Show Stopper Kit

Aside from making sure surfaces are clean and free of contaminants, this always depends on the circumstances. Are you topping up wax protection from a previous full detail or adding wax protection for the first time. This is important because, first and foremost, polishing will remove any protection layer, the reason why we don?t use abrasives during routine maintenance, and only polish paintwork when it's absolutely necessary. In this case of maintenance, we'd assume that any paint correction needed had been carried out before adding the first round of wax protection. When it comes to adding wax protection for the first time, we'd always recommend getting surfaces to the best possible level of refinement first. Although it's wholly possible to apply a wax to car with swirly paint, and it will still bond, protect from grime and offer extreme water behaviour and beading, what it won?t do is hide any major defects, so essentially, you'll be locking these in. Pure waxes are non-abrasives, so they're not designed to correct or obscure defects in the surface underneath, they are purely for protection and to add extra gloss. So, for the best results, we'd always recommend correcting or enhancing any paintwork you're not completely happy with the condition of, and fully preparing the surface, before applying any protection layer. The advantage with waxes over ceramic coating in this instance though, is that you don't have to consider the chemical bonded needed for an SiO2 coating to adhere, so you can utilise any of our correction products and cleansers depending on the finish you require regardless of if they already contain waxes and paint glazes. This includes our Revitalise V2 System Compounds, One Step All-in-One Compound, Tripple All-in-One Polish and Rejuvenate Paintwork Cleanser. For more information, and some top tips on preparing your vehicle for a hard wax, see our full guide: Getting The Most From A Hard Wax. 

The main differences between hard waxes and liquid waxes, aside from the obvious, comes with finding a balance between the durability of the protection layer and the ease of application. A liquid wax, a category that includes spray-on products like Glisten Spray Wax, as well as more viscous cream-like liquids such as Radiance Carnauba, will be developed to be extremely quick to apply to surfaces and easy to buff away any residue, but will always be a little less durable than a hard wax. This is because, the thinner the liquid has to be for ease of application, the less solids can be contained in the solute. These solids - essentially the natural wax content used to form the protection layer - are dispersed and suspended throughout the solution, which will contain a solvent base designed to evaporate off, leaving behind the protection layer. The more solid material you can cram into the solution, the more viscous the liquid, until eventually it's mostly solids, giving you a hard wax. Along with being easy-to-use, liquid waxes can still offer great durability though, Glisten gives around a month of protection, while Radiance will last for up to 3-months. But our hard waxes, while they may take a little more effort to apply, can give protection for anything between 4-8 months depending on the specific blend.      

Tripple is and All-in-One designed to clean, polish and protect in a single application, it contains T1 grade carnauba to leave a wax protection layer with a durability of around a month. So, with this in mind you don't have to apply a wax over the top because you already have a great protection layer on exterior surfaces, although there's a few reasons why we'd always recommend doing so. The first is adding durability, the hard waxes in our Signature Collection offer more durability, up to 8-months in some cases and, as the wax in Tripple makes such a great base layer for these to bond to, using a separate hard wax means that you don?t have to reapply protection quite so often. Simply follow a safe maintenance routine using wash stage products that won't degrade protection layers (such as Citrus Power Bug & Grime Remover, Avalanche Snow Foam and Lather Car Shampoo) to keep these layers in tip top condition over a for longer period. The second reason is that you can layer hard waxes (leaving around 3 hours between coats) to increase the barrier layer, making it more resilient to abrasion and the elements; the only thing better than having great paint protection is having more protection, right? Last, but by no means least, is adding even more gloss. Waxes work by levelling the optical finish of your paint, basically this means they smooth out the top layer filling in the microscopic ruts and recesses and leaving behind a level surface. This is important because the wax layer allows light to pass through to the paint and bounce back to your eye unobstructed and uniformly, making the paintwork appear deeper and glossier. An extra coat or two of hard wax over the top of your Tripple layer compounds the effect and, although you're physically thickening the layer very slightly, the visual effect is that it looks proportionally deeper. So, the answer is that you don't have to use a wax over Tripple, but you'll get even more out of your detail if you do.