Table of Contents
- What Are The Best Microfiber Towels?
- The Best Microfiber Towels are Adsorbant
- Are Microfiber Towels Good For Waxing Cars?
- What is a Microfiber Cleaning Cloth?
- What is Microfiber Towel Nap?
- What is Fabric GSM?
- How Many GSM Should I Look For?
- Is a Low GSM Less Absorbent?
- Should I Buy Towels With Silk Banded Edges?
- Do you need to wash microfiber towels before use?
- What is the best way to wash microfiber towels?
- How does microfiber work?
- The Rag Company's Best Polyester Blend
- So Which Towel Should You Buy?
- Helpful Links
- Conclusion
There are many different brands and types of microfiber on the market, and it’s hard to know what’s best. To cut to the chase, our pick for the best microfiber towel for waxing is the Edgeless 365 from The Rag Company.
It has one low-pile side for superior tactility and one high-pile side for excellent paint protection. This gives you the option of tactility when you want it and safety when you need it.
The Rag Company only uses high-quality microfiber for their products, and the edgeless and tagless design ensures your finish is only exposed to protective microfibers.
There are 2 essential criteria for picking a microfiber towel to remove wax: feel and pile.
- Feel refers to the tactile feedback that you get when wiping away wax. Basically, the ability to feel that you’re effectively removing the wax from the paintwork through the fabric. Feel is excellent for making your work more efficient, but it usually means there’s less protective microfiber between you and your finish.
- Pile refers to the length and plushness of the microfiber strands. Essentially, a fuzzier or thicker microfiber towel is going to do a better job of protecting your car or truck clearcoat from swirls and scratches. A plush pile will reduce tactile feedback, though.
Let’s dive into microfiber details and why it’s the best fabric choice for waxing and many other detailing duties.
What Are The Best Microfiber Towels?
We found The Rag Company Microfiber Towels to be the best choice for buffing away wax for most people because of the high-grade super soft towels. Customers rave about the performance and durability. Not only that, but they’re relatively inexpensive.
I would recommend any of their microfiber cleaning cloth car towels. They are all machine washable and lint-free. Their features vary from set to set, so shop around to find the size and pile you prefer. I would feel confidant recommending any of their products for car detailing.
For their drying towel options, here are my top picks.
The Best Microfiber Towels are Adsorbant
Notice I said adsorbant and not absorbant. Microfiber towels don’t necessarily absorb water; they adsorb it. Absorb is when something pulls liquids and such into its pores.
Adsorb is when something pulls liquids, dirt, and such onto its surface. Microfiber has no pores, so it does the latter because of the enormous number of tiny strands of fiber.
Are Microfiber Towels Good For Waxing Cars?
When it comes to waxing, A professional-grade ultra-soft microfiber towel is the best choice. Microfiber towels are a better choice than terry cloth car towels because they have a more extraordinary ability to adsorb dried wax into the towel nap.
The deep pile of microfiber towels will capture hardened wax or sealant when buffing it off your paint surface. Where other car towels may grind in debris, causing fine swirls and scratches, that soft microfiber towels will not.
The pile of microfiber towels acts as a protector of your paint. It does this by drawing in any contaminants that may have been on the surface into the pile. In this way, the towels ensure contaminants without leaving streaks or scratching the paint as you buff.
What is a Microfiber Cleaning Cloth?
A microfiber cleaning cloth is very different from cotton or other traditional woven fabrics. It uses literal microscopic fibers made from a blend of nylon and polyester.
The benefits of microfiber for cleaning are:
- Ability to hold 7 times its weight in water
- Traps dirt and grit that can scratch your finish
- The fine fibers can grab debris traditional fabrics can’t
- With over 200,000 microscopic strands per inch, microfiber can even disinfect by trapping germs
- Polyester and nylon are far more durable than natural fibers like cotton, so microfiber towels will last a very long time
- Microfiber is a lint-free material
What is Microfiber Towel Nap?
The nap of a cloth refers to the directionality of the fibers but also the pile. Pile strictly refers to the thickness of the overall fabric, while nap is the thickness with a unified direction. This is what makes the best microfiber towels stand out above a run-of-the-mill drying towel.
Since a thick nap is essential to protecting your paint while buffing, we want to find towels with the thickest nap.
What is Fabric GSM?
Grams per square meter or GSM for short is a measurement of the weight and quality of fabrics. GSM explicitly measures the density of the material. A denser fabric typically means it is more absorbent and can hold more water, making it better for cleaning your vehicle.
GSM typically ranges from around 200 to 900. The higher the number, the denser and more absorbent the fabric.
How Many GSM Should I Look For?
Microfiber cloth typically ranges from 200 to 400 GSM, making the towel feel lighter and less likely to scratch surfaces. These cloths are soft and do not attract lint, making them the perfect tool for all vehicle surfaces.
Is a Low GSM Less Absorbent?
Make no mistake, even though microfiber towels are on the lower end of the GSM scale, this does not mean they are low in quality or absorbency. As mentioned earlier, absorbency isn’t really an issue with microfiber due to its adsorbent qualities. The adsorbent nature of the cloths traps dirt and prevents surface scratches, while the absorbency is more than adequate to absorb water and soap suds.
Should I Buy Towels With Silk Banded Edges?
Many microfiber towel products boast silk banded edges. While this sounds luxurious, silk on your towels doesn’t offer much benefit to your car. In fact, the stitching on the edge of your microfiber towel could cause scratches to your vehicle.
As fancy as it sounds, it’s best to choose a microfiber towel with no edge to prevent scratches. After all, you are looking to remove dirt from the surface of your car, not flex your sense of style.
Do you need to wash microfiber towels before use?
It is suggested by most manufacturers to wash your microfiber towels before first use. The reason is there could be loose fibers, lint, or debris that has accumulated during the manufacturing process or shipment. It is a reasonable step to take to ensure that your towels perform at their maximum potential.
It is also good to ensure that any debris that could potentially scratch your clear coat or glass be removed before use. You’re not likely to have problems if you decide to not wash your towels before their first use, but it is possible. If your towels do have trapped debris, you could scratch your car with your towel.
If you’re not in a rush, you should give a new pack a quick tumble in the washing machine to be safe. The best car towel is a clean car towel.
What is the best way to wash microfiber towels?
Microfiber towels should be washed with a fragrance-free liquid detergent with cold water. Never use bleach or any other additives to your wash. This is because the polyamide/polyester material could absorb detergent particles, rendering it less effective. You can wash them in a washing machine or by hand if you prefer.
Do not wash microfiber towels with another laundry, or your towels may pick up lint. Microfiber towels should be dried in the dryer on the lowest heat setting or air-dried. Never use dryer sheets when drying your towels.
Microfiber is very sensitive to heat because the ultra-fine fibers have a low melting point and could easily be damaged. To avoid damaging your microfiber towel, use cold water when washing and why you want to keep the dryer set to the lowest temperature.
How does microfiber work?
Microfiber is a material that essentially works because the fibers are microscopic. Each strand of microfiber cloth can be 100 times thinner than human hair.
Why are very thin strands good? The thin strands are extremely good at trapping contaminants and adsorbing liquids. This material can hold orders of magnitude more than a similar cotton towel or cloth. Most importantly, these cloths are a very soft material that will not scratch glass or other vehicle surfaces.
Long-pile or Short-pile?
Both long pile and medium pile towels leave your car surfaces scratch-free and free from debris. I recommend using a long pile microfiber drying towel for drying and buffing the vehicle and shorter pile towels for situations where tactile feedback is important.
When it comes to automotive detailing, microfiber is best at protecting your vehicle from swirls and scratches because it traps more scratch-causing contaminants deep within the fibers. Using a microfiber towel holds contaminants away from the surface of your paint and protects your car.
The Rag Company's Best Polyester Blend
Microfiber polyester/polyamide blend is the very best towel choice for waxing a car. Microfiber grabs dirt and protects your clear coat from swirls and scratches better than anything else. 10% polyamide 90% polyester is the most common blend.
When it comes to finding the best microfiber towel to use for detailing, you will never go wrong picking your choice from The Rag Company’s product line of towels. They have a wide variety of options available, so if you already know what you want, you’ll find it there.
So Which Towel Should You Buy?
The towel that ticks all of the boxes when it comes to waxing cars and trucks is the Edgeless 365 towel. Its dual pile design gives you a little more flexibility when it comes to tactility. Dual pile means one side has a shorter nap than the other. Very handy for detailing your car to have a one-towel solution, rather than multiple towels which look alike.
If you want to save a few bucks, you can go with the Terry Towel. It’s an inexpensive multipurpose detailing towel that can work very well for removing wax. It’s competent for the job so don’t think it’s cheap. It’s a good towel, just not the “best” towel.
The Eagle Edgeless
The safest option is the Eagle towel. It has an extremely plush pile that will create a much larger area of microfiber strands to trap wax and anything that might scratch your finish.
The downside to the super plush pile is that it becomes more difficult to “feel” how well the wax is removed. Depending on your personal preferences, this may or may not be a big deal to you.
Terry Towel
This 12 pack of microfiber car terry towels from The Rag Company is the budget option. They range in size from 12″ x 12″ to 16 “x 16”, so you can find the perfect size for you. I prefer to use the 12-inch size for better control, but the 16-inch cloths might work better for drying.
They don’t have a thick and plush pile but they are still protective. The biggest benefit in addition to lower cost is the increased feel due to being thinner. Thin microfiber cloths also work better in tight cracks and on more detailed features.
The Edgeless 365
The best microfiber for removing wax depends on your preference. I prefer the Edgeless 365 towel for its dual nap and high tactility. This will be the last pack of towels you’ll ever need by using the low-pile for its tactility and the high-pile for its protective plush pile.
If you are looking for a professional-grade microfiber cleaning cloth, this 10 pack of Edgeless 365 premium microfiber car towels is your choice. This ultra-soft drying towel takes its name from its incredible 365 grams per square meter! GSM matters to a microfiber towel because the density gives these towels the ability to adsorb well.
These 16″ x 16″ microfiber towels are designed with removing wax in mind. 16 inch towels are a bit big, so I recommend folding them in half while working on the surface of your vehicle.
Helpful Links
Conclusion
The Rag Company makes some great microfiber products and their Edgeless 365 is our pick for the best choice for waxing a car. It’s our pick not only because it’s made from high-quality microfiber stock, but also because of its dual-pile design. With one plush side and one short pile side, you can choose between extra adsorbency and exceptional protection from fine swirls and scratches, or good feel and ability to work in tighter spots.
The Eagle Edgeless is ideal if you prefer a thick nap primarily. The Terry Towel is best if prefer a short nap and better tactile feedback.
No matter your pick, you’ll be satisfied with any choice from The Rag Company.
