Some of the new skills that todays detailers use is foreign to me. We didn't have Micro Fiber towels and soap blasters ceramic coatings etc. I'd like to learn some of the new skills especially what proper Micro fiber towels are designed for what duty as I find them not to work well for many tasks and much prefer Terry cloth like doing windows and cleaning leather or fabric.
A lot of what you've learned will still be fairly relevant, especially the cleaning steps. A 100% safe wash these days is a very time consuming, and product intense process. There is touchless chemicals for dirt, grease, iron, tar, and almost every other possible thing to hit car paint. The whole purpose is to touch the car physically as little as possible, and all these combined help. Now, you don't NEED a foam canon, a spray bottle with APC will remove just as much as foam, but the foam helps the soaps cling for longer. Foam specific soaps also can be made even thicker, allowing up to 10 minutes of cling time (assuming the weather isn't too intense).
When it comers to paint correction and protection, there has been a lot of advancements since the 80s and 90s. There is no more polishing powders, buffing technology has advanced to the point of not needing a rotary to cut hard, and coatings and other advanced LSPs have allowed cars to go for over a year without needed to be re-protected.
Check out some detailing specific forums and youtube channels to get an idea of what people are going these days. I recommend Ammo NYC to see someone that goes to the literal extremes of EVERY step, and Car Cleaning Guru to see how a normal, well adjusted human can clean cars without being damaging. Also, forensic detailing's youtube channel has super in depth product reviews and tests.
SheepStar
