How to Use Meguiar's Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

About Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash and Wax is different from your traditional “wash ‘n wax” product that traditionally combines soap and wax into one. This product separates both car soap and wax into two separate chambers in its packaging: a larger one containing a low-sudsing soap to gently clean the vehicle, and a smaller one with the wax additive that exhibits excellent hydrophobic properties.

This product is recommended to be used with Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt, which is a wash mitt that on one side has piles for washing, and on the other side a smoother texture microfiber that is made for applying the SiO2 “boost” wax. Since the two sides are combined into one hybrid wash mitt, it can be used by dunking the mitt into a wash bucket containing Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax, washing the vehicle with the wash-side of the mitt, then flipping it over and spreading the wax with the wax-side of the mitt.

This guide on how to use Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax is intended to help supplement the provided instructions from Meguiar’s and to provide some helpful tips and tricks to getting the most out of this product based on my own experiences. A big thank you to Meguiar’s for providing this product for me to test and write about.

Tools & Materials Used

Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax, 48 oz Wash, 8 oz SiO2 Boost

Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt

Wash Buckets

Car Wash Buckets (use color options to distinguish between soap and water buckets if desired)

Grit Guard Inserts

Grit Guards (use color options to distinguish between soap and water buckets if desired)

Drying Microfiber Towel

Meguiar’s Drying Microfiber Towel
Griot’s Garage Drying Towel

Leaf Blower for Drying Vehicle (optional)

WORX WG520 Electric Leaf Blower
TORO Electric Leaf Blower F700

How to Use Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

Since Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax has two separate liquids that must be mixed together prior to using, there is a recommended way of mixing and applying the product for optimal results. I’ve experimented with several different ways of mixing up the product, as well as with different application methods to determine what I believe to the best way to use this product.

Best Way to Mix Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

First of all, the recommended way of mixing this product according to instructions from Meguiar’s is to add 3 oz. of the soap, fill bucket with 3 gallons of water, add 0.5 oz. of SiO2 Boost, and then apply to vehicle.

The important thing to understand here is that the SiO2 Boost doesn’t mix up very well together with the soap, hence the reason for it being separated from the soap container as-packaged. Think about how oil and water don’t mix when you put them together. This is why the product is intended to be mixed up just prior to application.

Another thing to know is that the car soap in this formula does not foam up very much; Meguiar’s says it is a “low-sudsing formula”. This is similar to Optimum No-Rinse, if you have ever used that product before. This doesn’t necessarily mean it cleans any less, it just does not create as much suds. If you prefer more suds with this product like I do, you can do the following, which in my opinion is the best way to mix up this product:

Add 3 oz. of the car soap (from the larger chamber) into a wash bucket (with a grit guard).
Fill bucket with 3 gallons of water by spraying water into it; this will create foam in the bucket.
Add 0.5 oz. of Hybrid Ceramic SiO2 Boost to the bucket.
Take a wash mitt (Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt if don’t use a regular mitt) and stir the mixture in the bucket to mix the soap and wax before applying it to the vehicle.
If you’re performing a Two Bucket Wash, you can fill another bucket full of water and and add another grit guard, then follow the Two Bucket Wash Method to minimize scratching.

How to Apply Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax

Once you’ve mixed up your wash & wax formula in the bucket, you can start working on one section of the vehicle at a time. Prior to this step, it would be beneficial to rinse the vehicle off first to get as much loose dirt off of the vehicle as possible.

Dunk your wash mitt into the bucket, and starting wiping down one section of the vehicle from the top-down. An easy way to keep track of your progress is to work one panel at a time. If you’re using the recommended Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt, wipe down the panel with the wash-side (side with the piles) and then flip the mitt over to apply using the wax-side (side with smoother microfiber) across the same panel.

After you’re finished with one panel, you can re-dunk the wash mitt into the bucket and rub the mitt across the grit guard to remove any loose dirt. In the images below, you’ll see the use of two types of wash mitt: one with piles and one without. Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt is a combination of these two types of wash mitt into one.

If you don’t have Meguiar’s Hybrid Wash Mitt, you can just use a regular wash mitt, and wash normally. I’ve noticed that if you don’t do the wax application part using a smoother-textured microfiber mitt/towel, then the application can be less uniform. What you end up with is some parts of the vehicle may have better water repellency than others. In fact, you can tell whether you’re spreading the SiO2 Boost across the surface because you can see and feel the oily wax being spread across the surface. You can even see that it doesn’t leave much water behind when you’re applying the SiO2 Boost.

Once you’ve completed washing/waxing the entire vehicle, rinse all of the excess product off with water. You will notice immediately how much water beads up on the surface of the vehicle. One of the nice things about using this product is that you can apply it over the entire vehicle: the paint, window glass, headlights/tail lights, trim, etc. This means you can eliminate the need for other products. For example, you no longer have to purchase and spend the time applying Rain-X on your windows since this product does a similar job although it may not last as long.

After rinsing the vehicle with water, you may even use a leaf blower to blow off about 75% or more of the water off the vehicle, as well as blow water out of the various crevices of the vehicle to aid in drying. You can then finish off the rest of the drying (or completely dry the vehicle without the use of a blower) with a microfiber drying towel.

The hydrophobic properties can be seen immediately and lasts for weeks. Here are the results after it had rained about a week after using Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax. For a one-step wash & wax product, the water beading action that you get is phenomenal.

Can You Use a Foam Gun or Foam Cannon to Apply Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash & Wax?

I’ve seen many people ask this question of whether they can simply mix up a batch of Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash and Wax and apply it using a foam gun or foam cannon. Although Meguiar’s says this will not work and is not the intended way of applying this product to a vehicle, I wanted to test it out for myself.

So you can obviously spray a mixture of the hybrid ceramic car soap and SiO2 Boost through a foam gun/cannon onto a vehicle, but what you’ll find is that the application is very non-uniform. I tried spraying the entire vehicle with a foam gun and I realize that only soap was spraying out of the foam gun especially at the beginning and middle of using the product. Towards the end was when more of the wax was coming out.

What I ended up with was entire sections of the vehicle that didn’t have any hydrophobic properties and others that did—this is of course if you use a wash mitt to physically rub the surface after spraying the product.

If you’re wondering whether you can spray this product onto the vehicle, let it sit for a few minutes, rinse it off, and get the hydrophobic behavior that this product is known for, this will not work. I mentioned earlier about how the product sprays out of a foam gun non-uniformly, but you also need to physically wipe the product across the surface of the vehicle to transfer the wax onto the surface. If you don’t wipe, the wax stays suspended above the paint surface, then gets washed away when you rinse with water. As you can see below, the SiO2 Boost can easily just be washed away along with the water.

So if you want to know how you should apply this product, stick with the instructions from Meguiar’s and apply it via a bucket. I haven’t heard a good explanation for why using a bucket works best, except that the SiO2 Boost mixes up better in a bucket than in a foam gun or foam cannon.

If I could venture a guess, I would say that the SiO2 Boost is an oily fluid that does not mix with water and stays suspended at the top of the water in the bucket (just like what I believe happened when using it in a foam gun.) When you dip your wash mitt into the bucket you are able to get the soap absorbed into the mitt, then when you pull the mitt out of the water, the SiO2 Boost that is sitting on the surface transfers onto the mitt as if you were hydro-dipping your wash mitt. It’s possible I’m wrong, but I can say from my testing that using Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Wash and Wax works best when used with a wash bucket.