Like so many practices, professional valeters/detailers were the first to use bucket filters, a simple but effective way of showing them to be caring and professional, the qualities you require in a valeter or detailer. The benefits are obvious from the start, the debris, grit and grime settle at the bottom of the bucket and regardless of how careful you are there is a good possibility that you could pick up some of the debris, when “re charging” your wash mitt. Plus the added bonus of using it to agitate stubborn debris, that may have been stuck inside the mitt.

Then came the wash and rinse, two bucket, two filter system, now this really separates the professionals from the enthusiasts. One bucket with shampoo and the other with fresh water, both with bucket filters, but one purely to rinse the dirty wash mitt.

Colour coding was the next stage, the adopted system seems to be blue for wash, red for rinse, this extreme attention to detail, really helps ensure there is no cross contamination between buckets, serious attention to detail.

The ultimate “set up” that professionals and enthusiast aspire to is, the “three bucket system”, wash rinse and wheels. The “wheels” bucket is a loose term for wheels, engine bay, under arches, really dirty areas, maintaining the same colour code for wash, rinse and black for wheels. We think the most important issue is making sure a bucket filter is used, we have seen the benefits of the two and three bucket systems and understand there is definitely and advantage to colour coding. So three really is the magic number!