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  1. #1
    Mike Phillips
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    Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel




    You know... out of all the topics I've written on, the topic of paint is easily the most common and popular topic.

    Why?

    Because it's the paint that makes or breaks the appearance of a car. The car either looks great because the paint looks great or maybe it's a nice car but it doesn't look good because the paint is all jacked-up.

    When it comes to the topic of car paint, the topic most people think about and ask questions about is how to polish paint. More specifically how to remove swirls, scratches, water spots and oxidation. This is a great topic and the segment of car care that I'm the most passionate about. But whenever I'm talking to someone about polishing paint I start the topic of polishing paint with the topic of washing cars.

    Specifically I ask,

    How are you going to wash and dry your car?


    You see it doesn't matter if you polish the paint to 100% absolute perfection if you're going to run your car through an automatic car wash or just about as bad, wash it yourself without high quality car washing and drying tools.

    What I tell people and what I've been typing for years goes like this,

    "When it comes to washing and drying your car get the highest quality car washing tools you can obtain"



    Now when I use the word obtain, what I mean by it is the word afford. I don't know what the budget is for every person I talk to or everyone that reads my articles or watches our videos? I don't know? Maybe a person has $10.00 and maybe a person has $100.00 to spend on wash mitts, car wash soap and drying towels. Instead of assuming or lecturing someone I just keep my recommendations real vanilla and let each person decide on their own budget.

    That all said, if you are the type of person to take great care of your car's appearance including maintaining a swirl and scratch free finish then you probably already understand that modern clearcoats are scratch-sensitive and anytime you're working on the paint whether you're washing and drying the car or wiping off compound, polish or wax, the things that actually touch the paint, that is the tools you use that come into contact with the paint, need to be of the highest quality you can obtain. (there's that word again).



    Enter The Big Blue Drying Towels

    When washing a car it's important to use a clean wash mitt to reduce the potential for any accidental marring of the clearcoat during the washing process. When drying the car it's just as important to use a clean, soft drying chamois or drying towel to remove the water without accidentally marring the scratch-sensitive clearcoat.

    That's why everyone loves The Big Blue Drying Towels.

    These things are as soft and plush as a quality throw blanket on the living room couch for your wife, girlfriend or kids to snuggle into on a cold winter night. These towels are PLUSH. Let me say it again...

    These towels are P-L-U-S-H

    By the word plush I meant they are THICK and SUPER SOFT and it's these two features PLUS the way they absorb TONS of water that make them the perfect drying towel any of you paint perfectionists.



    The key to owning and using these towels are,

    1: Have a DEDICATED place to store these towels when not in use. A clean cupboard or a clean plastic container with a lid. Because the nap or pile is thick and soft you don't want any dirt or abrasive particles to get onto the towels and get buried in the nap.

    2: Either place these towels directly into the washing machine after drying your car and then wash, dry and place them in the dedicated storage place mentioned above OR have a dedicated dirty towel hamper in your garage that's also CLEAN to place these into until you can wash, dry and store them.

    3: Only wash them with a quality dedicated microfiber cleaner to preserve the performance, softness, water absorbency and plushness of the microfiber material.


    If you can do the above and you love your car... then you're going to love these incredibly plush and absorbent microfiber drying towels.


    Recently I wrote a how-to article on how to machine polish exterior glass to remove water spots. My practice is to machine polish glass BEFORE you wash your car. This way instead of taping off the inside of the window frames on the doors to prevent staining, you can simply wash this residue away by washing after polishing. And if you accidentally get any glass polish splatter over surrounding body panels instead of wiping it off you can wash it off when washing the car. The glass polishing article gave me a chance to then use the new Big Blue Drying Towels and gets some pictures showing these new towels in ACTION!



    Drying a Mitsubishi Eclipse using the Big Blue Microfiber Drying Towels

    After washing the car, the first thing to do was dry the convertible top. When it comes to cloth tops, the technique I show is the blotting technique also knows as the least evasive method for drying a top and/or a car. The idea being to place your drying towel directly onto the top and then using your hands, apply pressure to the towel to force the water on and in the canvas material to transfer into the drying towel via capillary action.

    The benefit is you don't WIPE the top with a towel and thus prevent wearing the surface of the cloth potentially created a fuzzy appearance, which cannot be fixed.


    Here's the smallest of the Big Blue Drying Towels





    I have purposefully placed the towel in a central location for the picture value which tells the story...





    Move your hands around the towel pressing the different sections of the towel against the canvas and pause for a few moments to allow the water in the canvas to move into the microfiber material.






    Now lifting the towel straight up you can see what happens....







    The section under the Big Blue Drying Towel is almost completely dry. AND it was never rubbed.








    Now let’s see what the LARGEST Big Blue Drying Towel can do....





    Pressing on the towel....





    Pressing on the towel....





    Pressing on the towel....

    Note: This technique doesn't work if YOU don't press the drying towel against the convertible top.






    Removing the towel...





    And I think you get the idea....






    After drying the convertible top then move around the car as normal and remove the rest of the standing water.


    Drying the window and side glass...





    This is cool...

    The weight of the towel, even dry is enough to lay flat on a horizontal panel and stay flat as you pull it over the panel and in the process remove all of the water.












    Not a drop of water left where the towel was pulled....





















    For the vertical panels I use one of the smaller towels....













    These towels are plush and absorbent and the truly pamper your car's finish.

    To give you and idea of the sizes, I've placed the three different towels on top of one another and laid them out flat on the hood of this Mitsubishi Eclipse.












  2. #2
    Mike Phillips
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel


  3. #3
    Super Member dcjredline's Avatar
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    The problem I have always come across with thick larger towels like these is this...HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU WRING ONE OF THOSE OUT???? lol. The larger ones wont fit through a wringer, and you are not folding and twisting them unless you have jolly green giant hands.
    "Dirt likes detergent so much better than the surface that it's attached to, it'll leave that surface to go hang out with the soap"...aim4squirrels

  4. #4
    McKee's 37 Product Support
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Outstanding review, Mike.

    Quote Originally Posted by dcjredline View Post
    The problem I have always come across with thick larger towels like these is this...HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU WRING ONE OF THOSE OUT???? lol. The larger ones wont fit through a wringer, and you are not folding and twisting them unless you have jolly green giant hands.
    I've been testing all 3 sizes of Big Blue for well over 6 months now, and to be honest I've never had to wring one out. It drinks that much water.

  5. #5
    Super Member LSNAutoDetailing's Avatar
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Great review Mike! I added them to my wish list... Mike, what would be an appropriate purchase amount? I typically use one large guzzler for horizontal panels and about 4 - 6 smaller guzzlers for vertical.
    Would you state that should be about the same here?

  6. #6
    Super Member ronkh57's Avatar
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Ordered

  7. #7
    Super Member
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Hey Mike

    Are those tags paint friendly

  8. #8
    Super Member fly07sti's Avatar
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    How do these compare to the GG PFM grey towels?

  9. #9
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Those looks VERY good!
    '03 Corvette Z06

  10. #10
    Super Member PA DETAILER's Avatar
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    Re: Review: The Big Blue Drying Towel

    Look's like GRIOTS PMF has a rival...
    2018 Colorado ZR2

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