

Apart from the usual considerations about the size of the detailing brush you use (like the fact that our Barrel Brush is a long, bendable multi-tasker designed to get into the most awkward parts of your wheels) the length and concentration of the bristles themselves is also important in terms of safe cleaning. First, the cleaning head needs to be able to physically get to the area in question, that much is obvious. But it also has to have sufficient length and volume to lift and store away grime.

In a similar way to how your cleaning agents surround potentially harmful particles the bristles in your brush will draw loose contamination up into the brush itself, keeping it away from the surface. It stands to reason then, that when tackling the heaviest contamination, it can be advantageous to have longer bristles capable of safely drawing up more grime as you clean. This is the reason why our Hog Hair Brushes have long bristles that are great for taking on oily engine bays and intricate wheel designs. And why the long, synthetic bristles on our Arch Blaster Arch Brush which is great for scrubbing out muddy inner arches and suspension components.

What is a dedicated detailing brush?

Aside from our selection of wheel brushes being used for wheels and an Interior Detail Brush being designed for use on your interior surfaces, a ‘dedicated’ detailing brush is term we reserve for the kind of multi-purpose brushes that can be utilised for many different cleaning tasks over the whole vehicle.

In some cases it’s appropriate to dedicate a single brush to a certain task and use it for that task only, simply to prevent the chance of cross contamination as you clean. In fact, this is one of the main reasons we supply our Detailing Brush Trio, Hog Hair Brushes and Feather Tip Brushes in packs containing multiple brushes in different sizes.

Take cleaning oily engine bays, or wheels with large amounts of sharp metal contamination from caked-on brake dust. If you have a detailing brush used for these processes, in terms of safety, it’s not a good idea to then go on and use the same brush for cleaning potentially sensitive surfaces such as gloss plastics, painted surfaces or leather seats. When it comes to the most harmful contamination keeping your brushes separate is an effective safety measure.

What’s the best detailing brush for me?

While this depends on the part of the car you’d like to clean, the sensitivity of that surface should always be your chief concern, in many cases you’ll have a choice so you can pick the most appropriate brush for your particular application.

We’ve developed a whole collection of specialist and multi-purpose detailing brushes to cover every cleaning task, from wheels, tyres and arches, to cleaning painted door shuts, engine bays and every interior surface.

In other words, the Auto Finesse range is extensive, meaning that everyone from detailing novices to trade professionals can benefit from having the right brush to hand for every single task. But - just to help out even more - here’s our pick of the top bestsellers that you should never be without in your detailing kit…

Top Detailing Brushes

Barrel Brush Wheel Brush

Most details start with your wheels and this super-soft, scratch-less brush is the master for lightly agitating your wheel cleaning products into the most awkward areas, such as the inner barrels and behind the spokes.

Gentle on painted, powdercoated, chrome and polished wheels our world famous Barrel Brush features a bendable inner rod that’s perfect for manoeuvring around brake calipers and directing your cleaning exactly where you want it. It’s also available in two sizes – our original 42cm Barrel Brush and our 33cm Mini Barrel Brush, which is perfect for more intricate wheel designs with tighter spokes.

For even more awkward aftermarket wheel designs, along with luxury wheels with the most sensitive finishes, we also have the choice of our Microfibre Wheel Brush and lambswool Wonder Wool Wheel Brushes (available in a selection of three sizes). This specially-selected collection of the ultimate surface-safe brushes is ideal for safely tackling the most pampered specialist wheels.

Detailing Brush Trio

Our Detailing Brush Trio is one of the all-time great detailing must-haves, not to mention a super-versatile, bestseller all around the world. Featuring scratch-less pure bristles and supplied in a pack of three different sizes, our Detailing Brushes are ideal for all manner of cleaning tasks inside and out. From dashboards and steering wheels to engine bays and alloy wheels these professional brushes safely agitate cleaning solutions for professional results on a range of surfaces and materials.

Constructed from durable plastics for extreme longevity these brushes have soft bristles for effective cleaning and to make them extremely safe on the majority of surfaces. But we also offer our similar Feather Tip Detailing Brushes featuring extra-soft bristles for extra-safe cleaning on easily-scratched gloss black wheels and gloss interior plastics.

Upholstery Brush

Our medium-soft Upholstery Brush has a large concentration of bristles and the ideal shape for light agitation and safely drawing grime from beneath the surface of car mats, carpets and upholstery, and all without abrading the fibres in your fabrics.

Specially developed to maximise the effectiveness of your cleaning solutions our durable Upholstery Brush is ideal for use with Total Interior Cleaner, Hide Leather Cleanser or even our Rag Top Cleaner on your convertible roof.

For other interior surfaces, where using a traditional shaped brush may be more advantageous, we also have our medium-soft Interior Detail Brush. This short-cut, hog hair brush is safe for use on every interior part from seats and dashboards to steering wheels and doorcards.

Rubber Scrubber Tyre Brush

With super-stiff synthetic bristles, the Rubber Scrubber Tyre Brush is exactly what the name suggests – the toughest brush for drawing grime out of your tyre treads and sidewalls. Able to stand up to heavy grime and the most powerful cleaning solutions, including strong dilutions of our Verso All Purpose Cleaner, and our specialist Tread Tyre Cleaner, this contoured brush is also ideal for getting into the muddy inner arches on lowered vehicles, particularly where you may not have the access for our Arch Blaster Arch Brush.

Hog Hair Brushes

This duo of premium multi-purpose Hog Hair detailing brushes remains one of our most popular accessories among show car owners and professional detailers. Featuring natural, super-soft hog hair bristles that are up to 75% longer than the industry standard, these ergonomic, surface-safe brushes are ideal for agitating cleaning solutions deep into complicated wheel designs, engine bays, painted shuts and door jambs and much more.

So, we hope that answers all your questions on our range of detailing brushes and how they can enhance any detail. If we’ve missed anything, or you’d like more personalised information about your particular application, feel free to get in touch with our Customer Service Team on support@autofinesse.com

For more top detailing guides, be sure to check out the Guides Section Of Our Blog.