One minute, you're out there with a bucket and tattered sponge, using washing up liquid and whatever else you can find under the kitchen sink next to the ant powder and dishwasher tablets. Next, you see something about 'detailing' on a forum, decide to give it a go and buy a small arsenal of specialist products that your Dad would term 'a ludicrous waste of money'. Don't be worried. This is a good thing. Your car will thank you for it. And your Dad's Vauxhall Belmont has more swirls in it than a seventies carpet, so his opinion can be safely disregarded.

There are hundreds of different ways to detail your car. But if you want to do it Dodo-style, here's how. We've divided the process up into four basic sections, from the basic washing of the car through to regular maintenance. We mention a few of our products along the way, but you can often mix and match with stuff you already have from other manufacturers. Just make sure you have fun and end up with a clean, shiny car.

Or if you don't want to do it yourself, get a Dodo Authorised Detailer (DAD) in.

Get a bucket, or even better, two. Get a clean sponge or wash mitt - the softer the better. Don't be tempted by the gritty one currently lying on the garage floor, but find a nice new one. Fill the first bucket with warm water and a wax-friendly car shampoo like Dodo Juice Born to be Mild (washing up liquid contains salt and aggressive detergents, so don't be tempted to use it). Fill the second bucket with warm water. Get a hose or pressure washer and clear small animals and children from the immediate area. You are the detailing daddy. Nothing must get in the way of The Detail.

Use the hose or pressure washer to wet the car and shift the loose dirt. Then, if you are doing a 'deep clean' or have old wax on your car it's time to use a strong pre-wash detergent solution or traffic film remover (TFR). These will strip dirt (and old wax) from the car. Some of these products are designed to foam and are applied with a foam lance, if you have one (foam has a better dwell time, so can act on the paintwork for longer). Next take a look at the areas that need a bit of extra effort, like tar spots, dead bugs and brake dust on the wheels. Use dedicated cleansers for these, and remember that the wheels may need quite a lot of dwell time. Now rinse the car again with cold water - most of the dirt should have gone, meaning there are less particles to rub into your paintwork during the next stage: the contact wash. For this, you will sponge on shampoo suds from the shampoo bucket, applying the mixture from the roof of the car downwards. Then rinse the sponge or mitt in the second bucket, picking clean shampoo mix from the other one. This keeps the water as clean as possible in your wash mixture. Should the water get too dirty in the shampoo bucket, empty the solution and create a fresh mix. A grit guard in the bucket can help prevent dirt particles being picked up on your sponge or mitt. Once shampoo'd, rinse the car with clean water from the hose or pressure-washer and dry with a soft, clean microfibre. We prefer these to chamois leathers, water blades or cotton towels. You may use a drying detailer like Dodo Juice Time to Dry when drying your car - this will help break the surface tension of the beads causing the water to run off, increase the surface area of the water allowing the towel to soak up more, minimise water spots and lower the friction of the towel over the surface. But if you're a beginner, you can leave it out. It's not strictly essential for most people. You may also find that driving the car a short distance and using the brakes helps to dry the brake discs and prevent the chance of them rusting.

Next, if you have a clay bar, use this to eliminate embedded dirt in the paintwork. Remember to lubricate it (we make a special clay lube called Dodo Juice Born Slippy, but otherwise a strong shampoo solution will work) and discard the piece of clay once it becomes dirty... keep folding it to maintain a 'clean face'. Then it's time to polish, by machine or hand, panel by panel. Machines are generally rotary (the pad spins centrally) or dual action (referred to as 'random orbital' as well, because the pad goes around in a random off-centre pattern); random orbital machines can be safer to use on paint if you don't feel confident to attack it with a rotary (rotaries give quicker results though). Machine polishing is the best technique to eliminate those swirlmarks or spidery scratches that can result from poor washing. You can polish by hand, but the results can be inconsistent and it is often time consuming and hard work. After polishing, you can apply a pre-wax cleanser to remove any polish residue and create extra gloss before the wax goes on; it also helps bonding. If you have polished separately, we recommend Dodo Juice Lime Prime Lite, our pre-wax cleanser-glaze. If you haven't polished, Dodo Juice Lime Prime may suit - it contains micro-abrasives so acts as a polish and pre-wax cleanser in one. But be careful using it on soft or fresh paint (Japanese cars are renowned for having softer paint) as it can cause marring (use Lime Prime Lite in this case). After buffing off the pre-wax cleanser with a fresh microfibre, the paint surface is now ready to be Juiced.

Apply Dodo Juice waxes sparingly, either by hand or with a foam applicator pad (our Supernatural Finger Mitt is perfect); hard waxes don't spread as far and are best applied with a pad. Apply panel by panel, allowing between 5 and 15 minutes for the wax to cure and haze over (this depends on the wax and ambient condition). a great test to see if the wax is properly cured is to place your finger on the waxed area and move it away and to the side in a single motion; if the wax feels 'grabby' it is cured and ready for buffing off. If it feels 'greasy' or slightly wet then the wax requires more time to fully cure. Make sure to test a smallish panel first to get an idea of the time required for curing in your current conditions to know how many panels can be waxed at a time. Don't leave it too long on hot panels or the wax can 'cake' on. Then buff off with a clean microfibre. Apply additional layers after 30 mins to an hour (to allow the previous wax layer to cure) although if you have a clean garage, a delay of 24 hours is ideal. Now treat the trim and interior to specialist products (Dodo Juice Lime Prime Lite works well on black trim and won't turn it white) and then stand back and admire the shine. Your car is now officially Juiced.

The good news is that you don't need to go to the effort of a full detail that often. Once you have some Dodo Juice wax on your car, it will be protected from dirt for a few months. During that time, just wash it with a wax-friendly pH-neutral shampoo (like Dodo Juice Sour Power) - you'll find it's easier to wash than normal as the dirt doesn't stick to the paint so easily. There's no need to clay it or use strong detergents (these will actually destroy the wax layer). For fingerprints and dust, use a protection detailer spray like Dodo Juice Red Mist (adds protection) or Dodo Juice Time to Dry (as good as a normal quick detailer but reduces surface beading), or even just a fine water mist ('spit shining'). After a few weeks, the beading will start wearing off and then - a month or two later - all but disappear (unless you have topped-up the protection with Red Mist). At this point, you just need to strip off the old 'dirty' wax, which will have acted as a sacrificial layer and picked up the contaminants that were intended for your paintwork... you can then wash and deep clean the paint once again, before applying fresh wax to 'recharge' the protection. A new wax layer (or layers) every 3 months is the detailing equivalent of wearing fresh undies every day. And as anyone's mother will tell them, that's really quite essential.