Cost: £15 for One litre
Date of Review: 7th June 2025
The Sales Pitch from CSl (Shelby.com)
“Are you one of us who love a clean car but hate the hours normally spent to get that great finish when you can simply spray, clean and buff your way to a Showroom like finish effortlessly. Using the Shelby Waterless product will get you from dirty to gleaming in around 20 mins and can be used all over the surface of your car, from paintwork, glass, plastics and (unlike most others) rubber.
Our team have been the dominating force in the Waterless Wash and Wax market for over 15 years and their knowledge of whats good and what really shouldn’t be used on a vehicle is unparalleled. Working with the guys in lab coats, we’ve developed a formula so unique, that it is quite simply the KING of them all.
Developed by our team after almost 15 years pioneering the waterless market to bring you doubtlessly the BEST Waterless Wash and Wax in the World. You may have tried others, but you’ve never tried one as good as this!
Comes complete with trigger spray for application.”
Source: https://www.cslshelby.com/products/waterless-wash-wax
What You Get:
With my purchase I received two Shelby microfibre towels. Not the most plush but the better end of quality cloths.
Product Description:
This product is designed to be a car cleaner rather than a quick detailer. The difference being that this is not a simple wipe on and done job. This product requires you to spray, wipe clean, allow to haze over then buff to shine. This is a thicker product than the more liquid quick detailers.
It’s worth noting that this product is designed to separate when stored to provide maximum shelf life. Thus it needs to be shaken well to mix the product before use. The image is below after settling overnight after transport via our postal service, I suspect it will separate more. The product has a creamy feel to it.
Instructions:
Directions for the CSL website:
“For best results use as directed on the bottle using one cloth to wipe away dirt and grime, leave to haze and using a clean dry cloth, simply buff off to leave an excellent shine on all your surfaces.
Apply to a panel at a time and wipe starting with a good quality microfibre with 10 Premium cloths being provided, in long smooth motions.
Leave to dry and when the haze appears, simply buff to a fantastic shine, leaving your car, caravan, motorhome, motorbike clean and protected against the various elements associated with damage such as road grime, bird droppings and tree sap. Also provides a high factor of sun protection.
Using the Shelby microfibre cloths ensures the best results and these cloths can be used time after time, wash after wash.”
* The instructions on the Website suggests using multiple cloths, but the bottle says one and buff with the other. Depending on how dirty the cars is I would suggest changing out cloths as soon as there is no clean parts to wipe the surface of the car.
Testing Environment:
Slightly overcast with the odd outbreak of sun.
Application:
The car had been standing for a week or so in hot weather after driving back home through the country in the evening. Being a black car the dirt shows instantly from everything.
The front of the car had dead bugs all over it and the odd tree sap, as seen in the pictures above.
The trigger is a quality trigger and is adjustable for what you want either streak or a spraying. I did find that the back of the trigger has a harsh lip (left side of the image below) that can dig into the hand when using. It’s sort of ergonomic if it was a softer curve.
I used a 800gsm quality cloth that was perhaps a little to soft to wipe the heavier dirt away. But, at least the extra nap of the cloth kept the dirt well away from the paint when cleaning.
Using long sweeps slightly rolling the cloth as I progressed lifted the dirt and left a residue behind. You can just about make out the dark lines coming from the back of the hood to the grill at the front.
Applying the product and removing the dirt was simple for the road grime as such. But the heavier bit of tree sap were not quite so easy.
The instructions says to apply liberally and I made sure that at least a mist of product was all over the panel being worked on at the time. It doesn’t take long for the haze to appear. Not that it was a white powdery residue like some hard waxes. The haze is just a dullness to the paint.
The cloth I was using showed the dirt removed after just the hood. A little difficult to see on the microfibre but you can make out the brown dust.
Removing:
With a fresh cloth I was expecting drag and hard work. But I was wrong. The buff was easy to remove and any haze lines left during the ‘clean’ step quickly vanished with minimal effort.
This image shows half the hood being buffed with the arrows to show the comparison of haze and buff.
This image is similar but I just wiped a little area half way up the hood, again marked up. It’s difficult to see on black but below the arrow on the right you can see the shine.
Simple to remove and buff to a shine.
Results:
The front of the car was the worst obviously driving through a storm of bugs and left to sit in the sun for a week.
The picture on the left shows the bugs before being ‘cleaned off’. The right shows after the wipe clean process, where the paint was clean – but not all the debris was removed.
After a second pass of the product the results were much, much better.
I did find that that all the bugs didn’t come off after the first attempt. Adding a second squirt and wiping a little harder did soften them up to be removed. Perhaps a less plush cloth would have worked better. I will try a lesser GSM cloth next time, but I will stick with the heavy plush for buffing.
The completed car.
There was no streaks, and the process was definitely a two stage process, clean and buff. The car felt slick after the clean with a deep gloss shine. It wasn’t hard work to remove the dirt from the car, even with a second attempt.
About half an hour after the clean there was a sudden shower as I was cleaning up in the garage. Normally this would have given me the hump, but it showed the beading of the product while I had the phone to take some photos. the water readily ran off the panels and sat as a bead when the water droplets wasn’t as big. It was satisfying to watch a little droplet roll into a mini stream as it runs down a panel.
Rating: 8 out of 10
The reason for the scores is simply that the bugs and a couple of tree sap spots needed a second go at them. Maybe this should be a nine as I didn’t apply correctly. But I rate as I find.
Taking into account that this is a two step process, and you bought it knowing it’s clean then buff then you can’t directly compare this to the once over wipe of the other big names. Being a two step process I didn’t mark it down for that.
Perhaps leaving the product on longer to soak in would have helped, maybe a lesser quality cloth as I mentioned before. However, other waterless wash and waxes don’t need to wait, but they are very watery in comparison to this product.
This product clearly has a carnauba content and makes the buff to a shine very satisfying. It will also add a layer of protection too. The product doesn’t have a fancy smell, it just smells of carnauba.
The ease of use was an eight as I had to have two attempts to remove stubborn debris.
The finish was given a ten score as the results once fully cleaned was really good, especially on a black car with no streaks.
Ease of use – 8 out 10
Finish – 10 out 10
The cost of this product is very good at around £15 for 1 litre and is fairly economical. Having to spray something twice doesn’t break the bank.
Conclusion:
I will need to try another process, more product, different weight cloths, timings and wipe technique to get the best from this product. It’s certainly not a bad product by any means. But not the first time wipe fix all as expected, however I do think some of the issues was down to me.
The product is certainly up there and can hold it’s head up with the other big car detailing brands. Shelby as a car cleaning brand doesn’t spring to mind when you think of car detailing products.
I will certainly come back to this product with an update on the second or third wash. to see if i increase or decrease the score.
Would I recommend it? Yes
Would I buy it again? Yes
Update:
To be advised.
