Cost: £8.50 for 500ml

Date of Review: 20^th September 2026

The Sales Pitch from Mirror Image Car Care:

Waterless is formulated to remove light dust and Bird Poo at an early stage without leaving paint imperfections or swirls.

Simply spray the waterless wash onto the panel and a clean microfibre cloth then gently remove the grime and dirt from the body work and buff to shine.

Source: WATERLESS – Mirror Image Car Care

What You Get:

One litre of product in a clear bottle witth a supplied trigger.

Product Description:

A product to wash your car without the need to use water. A spray on product with a simple wipe off to clean and then buff to shine. Can be used directly on the panel or applied to the cloth.

A great colour of product, I really like this branding and marketing. The product is very liquid and has a very pleasant fruity and clean smell.

Instructions:

The instructions are very simple, short and sweet from the website (see my conclusion later for my thoughts): ‘Simply spray the waterless wash onto the panel and a clean microfibre cloth then gently remove the grime and dirt from the body work and buff to shine’. The instructions are slightly different on the bottle though.

Shake bottle well
Apply to each panel using a clean microfibre cloth
Gently remove the grime and dirt from the body work and buff to a shine

Testing Environment:

Dry warm day with some over cast clouds with odd outbreak of sun. The car was dirty with dust and atmosphere deposited sand. Panels were slightly warm to the touch, but not hot.

Application:

The car isn’t the dirtiest I have seen it, but this type of dirt is problematic on any car. Every so often we get ‘sand’ from who knows where that settles on the car. When it then rains it leaves a run or a little rings that have dried on the car. Being a black car it will show everything, that’s dirt, grime, finger prints, swirls or marks. (This car’s black is one of the blackest paints I have seen, and at times I regret the colour choice, but the wife wanted black, so we got black.)

I mention the colour as it’s very picky on what needs to be done to keep it clean. I wasn’t too sure about this product so I only purchased 500ml to try it out. Competing with the well established big brands is not easy in an overcrowded market, so I didn’t want to waste my money even at £8.50 or £14.50 for one litre, which is still good value.

Normally to clean this type of dirt and grime I would be doing a ‘Contactless’ snow foam and bucket wash. This product was going to get a good test.

There was no instructions on how much to use, or if the product can be used on hot panels in or out of the sun for application. As there was no restriction(s) on use or guide. I went ahead with my past experience.

The trigger, well it dribbled out the nozzle a little with a medium to soft squeeze, I managed to capture it below left. But ,with a firm squeeze the spray was even and a nice spread. The spray was applied to half the hood (bonnet) at a time giving an even spritzed coverage.

Using the rolling technique (I fully explain what it is and how to use it within my guide here), with the cloth I used it pleasantly surprised me with the results, the dirt was held in the microfibre’s nap and lifted away from the paint.

Working from the leading edge of the hood to the screen wiping in straight lines, I made sure the 50/50 was visible, there was no need to tape half the hood up to compare the two halves.

After the clean wipe use another clean cloth and buffed to a shine, not going near the dirty half of the car. I carefully checked the surface for streaks and smears, none.

I completed the whole hood and the result was impressive from a waterless product.

The roof was particularly dirty as I would expect, and again I done a 50/50 clean.

For these few pictures I tried a close up and marked the edge of the clean with the red arrows.

The front grill the left half was cleaned and the right as it was.

Removing:

Like all these ‘Waterless’ products you need plenty of clean cloth and a good technique to get the best from them. Clean cloth(s) for the initial clean, the a quality cloth for the buff. After the cleaning phase I was able to buff very easily and there was no drag or bogging down of the cloth. The cleaned surface was smooth, streak free and clean. More importantly – I wasn’t rubbing that hard or burning lots of energy to try and get a good result.

Results:

Impressive and unexpectedly simple to use and get great results. The only time I had an issue was over application of the product where the wipe removed the dirt, but some product was left behind and needed another wipe before a buff. That was MY fault as I was starting out and experimenting. After cleaning, any excess product did flash away with buffing quickly, but wasn’t as fast a quick detailer as you would expect.

There was no need for additional buffing after a clean to get the best from the product. The remaining shine after the clean and buff was more than I expected and top notch.

A wipe over with their (Mirror Image Care Care Old School Quick Detailer) quick detailer afterwards didn’t pick up any additional dirt as the panel was already clean.

Usage:

This product was used to clean my SUV Honda CRV and that’s a big car, not as big as the Yank SUVs, but still big for a UK car. I reckon I used a little over 100ml, so easily five car washes from the 500ml. I did go mad at one point (where I over applied) so I used more than normal.

I also used it on the wheels, just to see what it was like. It cleaned the brake dust off, although the wheels weren’t that bad with caked on dirt and brake dust. It was interesting that this Waterless performed well on this adhoc test too. I haven’t documented it fully, as the product isn’t really designed for that. But, it doesn’t say you can’t use it on wheels either. To judge a product on something it may not be designed for would be unfair.

Rating: 10 out of 10

However:

The overall package could have been a 9 due to the trigger being a bit dodgy. Before I got brutal with my rating scores, I tried the other products that I ordered at the same time and the triggers were fine (the Spritz Glass Cleaner needed a couple of squeezes to settle down, then it was fine). I suspect that this trigger was the bad apple in the bunch, which is a shame as I was reviewing it. So, the benefit of the doubt was given on this product on that basis. If there had been any smears or issues then it would have been marked down to 9 for sure or less depending on the severity of the smears or marks. A dribbling trigger didn’t stop the clean in anyway, it was more annoying that it wasn’t a nice even mist unless a good firm squeeze was given.

This product seems to be user friendly, versatile and forgiving, very forgiving in fact, so judged on that basis, the 10 score is fully deserved.

I try to look for reasons not to give a 10 score, I have indeed marked down other brand products for similar quality issues in the past, but they were worse than this. The product doing what it was supposed to be doing and the performance demonstrated was exceptional and outperformed my high expectations.

Ease of use – 10 out 10

Finish – 10 out 10

Conclusion:

This product is now ‘promoted’ to be part of the Mustang cleaning detail bag, where another top name brand for the similar product was removed as a result. The big name and well established brands need to look over their shoulders!

The instructions are lacking; can I use it on warm panels or hot panels, in the sun? Well I did and it still worked great. How much to apply? Can it be used on wheels? Can you allow it to dry?

The answers I that would expect to see; on wheels – no, but I did and it was fine. Allow it to dry – common sense says – no, but sometimes you have to spell it out. Use on hot panels – I did on warm panels and it was fine. Sunlight – normally no as it evaporates to quickly – I did and it was fine.

The website says; “Simply spray the waterless wash onto the panel and a clean microfibre cloth”. The bottle says “Apply to each panel using a clean microfibre cloth”

Experience was a bonus as I use these products, a lot. An update to the label or the website would be good for consistency.

Would I recommend it? Yes – absolutely.

Would I buy it again? Yes – absolutely.

Since I have used this product I have now ordered a bulk purchase of 5ltrs, I like it that much! I don’t do that lightly!!!

Update: 7^th October 2026

I have cleaned the car again after a couple of weeks and found the Waterless to be exactly as it was before and not an odd one-off.

I had driven in the evening and the front of the car was splattered with all sorts. I have done more 50/50 splits of the clean with the red arrows showing the difference, although it’s pretty obvious. With the splatter being bad I used a little more product than perhaps normal. Where the cloth had gotten a little saturated with the product I did detect a little smear, it did buff out but took a little effort. Instead I used their Quick detailer for a final wipe over and the smear went. Worth remembering. Using a fresh cloth there were no more smears.