WOWO’s

We just stopped by the Rag Company booth and we noticed something was a bit … different … What exactly is WOWO’s you ask? Below is some general information that Rag Company shared with us as a little teaser until release. We realize that it is not a lot of info, but check back on December 9th for much more!

• Wowo’s is a Scottish automotive detailing products brand that has developed a new lineup of chemical products in partnership with The Rag Company over the past 1 1/2 years for release during SEMA 2019
• These products are not re-labels or anything you have seen before.
• Samples are on their way to Detailed Image right now and we’ll begin testing asap. If they meet our standards expect to see them on our site for the launch.
• The official release date will be December 9th

#LoveWOWOs

The Gauntlet Drying Towel

Now back to some Rag Company info! In the above video (timestamp [7:05]), you will find some information about a new towel called … The Gauntlet … This towel is a twist loop/plush drying towel that combines elements of the Rag Company’s Twist Loop material with elements from the Eagle Edgeless. Check out a little teaser photo below with some more information on this towel. We will have this one up on the site for pre-order shortly!

• 70/30 Blend
• Korean Microfiber
• 70/30 Suede Edge
• Striped Pattern (Twist Loop, Eagle, Repeat)
• 4x Sizes

Microfiber Towel Care

At timestamp [9:56] in the above video James askes Levi one of our most asked questions, how do you care for your microfiber towels. Below are some quick suggestions from Levi, but check out the video for the entire conversation!

• Microfiber melts at 140 degrees and most home water heaters are set at 140 degrees from the factory. If you are washing with hot water, you are melting your towels. Always wash on cold or warm water only
• Free and clear detergent or microfiber specific detergent. Never anything with dyes, scents, fabric softeners. It can damage the fibers in the towel.
• Levi’s Secret Sauce – Half a cup of distilled white vinegar. Add this to your bleach or fabric softener tray. During the rinse cycle, this will release the vinegar. It is very acidic, but it helps break down sealants that bond with the towel. Fabric detergent isn’t always going to be able to break through polymers, sio2s and all the different sealants we use today. When you apply these to protect your car, you are also protecting the towel and the vinegar helps combat this.
• If you are using a sio2 spray or coating and want to save towels, instead of tossing them away, the vinegar tip above is great. Levi also recommends a pre-soak. Use a 5-gallon bucket with soap, all-purpose cleaner, etc. and water. The idea is to always keep the towels wet so that sio2 does not harden. Then simply ring them out and wash them as listed above. Even if a full on coating towel does not work great on paint again, it will always be great for other areas (doorjambs, wheels, interior surfaces, engine bays, etc.).
• Always dry on low heat or no heat. No dryer sheets. Heat is the enemy here!
• On drying towels specifically, Levi hang drys them. These towels especially seem to grab residual from past use of dryer sheets in the drying tumbler.
• Tip for business owners – Buy a washer and dryer for the shop. Only hook up cold water to the washer and remove the heating element from the dryer. This will always keep your towels safe, especially if an employee is not paying attention to the settings!

Video Transcript:

00:00

Hey guys, it’s James here with detailed image. We are at SEMA 2019. We are at the rag company, booth and we’re with Levi. Levi. What’s going on dude? What’s happening dude, good to see you. I’m glad to have you guys here and glad to be able to talk to the guys at detailed image. But we have the rag coming here excited because 20, 20 is a kind of a growth year for us in a very big way. How we were already getting big. Yeah, we’re going to get a little bigger around. So one of the things is Anthony and myself on a trip to Waxstock a couple of years ago in the Rancho. If you ever go, please try and get there and do that. Alright. But I ran into a company called wowos and I picked up a good conversation with the owner and we just started talking and he said, Hey, I want to send some products down with you.

00:45

I’d love you to try my stuff. He knew about us and what we do with towels. He said, I think they pair really well together. Sure. so that kinda started an 18 month process of me and Anthony daily phone calls was Fraser talking about the products. And over the course of those 18 months, we reformulated the entire lineup. Whoa. Between the four of us, Fraser and Robbie and Anthony and I going through and just fixing, not fixing but making things better. Okay. So they had a line that you guys had kind of totally great line, but for us I wanted it to be an even better. Wow. And Fraser was very open to that as well. And I was like really looking to get it into the U S market. So we together just worked on everything we possibly could to make a very easy to use product line where, I mean, you could buy this for your, for your dad who maybe never doesn’t really do a lot with the detailing, but you could get it for him and give it to him and he could use all the products and use them simply, easily and effectively and get the best results possible.

01:46

Or you could be in a shop and you could be a professional detailer, utilize the products, have fun with them, but also maybe want to sell them to your customers without giving them the headache of dilutions and Hey, you got to try it this way, or you got to only do one spray for this. Then you got to, this is just use it, enjoy it and have fun with it. Okay. And that’s kind of our goal is I, so I, I envision this with wowos what was the reason I really liked what was, was it gave me a kind of nostalgia. Okay. I grew up as a detailer in the sense that my parents were detailed. My mom jokes that she was the one that taught me how to wax the car, not my dad. That’s not like, how would you feel about that?
02:25 So my dad goes, no, I’m pretty sure I gave it. I told you when you were like 14 how to wax the car. But my mom said, she goes, why not? When you were three months old, we were detailing cars and I would have you in a front carrier and I had that can of wax in front of you while I was waxed at a car and you were trying to grab it. And so she, that was her conditioning from an early age. Exactly. And so one of the things that I, that I remember most is I can walk into my dad’s garage, I can go to his cabinet and I can open it up. The detailing cabinet that has all his products. Some of those are 40 years old. Yeah. They’re probably dead, but they still have a scent. Yeah. And every one of those scents is attached to a memory.

03:07

And so one of the things that we love about wowos products is we created really great sets. Okay. And my reason for this whole brand affiliation with us, where did the T we are the North American district exclusive distributor. So you’ll be able to buy wowos from the rag company, but also through our distributor network, our friends at detailed image and folks like that that are gonna carry the line. Our big thing with it is I want to have people fall back in love with detailing. I want sounds or the experience that goes with it. Exactly. I want people to, you know, I want to take my kids out and I want to wax the cars and we’ve got a wax. Malo wax smells like marshmallows. They’ll make the garage smell like marshmallow. Yeah. But I want my kids to think about that. So maybe using in marshmallows, 30 years from now, you know, my son has his kids and they’re roasting marshmallows and he says, you know, my dad had a wax and the cars would always smell like marshmallows, you know, or you know, they smell a certain, or finisher has a really nice lemony water, like a nice watermelon sent to it.

04:10

And they smell that and they go, Oh man, this smells like my dad’s car. You know, maybe they get that sent and I want to create those memories and I want others to create those memories too. I think that’s kind of an important thing. I mean, my dad kind of showed me the way to start with, right. I remember being in the garage, he was always tinkering. You know, he had all kinds of bottles and scents and, and, and wax. I always still have that nostalgia with wax just because it’s like you just, there’s a feeling, you know, obviously can do a great job. It can be a great wax, the fanciest wax in the world. But there’s also, there’s, there’s performance and then there’s the feeling, and it sounds like you guys are trying to capture that feeling. Exactly. Well, and we’ve got the performance.

04:50

Yeah. So it’s old school technology, but with the new school twist on it. Yeah. So we’ve got that. But one of the things that is that, like I said, is that love. We want to create that love affair again with the like bring back paste wax. We’ve got a couple pace waxes that bring it back. Most people don’t think about that stuff. But the way I look at it is if you’re going to teach, you’re gonna learn how to drive a car. You need to learn how to do this to a manual and you need to do an automatic. Yep. Too many people go through just doing an automatic, they’re just going to drive an automatic and they’re fine. Don’t need to worry about a stick. Nowadays. I love sprayable technology and I love the ease of use for a lot of stuff. And for detailers, it makes your job much easier.

05:31

So there’s nothing wrong with spray balls, but for the consumer place, right. But for the consumer or somebody who just needs to relax, wants to find that a version of therapy, you go out, you wax your car. Yeah. And if you can teach your kids how to wax a car and you can lay down a nice coat of wax on there, that’s an art. That’s an art form. And that’s what I want to bring back. And that’s what I want people to do is take that time, enjoy your, enjoy cleaning your car, enjoy the experience, and enjoy the experience of it. And that’s, that’s our main reason with wowos and the hashtag love wowos, and that’s how we’re kind of branding this whole company with that. But it’s been a Brandon since 2013. Okay. They’ve been manufactured manufacturer out of Scotland. So it’s a, it’s an active brand.

06:16

But this has been a full relaunch of the brand name in partnership with the rank companies. So cool, really excited for it. And all the towels work great with all of those products, which is even better. That’s one of the things that’s super fun, but that’s one of the things that we needed to have right off the bat. What towels work best with each product. And so we are going to be building kits and other products like that so they can come in and combine everything and we’ll, and of our distributors will give them recommendations so that they can sell to their customers as well as to what they want to do. But we’re both really excited to be able to go through this process and have that capability to be able to introduce a new kind of a new line to the U S and to our friends in the UK and Europe.

06:58

It’s probably not a new line, but for the U S market it is, it’s awesome. And we’re just really excited about it. And then one of our new towels that will be coming out in January is hiding back here behind the car. OK. The gauntlet. Okay. Talk to me a little about that marriage between, so one of the things that made us popular and a lot of people don’t, didn’t know, but the Pluffle was one of our first innovations. Okay. The marriage between our plush circular knit weave, which was our Eagle and our dry me a river waffle weave pattern. We married the two of those together, created a pluffle. It’s been a sensation ever since. Well, we’re doing that again by taking our twist loop material and mixing it with our, okay. Our circular nit weave. So we’re calling it the gauntlet.

07:38

It’s basically a striped pattern of a towel. So it’s twist, blush, twist, plush, Whoa. Extremely absorbent. Yup. We were washing this car about four days ago at detailers Las Vegas and I drive this car with two 16 by 16 versions. which was great. So is that, what would be your kind of, what with this new towel, what’s kind of the, you know, the preferred application? It can, is it general purpose? It’s more for drying. Okay. But I’m sure as it, as more people use it, we’re going to find better. They’re going to find applications for it because one of the issues with two twist loop patterns, people seem to think like, Ooh, it’s too rough. It’s not, it’s just the way your fingers kind of touched the microfiber because it is a very large loop. Okay. I’m grabbing, it’s grabbing. Yep. So we add in our circular knit and then so we make this talent much softer.

08:27

Wow. And it’s a premium drying towel, 70, 30 blend, Korean microfiber, a 70, 30 swayed edge on it. It’s a phenomenal towel. So like I said, with the gauntlet, we’ve got these kind of the stripes as we call them. But it does two things. You know, we think this is probably one of the greatest versions of a drying towel period. Not in this size. We have four sizes that are coming to market. And so we’ll have a sites for everybody. But one of the fun ones, he’s going to be a 12 by 12 wheel towel. Okay. So it’ll be this, it’ll be a dedicated premium wheel towel to dry your wheels. Okay. Safely, effectively and have a nice manageable size. So you’re not working with too much towel. Now would it’d be just for drying the wheels or would you, could you, you could use it, you could use it with quick detailed sprays and you’d use it as a last touch towel for last step products.

09:16

Yep. So realistically it’s just what people want to be able to use it with. Yeah. Primarily it will be classified as a drying towel, but it may work great. You know, who knows, it might be the next bea maker talent. You never know. It might be amazing to doing glass. There’s a lot of different issues that we can play around with and work with. Right now for us it’s, we’re, we were looking to create a new drying towel. Wow. Ah, so that’s kind of where, where that came in, yeah. That’s cool. So, and it’s kind of our answer to a lot of the companies with as we grow bigger and bigger with the drying kinda game. Yeah. We’re throwing down the gauntlet, throwing another one. And so we’re, so this is our challenge. This is the gauntlet. Yeah, I got ya. That’s awesome.

09:55

That’s awesome. Yeah. So I have, I have one towel. You guys the towel masters. Okay. I have one towel related question that I get. We get answered or asked a lot. I should say it relates to proper washing, drying. How do I maintain, right? So you bought, you buy age old question, you buy a great towel, you buy a rag company towel. I use red company towels every single day a a yellow kind of all purpose towel that I use for just about anything quickly tailing Polish removal. It’s, I absolutely love that towel. But I guess my question to you is how would you know, you’re making that investment, you’re buying a high quality towel. How should, what would be your recommendation on how to maintain it? So this is kinda my, my slogan. Okay. Cold, free and clear cold. Okay. So the way that breaks down is cold water wash, cold water wash.

10:44

All right. You can use warm, but you don’t have to add water. Only microfiber melts at 140 degrees. Okay. So most home water heaters are set from the factory at 140 degrees. So if you’re running a hot water, you’re going to melt your towels right off the back. Okay. so I always say cold or warm. Okay. Never hot. Never hot. Okay. Then a free and clear detergent or a microfiber specific detergent, what is your feeling on that? I mean, would you always say microfiber specific or is it something free and clear work. You can use a laundry detergent free and clear, tide free and clear, all free and clear, gain free and clear. Just as long as it’s free and clear. So no dyes, no scents, any of that kind of stuff. Gotcha. the secret sauce that I add is I will add a half a cup of distilled white vinegar to my bleach board.

11:31

Okay. So either have a little bleach tray or you have a fabric softener tray. You pour the distilled white vinegar in there. What this does is during the rinse cycle, it releases the vinegar. Vinegar is very acidic. But what, what is great about the vinegar is it breaks down sealants that bond with the towel. Okay. So if you have a towel, they’re beating up like crazy. This would combat that. It helped break that up because fabric detergent isn’t always going to be able to break through polymers and sio2s and all the different sealants that we add now to protect our car, when we protect our car, we’re also protecting the towel. Yeah. So one of the ways to help combat that is by using distilled white vinegar. I mean, you’re in your normal wash routine. Another way is if you’re using an SIO2 to spray or coating and you want to save those towels instead of just tossing them.

12:24

Yup. One thing I recommend is doing like a, a presoak. So create a bucket. It’s five gallons. Put either like ONR all purpose cleaner or even like a car wash soap is fine. Okay. Just, it has to stay wet. So the goal is you want to take something, take those towels and dunk them in that and let them sit. You don’t ever want that product to dry into the towel. Okay. And you can take those, ring them out, throw them in your wash, run your load, and he should be able to rinse all that out and break that down so you can at least save some money, save some money, reuse your towels and you need to. And yes, there may not be good for like coating towels, specifics. They may not be great for paint paint again, but they’re great interior towels. So where did they store jams?

13:06

We, well great engine, Bay towels, anything you need dirt to dry your hands off something garage. Yeah, they’re great for that. You know if you’re working on your car and you get some grease and stuff, use those towels. It gives you another use for each towel and it creates the price that you paid for those towels. It makes it cheaper and matching. Exactly. So then when you get those towels, so going back to drying. Yep. Low. Okay. Or cold dry. So low heat or no heat on the dry tumble low. No fabric softener, no dryer sheets, none of those things. And if, and one thing I like to do on my, on my drying towels specifically, I hang dry those on the drying towels specifically I hang dry them just because if I throw them in like let’s say a wash them with some paint towels, if I dry them with those paint towels, paint towels are going to be okay.

13:58

The drying towels, if my wife just finished doing a load of laundry and she put a couple of dryer sheets in there, the dryer sheets, residual resident amount of residual residue on the inside of that tumbler and microfiber will do what it’s designed to do, which is grab everything and hold onto it. Okay. So I’ve found that my drying towels will kind of pick up a little bit of that and I’ll get a blotchy effect on my towels when I’m drying. Okay. And so I will, and not on the paint, but just on the towel, you can see where water gets in and does it. Okay. You see like a wet spot and then a little bit of dry. Yeah. Okay. So all my dry and tell specifically I like to just hang carpet, pull them out of the dryer, throw the rest into the dryer, I pull those out and I just go hang them in my garage on a towel rack.

14:40

Yeah. Cause usually if I’m washing them already done working on the car, so I don’t have anything to jump onto and use. There’s an ascending order of, you might do, say paint towels first, then have your drying towels or something else come in after something like that. Yep. And if you’re running a shop and you’re washing your towels at home and you’re married I feel sorry for you. Make sure you clean your washing machine out for your wife so that she doesn’t, it doesn’t divorce you because I did that for a couple of years. So I finally just want to Craigslist and bought a washer and dryer for my shop. So but in my business, what I did was I removed the dryer element. Yeah. So and I only hooked up cold water to my washing machine at my business so that my detailer to do it so my detailers couldn’t mess it up.

15:26

I got them detergent, I got them a vinegar, I put a poster up there. I wrote on how to do it and it was, it didn’t matter if they turned it on, if it was on hot, nothing came out. So what it does, so they put it on warm or cold and just water would flow. And then if they put it in the dryer, I never had to worry about them cranking that thing up cause it was never going to get hot cause there was no element in it was just going to tumble and run air. Wow. Wow. So that just, it saved me from, as a business owner, from losing a lot of money in towels to a, I’m trying to figure it out and down and you an employee that just maybe didn’t think or they’re having a bad day or they’re on the phone with their girlfriend and they’re doing laundry for me. Yeah. It just took out the guesswork. Made it idiot proof. Sure. So, but yeah, those are some of the sweet things on how to wash your laundry. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for watching. We’re at SEMA 2019 at the rag company booth. This has been Levi. Thanks for watching. See you guys.