Microfibre detergent

Microfibre detergent washes wax and polish out of the cloth

What is microfibre detergent? A liquid specialist detergent for microfibre cloths, built to tackle residue from wax, polish, detailer and coating. If a cloth has only seen water and glass cleaner, an additive-free liquid detergent is often enough. The detergent never replaces washing cloths sorted by use.

Microfibre detergent is a liquid specialist detergent for washing microfibre cloths and, depending on the manufacturer, polishing pads too. Manufacturers design it to deal with what gets stuck in the pile: oils, waxes and residue from polish, detailer and coating. A cloth picks up dirt through the fine gaps between the split fibres. Once those gaps are clogged, it absorbs less and puts the residue back onto the paint or glass with the next wipe.

• Clear specs instead of guesswork. Manufacturers spell out temperature, spin speed and how to handle the dryer for their products, SONAX for the SONAX PROFILINE Microfibre Wash just like INNOVACAR. Put those specs next to the cloth's label and you know which programme fits before you start. The values side by side are further down.
• A soak for the tough cases. For heavy soiling, SONAX recommends soaking the cloths beforehand in a bucket of warm water with 50 ml of detergent. That gives polish and wax residue time to loosen before the drum gets them moving.
• One litre for 50 washes, according to the manufacturer. That's how SONAX rates its high concentrate. The amount per load is in the manufacturer's mixing table, not on the measuring cap of your household detergent. Too much detergent stays in the cloth as residue and comes back as a film on paint and glass.

Detailing1's tip from the shop: If the detergent and the cloth label give different temperatures, go with the lower one. A cloth rated up to 60 °C that you wash with a product specifying 30 °C gets washed at 30 °C, and a cloth with a 40-degree label stays at 40 °C even if the detergent allows more. That keeps the heat within the range both manufacturers approve on their side, and the fibre tips take no more than they need to.

Microfibre detergent targets care product residue, not everyday dirt

According to manufacturers, microfibre detergent is meant for cloths loaded with wax, polishing oil, detailer or coating, in other words care product residue with an oily or water-repellent base.

You notice the problem in the cloth before you understand it. It pushes water around instead of soaking it up, feels stiffer than on day one and leaves streaks on the glass even though the glass cleaner is fine. Stiff, less absorbent cloths that smear: that's how washing tutorials and forum posts describe the problem.

The reason lies in the material. Microfibre cloths are made of split polyester and polyamide fibres, and the polyester content soaks up oils and fats well. That's exactly what makes a cloth so useful for wiping off polish, and exactly why some of it stays in the fibre. How a cloth is built and how the types differ is covered in detail under Microfibre cloths.

CarPro explicitly names oils, waxes and dirt as the target for its product. Together with SONAX, The Rag Company and Liquid Elements, that gives the target picture for specialist detergents: residue from wax, polishing oil, detailer, drying aid and coating. Fabric softener and dryer sheets stay out, because they coat the very gaps the detergent is supposed to flush clear with a film.

The specialist detergent belongs in the machine or the bucket, not on the car. Despite the name, microfibre detergent isn't a body shampoo. Car shampoo still handles washing the car; the detergent handles the pile of cloths afterwards.

Alkaline and enzymatic detergents break down residue differently

Specialist detergents don't all work the same way: according to its safety data sheet, SONAX relies on an alkaline formula, and INNOVACAR uses enzymes for low temperatures.

For the SONAX product, alkaline means a pH of 10.5 to 11, so clearly more basic than tap water. Basic solutions attack fats and oils harder than neutral ones; you know the principle from kitchen degreaser. In the pile of cloths that means: greasy polish and detailer residue is more likely to go into the wash liquor. SONAX itself describes the result as thorough cleaning that keeps the cloths fluffy and absorbent.

Enzymes are proteins that break down certain kinds of soiling biochemically instead of dissolving them with heat. In practice that means the product needs less temperature to work. INNOVACAR builds its enzyme-boosted detergent on exactly that and specifies 30 °C maximum. D-CON is also described as enzymatic by retailers, but we haven't found an official manufacturer statement on that.

According to the ingredients listed in the safety data sheet, the SONAX product contains soap, anionic surfactants and fragrances. Surfactants are washing-active molecules with a fat-loving and a water-loving end: they wrap around grease residue and carry it into the rinse water. For you that means: a specialist product works with well-known washing chemistry too; the difference lies in formula, dosage and the specs for temperature and spin.

Which type suits you depends less on the brand than on two questions. What's in the cloth, and what temperature can it take? An alkaline product at 40 °C and an enzymatic one at 30 °C pursue the same goal in two ways. Both assume the cloths go into the drum sorted by use.

Regular liquid detergent is enough as long as there's no wax in the cloth

For cloths that have only seen water, glass cleaner or light interior dust, Meguiar's in its product training and ZOLLNER often consider an additive-free liquid detergent sufficient.

The opposing view comes from the makers of specialist detergents, with the target picture described above. The detailing community is split on the question. Some wash with fragrance- and dye-free household detergent and are happy; others reckon the specialist products clean better.

If you want to pick a detergent for microfibre cloths based on a test, you'll find retailer and creator comparisons, but no lab test. We haven't found an independent comparison between specialist detergent and additive-free liquid detergent under the same conditions, and Stiftung Warentest doesn't measure the absorbency of detailing cloths when testing detergents. Put honestly: the decision follows the residue in the cloth, not a test result.

Additive-free means liquid and without fabric softener, bleach or optical brighteners. Koch-Chemie and the Hamburg consumer advice centre (Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg) avoid powder for a specific reason: powder detergents can contain zeolites, fine mineral water softeners that don't dissolve. In plain terms: they stay stuck between the fibres as dust, and a cloth carrying dust lays it back onto paint and glass with the next wipe.

One point where recommendations differ is fragrance. Koch-Chemie recommends fragrance-free products for microfibre, and for household detergents we also recommend fragrance-free variants under Cloths & microfibre. According to its safety data sheet, the SONAX detergent contains perfume. If fragrance-free washing matters to you, you should know that before you buy.

Manufacturers specify temperature and spin differently

On temperature, spin and dryer, the manufacturers' specs contradict each other; the range goes from 30 °C without a dryer at INNOVACAR to 60 °C for THE COLLECTION's cloths.

SONAX specifies the delicates cycle at 40 °C and 600 rpm and rules out fabric softener. INNOVACAR caps it at 30 °C and 600 to 800 rpm and rules out the dryer. CarPro names the gentle or synthetics programme at 40 to 60 °C. On the cloth side, THE COLLECTION rates its cloths up to 60 °C. For your cloth, its own label is what counts.

As in the tip above, the stricter of the two specs is what applies. On drying, the manufacturers agree more: air or the lowest dryer setting, because high heat can melt the fine fibre tips together. A cloth with fused fibres feels smooth and hardly picks anything up any more.

The amounts differ too. SONAX refers to its mixing table, CarPro gives 50 ml per machine load, and INNOVACAR scales 40, 60 or 80 ml per 2.5 kilograms of laundry depending on soiling. With hard water, INNOVACAR recommends more. General washing chemistry explains why: limescale binds part of the washing-active substances. Day to day that means: if you wash in a hard-water area, read the dosage table right down to the last line.

Sorted by use is the second fixed rule. SONAX says to always wash cloths separated by use and never together with polishing pads. Glass, paint, wheels and polishing pads each get their own load. Programme choice, temperature and the fabric softener question are covered step by step in our guide Washing microfibre cloths.

Not every microfibre detergent is approved for polishing pads

Whether a detergent like this may also clean polishing pads is up to each manufacturer, and the approvals range from a soak to hand washing only.

CarPro explicitly approves its product for pads: 50 ml to 10 litres of water, soak for at least an hour. INNOVACAR specifies hand washing for pads. SONAX describes its detergent for microfibre cloths and polishing pads, combined with the separation by use described above.

There's an obvious reason to run cloths and pads separately. A polishing pad carries dried polish and with it abrasive, which can end up in the cloths' pile in a shared load. A cloth that then goes over freshly polished paint is exactly what shouldn't be bringing that along.

On the pad side, things look more cautious. The Koch-Chemie expert blog advises against machine-washing polishing pads, because the adhesive between foam and hook-and-loop backing can come loose. RUPES describes cleaning its pads with compressed air and a pad tool; we didn't find a washing approval there. So the rule is: read the pad's care instructions first, then choose the detergent.

In our range, the SONAX PROFILINE Microfibre Wash 1000 ml / 1 Liter is a high concentrate that SONAX describes for cloths and polishing pads. We list bulk sizes on a page of their own: Microfibre detergent in canisters.

Coating cloths go straight into a soak, not into the laundry basket

No detergent can reliably get cured coating residue back out, so cloths that have wiped off a coating go straight into a soak after the job.

Coatings are designed to cure on the paint, and in the cloth they do the same. So after levelling, a cloth like the THE COLLECTION "Allround / Coating 300" doesn't go into the laundry basket until the next wash day, but straight into a bucket of warm water and detergent. Once the layer in the pile has set, the only way left for the cloth is down to rougher jobs.

For your buying decision, that means: if you work without wax, sealant and polish, additive-free liquid detergent and clean sorting will often do. Cloths that have seen wax, detailer, polish or coating get the specialist product and, if needed, the soak. Nobody has yet backed up the promise that a specialist detergent measurably preserves absorbency for longer with an independent test, and so we don't make it either.

Sorting starts as soon as you buy new cloths. The Koch-Chemie expert blog recommends washing new cloths before first use and keeping dark new cloths separate from light ones. That way a freshly bought cloth doesn't go straight from the packaging onto the paint, and sorting by colour joins sorting by use before the first cloth has even seen any care product residue.

Search interest in microfibre detergent in Germany peaks in spring and is lowest in late autumn. Our reading: anyone polishing and sealing in spring fills the laundry basket with exactly the cloths this detergent is built for. Drying towels that have only soaked up water go in the load with liquid detergent; if you work with a drying aid, sort them in with the care product cloths.

The detergent doesn't replace sorting. A glass cloth that went round in the same drum as the wax cloths will carry the film onto the glass as haze next time you use it, no matter how good the detergent and glass cleaner are. That's why glass cloths like the SONAX PROFILINE MicrofaserTuch "Glas" run in a load of their own, and the specialist detergent only gets the cloths that really need it.