Carpro reflect vs essence extreme

[JChastain]

What's the difference between these two and when do you pick one or the other and why? Are they both primers before applying a coating? They seem to be very similar. Thanks for the info.

[fly07sti]

Reflect is a very nice finishing polish, but needs to be wiped down with Eraser prior to coating. Essence is a polish that has some silica in it and is CarPro's "primer polish and doesn't have to be wiped down with Eraser prior to coating. Both are great products but I have been using Essence since it came out and haven't touched Reflect since.

[JChastain]

Do both have the same cutting and finishing abilities?

[fly07sti]

Reflect has a shorter working time but like I said earlier, I reach for Essence nowadays. I feel it looks better than reflect, but it's totally subjective.

[JChastain]

Gotcha thanks for the feedback

[The Guz]

Do both have the same cutting and finishing abilities?

They both share the same abrasive loads but essence has less of them. Thus giving reflect the edge in cut.

[JChastain]

So from what I'm gathering, essence plus can be used over the coating for repair and no others can.. essence extreme is the only primer available that does not need eraser... reflect is strictly a polish only...

[WillSports3]

But Essence is better for your car, it fills the swirls it doesn't cut with silica that lasts about a year or so on its own so you preserve your clear coat. I prefer to use Essence for the final polish of a car but I use Reflect if I'm just mowing down a previous LSP or coating on a car that doesn't necessarily need a full polish. Essence can be hard to wipe off after you're done, I overwork it on purpose since the glazing silica of it doesn't break down as fast as the abrasives in the polish, so I just want to get a better fill. I use Eraser no matter what, since spraying Eraser on the left over polish on the paint makes wiping it off easy as pie. If you're coating, use something like Eraser no matter what. It's just not for polishing oils but just because it has lubricating agents in it that make it much less likely for you to marr your paint as you're wiping off.

Reflect does cut better but again, Essence fills and cuts. What I do now on a lot of soft painted cars is to use a stiff cutting pad and then put three dots of Essence and three dots of Reflect so I can correct the paint easier and without removing as much CC as I would have to. Essence finishes out a lot better in many ways because of the fact that it has fillers in it.