ARCHIVES

As we alluded to in our last post, 2012 is going to be all about videos. It’s been clear for a long time that this is something you want. Nice images and good descriptive text is one thing, but to see products and techniques actually being demonstrated on screen, well, that’s quite another. We understand this, and have spent a small fortune over the last couple of months kitting ourselves out with the necessary gear to give you what you want. So, without further ado, here is the first of many new product demo videos…

It’s fair to say that Auto Finesse has been the brand of 2011; it’s made everyone in the UK detailing community realise that top quality performance and great value for money aren’t mutually exclusive terms. Hot on the heels of excellent new additions to the line in recent months (Finale, Mint Rims and Revive) is an exclusive wax blend that money currently can’t buy – Desire. This funky coloured, fruity flavoured über wax is the result of attempts by the Auto Finesse team to push the existing Spirit formula even further in terms of looks and durability. It may not turn out to be viable to put this amazing blend into production, but fear not, because we’re offering you the chance to get your hands on a limited edition test pot for free. Okay, not for free; we need you to do just one thing for us…

Without intending to sound too downbeat, it’s fair to say that 2011 is shaping up to be a tough year. And not just in terms of the miserable summer weather; it seems that the continuing global economic problems are now affecting UK households more acutely than before. All of us at Polished Bliss have certainly felt our own purse strings stretched in recent months, and cost cutting has been the order of the day. From a business perspective, we’re certainly very aware of the need to focus on value for money in these testing times, and as a result we’ve been looking at new product lines that offer exactly that. And there is none more relevant than the brand new line up from Auto Finesse…

The last twelve months have been a very exciting time in the world of detailing. A large number of new cutting edge products have been launched and these have pushed the boundaries of what we have come to expect in performance terms. In some cases, existing standards of finish quality and durability have been extended, while in other cases entirely new methods have arisen, e.g. iron contaminant removal by chemical means. We’ve embraced this round of innovation by adopting new products into our own working routine and selecting some of the best for resale in our store. The latest product line we have adopted in this way is Wolf’s Chemicals.

The last eight weeks have been an exceptionally busy time at Polished Bliss, reflecting our best ever October sales (it’s great to see so many people finally taking winter preparation so seriously!) and a number of exciting additions to our store, the most surprising of which is the full range of Swissvax car care products. We say surprising, simply because the invite we received from Swissvax UK to stock the line came completely out of the blue; no doubt like everyone else, we had always assumed that Swissvax products would only be sold by Swissvax and nobody else. To say we are very happy with this change in direction by Swissvax UK is an understatement; we have long felt that our store should carry a well established, world renowned, flagship brand and Swissvax now fulfils these criteria perfectly. Furthermore, it has also been an absolute joy learning to use the full range of products in our detailing studio; the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ has never been so true, as all of the products in the range are very easy to use and deliver exceptional results, reflecting the quality and rich know how that has been developed and acquired by Swissvax over the last eighty years.

Every now and again the car care rulebook is torn up and rewritten by innovative new technologies that come along and redefine what we can expect from car care and detailing products. Currently, we are in the midst of such a period of change, this time brought about by the application of nanotechnology to surface coating science. At the most basic level, nanotechnology can be defined as the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. In relation to car care, nanotechnology can be used to make advanced protective coatings that do not just adhere to vehicle surfaces, but rather become part of the surfaces themselves. As a result, surface properties of interest and importance (such as etching resistance, scratch resistance, hydrophobicity, etc) can be altered on a semi-permanent basis; we are now moving into an era when car care coatings will truly last years rather than months.

As part of our plans for expansion in 2010, we are proud to announce that Migliore luxury car care products are now available in the store. We first made contact with Migliore last October, and shortly afterwards received a full set of test products to evaluate in our studio. Clark duly set to work, and was instantly amazed by how different these products are to most of the other lines currently out there. What exactly do we mean by different? Well, Migliore aims to help to protect the environment by creating eco-friendly products. The majority of Migliore products are made using 100% Oregon Tilth Certified Organic (OTCO) ingredients, including natural waxes, fruit extracts and organic solvents, and this translates into the products having highly distinctive textures and scents. Indeed, they have a truly organic feel to them that stimulates the senses and makes them a joy to use. In addition, all Migliore products are individually hand poured and inspected for quality before leaving the factory. As the founder and CEO Donald Havourd explains, “Migliore Luxury Car Care is a company based on quality, not quantity. We have no intention of becoming a large, mass distributed, watered down, car care brand. We prefer having a tight knit circle of distributors who have vast knowledge and experience of detailing to concours standards. This allows us to interact with our distributors and customers on a one on one level. Migliore will remain a small company, and will continue to provide its customers with the best quality and service available in the industry.”