Cost: £24.95
Date of Review: 14th February 2025
The Sales Pitch from CSL Shelby:
What Sets It Apart
- Waterless formula that lifts dirt, grime, and contaminants while providing ceramic protection
- Infused with advanced ceramic technology to create a hydrophobic layer that repels water, dirt, and debris
- Enhances gloss and depth, leaving a high-shine, showroom-quality finish
- Provides long-lasting scratch resistance, UV protection, and durability
- Convenient and easy to use for on-the-go detailing with added benefits of ceramic technology
Shelby’s Ceramic Infused Waterless Wash combines the power of ceramic protection with the convenience of a waterless wash, delivering a superior clean and lasting protection in one simple application. Infused with advanced ceramic technology, this formula not only lifts dirt, grime, and contaminants but also leaves behind a hydrophobic layer that repels water, dirt, and other environmental contaminants. This innovative formula enhances the depth and gloss of your vehicle’s paint, leaving a high-shine, showroom-quality finish while providing long-lasting ceramic protection.
The ceramic infusion creates a durable, protective layer that bonds to the paint, offering superior scratch resistance, UV protection, and enhanced durability. It acts as a shield, preventing contaminants from adhering to the surface, making future clean-ups easier and keeping your vehicle cleaner for longer. Shelby’s Ceramic Infused Waterless Wash is ideal for on-the-go detailing, providing a quick, convenient solution with the added benefits of ceramic technology for long-lasting paint protection
Source: Ceramic Waterless Wash – CSL Shelby
What You Get:
A dark bottle with a supplied spray trigger with 500ml of a liquid product designed to make cleaning your car easy without access to water.
The trigger was nice quality with a positive feel giving an even spray over a large area. there was no drips after each spray and the pattern was consistent throughout the cleaning process.
Product Description:
A product designed to clean your car where water is not readily available. The product is a watery liquid to be sprayed directly on the vehicle, wiped of the panel then buffed to a shine.
Ceramic is seen to be the next level of detailing moving on from the common carnauba infused products. Many products now days have this ‘Ceramic’ infused ingredient which I have found to be rather random for results on different kinds of paintwork and consistency.
Instructions:
Instructions from CSL:
- Spray liberally on to your vehicles surface.
- Using a clean high quality microfibre cloth, wipe away the dirt and liquid from your car. This then activates the ceramic technology to bond with the surface of your car.
- Using a clean dry microfibre cloth, buff to a better than brilliant showroom shine.
For use on all of your vehicles surfaces, including glass, plastics, and rubber, for best results don’t use in direct sunlight
Testing Environment:
Slightly overcast with the odd outbreak of sunshine. Cool ambient temperature. Panels not hot to the touch. The car had been through a couple of rain cycles and a few drives on dusty roads.
Application:
Easy action trigger provides a good amount of product to the car with an even spray pattern. I had a selection of microfiber cloths to choose from for the dirt removal and the buffing step(s).
The car was dirty but excessively so, I have waterless washed worse than this so it should be too much of challenge.
As this is very watery the liquid will run off the panel if over applied, but a liberal application was applied as directed to one third of the hood to see what the product would be like.
Removing:
After a single wipe the hood wiped clean with plenty of dirt on the cloth. Roll the cloth as you wipe the panel as this best practice to avoid dragging debris over your paint.
I applied more product and wiped the rest of that side of the hood.
After the removal I used an 800gsm cloth and noticed that there was a dull streak left on the paint, shown by the arrows.
During the buffing with the deep pile cloth the surface felt very grabby and didn’t remove the product marks. I had to re-apply the product with a light mist this time and then buff quickly in smaller areas to remove the marks. Not what I was expecting, as other waterless products don’t leave behind the streaks marks like this.
I continued on the roof of the vehicle and noticed the same effect. Left image shows half the roof wiped up to the arrows, then the whole roof was cleaned and buffed. Again the product marks were visible and needed to be rebuffed to remove the remaining product properly.
The rear door was cleaned next you can make out the cleaned door to the passenger front door cleaned up well. During the buffing I had to use another cloth as the others were dirty. This cloth was very difficult to buff as the lint was being dragged onto the surface of the paint. You can just about see it on the below right image.
Standing back from the door shows just how bad the lint drag problem was.
A further change to a shorter pile 300gsm cloth was able to buff the car better to remove the lint and the streak marks. At this point I was having to effectively clean it three or four times to get a nice result. All well and good if you got the time, but not a ‘quick’ waterless wash.
I used the Waterless on the lower door sills which removed all the debris very easily in one swipe after letting the product soak for around 20 seconds.
The next day rain had arrived and these are the pictures of the Waterless wash with the water’s beading behaviour which was pretty good with a nice run off and beading.
I also used the Waterless on the wheel rims which did a really good job to remove the brake dust without much effort at all. This was a real result to get the wheels that clean that quick.
Rating: 6 out 10
The product goes a good job of removing the dirt as expected, but buffing and rebuffing was a pain and problematic, hence the ease of use rating being just a five. The finish is not the best gloss I have seen, but it was respectable once you can get the product buffed out properly.
The cost of this product is right up there with the premium big brands so I tend to be harsher with the marks at this premium level price point.
Ease of use – 5
Finish – 7
Conclusion:
The “apply liberally” wasn’t wrong. In doing so I have managed to get through a bottle of this product after two washes of my CRV and the wheels. That doesn’t make this product very economical or great value for money, especially when fighting at the top end of the market with the other well established top brands.
This product did clean and remove the dirt, but the effort needed to get a good result I felt wasn’t worth the aggravation. A Waterless wash in my eyes should be quick and efficient, to save water. This process was clean, buff and buff again. I tried it a couple of times with the same result. Yes this product was “Convenient” as for the “easy to use for on-the-go detailing”, it wasn’t that straight forward, and not a fast clean (for me). Perhaps a water wash and quick detail would have been just as quick. But, if you are in an area with limited access to water then these products will do the job, but there could be a trade off for effort.
If you have the time to do a Waterless wash, then buff (maybe a couple of times), then apply a quick detail to finish, the results are pretty good and respectable, but it takes work. The sales pitch was “Using a clean dry microfibre cloth, buff to a better than brilliant showroom shine”. It wasn’t better than top quality showroom shine when you get up close until the product was fully buffed out, maybe better than a private showroom on a budget.
The wheels – wow. This was a punt on my behalf just to see what would happen. It was a great result and just as good as another big brand ‘Waterless’ wheel cleaner. How it would behave with a seriously contaminated brake dust it could struggle to start with, but if you keep on top of the wheels, the ‘Ceramic’ coating on the wheels should prevent build up and make cleaning easier and very convenient.
Water beading was very respectable, not the tightest of beading I have seen. The water was constantly running of the hood and from the slight gradient of the roof which is great.
Black paint is susceptible to showing everything and all marks you can think of. Having a different colour vehicle you may not need to re-buff this product off the paint as much as I had to to get a top result. Having only black cars for daily drivers it was a bit of problem for me.
Final thought; I found the Standard (carnauba infused) Shelby Waterless Wash & Wax far easier to use and would be my go to product out of the two products when compared. That product I would buy again for its performance and value for money.
If you’re willing to put the work in, then you will get very respectable results and a real nice gloss finish, but for the price point and effort this one isn’t for me.
Would I recommend it? No
Would I buy it again? No