Headlights are one of the essential parts of a car while driving. But headlights have an effect that is not suitable for driving at night. After using it for a long time, a vehicle’s headlights get foggy and unreflective. This guide will help you clean headlights with toothpaste and baking soda.
People need home remedies to clean a car’s headlights because taking the vehicle to a professional costs a lot of money for the same things you can do at home. Dust particles and moisture in the air stick to a headlight’s lens and do not come off due to heat generated by the beam.
In this article, you will learn the procedure of cleaning headlight with toothbrush and baking soda, the cheapest way to do it.
Here are a few things that you need to perform this procedure:
- Microfiber towel
- Paper towel
- Toothpaste
- Baking soda
- Toothbrush (old)
- Shower Bottle
Removing dust from the beam
Air is a mixture of many solid particles and moisture traveling against the car while traveling. When you do not clean your vehicle regularly, these particles become permanent and form yellowish skin on the surface of the beam.
When the surface is formed, the skin acts as a sticky surface of the beam, which accepts more and more particles to make the skin denser. As long as you do not clean the headlights, it will increase day by day, and your lights will no longer be effective at night.
To remove these dust particles, use a water shower to soften the skin of dust. When the dust skin is turned into dirt, use a clean microfiber towel to remove the dusty skin as much as you can. You will have to use some force to do this task, but too much pressure will damage the glass of your headlight, so use the amount of stress required.
Make sure you do not use the dirty side repeatedly and switch the sides of the towel while wiping off dirt; this will clean the soil more effectively. This method is necessary before cleaning headlights with toothpaste and baking soda.
Create a mixture
Before applying baking soda and toothpaste, you should put a suitable quantity of both items in a vessel. To do so, put 50 grams of toothpaste in the cup and then put a tiny amount of baking soda.
The quantity of baking soda should be up to the limit, where you can get a feel of grains in your mixture. Do not exceed the amount of baking soda in your mixture. After putting both items, mix the things with a spoon or use your finger until you see that the baking soda is mixed up. Your mixture is ready now.
Apply the mixture on the headlight beam
After making a mixture of toothpaste and baking soda, apply this mixture to your headlight beams using your fingers and form a skin of the mix on the surface of the beam. You might be a little awkward doing that, but the results will be similar to cleaning headlights with wd40.
Form a two-finger pair and massage roughly on the beam to make it stick with the upper surface of the beam. In this way, the solution will mix with the yellow skin and do its magic. After using the fingers to apply the mixture of toothpaste and baking soda to the headlight surface, you will need a toothbrush.
Rub the surface
Do not let the mixture dry while applying, and mix with fingers continuously. Now, take a toothbrush and rub it stiffly on the mixture applied to the headlight. Make sure you do not leave any part of the beam and rub the whole headlight.
By doing this, you will mix the dirty skin stuck to the surface with the applied mixture. If the mixture has started getting dry, you can use a shower bottle and shower some drops of water to make it wet. When the surface is moist again, continue using the toothbrush to rub the surface of the headlight.
After a while, you will start seeing the glow from the inner side more brightly than before. When you see the light from inside, put more water and keep rubbing until the mixture begins to disappear or lose its touch.
Wipe the yellow skin off
When the mixture has changed its color or becomes more transparent, you can put more water on it. When the beam is wet, you need to use a paper towel and wipe the mixture off the beam. It will not only brush the mix, but the yellow skin will also peel off with it.
Do not leave any spots while wiping. Make sure to reach every corner of the headlight. If you leave any area cleaning the headlight, the mixture of toothpaste and baking soda will stay there and get stiff after a while. The stiff mix will not be easy to remove or leave a permanent stain on your headlight.
After wiping all the mixture, you will see the difference between the other headlight and the clean headlight. Use the same process for the other headlight too.
Cleaning headlights with wd40
When the whole process of cleaning headlights with toothpaste and baking soda is complete, your headlights are clean but look hazy from the inside. It is due to the oxidization process due to the temperature change of the environment.
People still ask questions about how to clean oxidized headlights with wd40. It has been a trend nowadays to clean headlights of your car using wd40. But using wd40 in an excessive amount can damage your headlight glass.
So, before diving into the process of cleaning headlights with wd40, you will have to know that the provided method is enough for cleaning the headlight but is not enough to make it shine like a new car.
You will need a paper towel and a wd40 spray can for this purpose.
Step by step procedure
Complete the process of cleaning with toothpaste and baking soda. When the headlight is dry and shows some amount of foggy skin again, start cleaning headlights with wd40. Straighten the paper towel with two or three folds and spray some wd40 on the towel.
Wipe your car’s headlight with the wet area of the paper towel, and you will see the difference. Wipe the whole beam by using wd40 and a paper towel until the entire beam is clean, and you will be able to see the headlight shining.
Precautions
Every solving technique at home comes with a lot of care and study. But in this case, you will not have to worry about damaging your headlight or your car paint because of a different kind of process.
Keep in mind that the cover of the beam is usually a plastic material, and it loses its shine sooner than a glass. The plastic can get permanent scratches and won’t be easy to fix.
So, we suggest you perform this procedure with extreme care and use only the required amount of force.
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Conclusion
Using toothpaste and baking soda is effective if you are looking for a cheaper way out of yellow headlights. But doing this from a bit of experience of the output of these things can help perform the activity. Studying the uses of baking soda and toothpaste effects due to its ingredients can become helpful, but you can use these things for the process without thinking twice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Toothpaste can result in effective restoration. Toothpaste mixture contains a tiny amount of substances that can effectively rub off the dust and dirt particles off the headlights. The yellow skin on the headlight is formed due to moisture and dust; toothpaste can be a way out of this situation.
Toothpaste can remove some serious dirt from the headlight, but oxidation is drawn to a limited amount. If you only want to use toothpaste for removing oxidation, you can perform the activity with some effort.
The abrasive substance is not in higher quantity in toothpaste. It will require some extra effort and more toothpaste to do so.
Do not go for extra expensive ingredients while selecting a toothpaste to clean the headlights. As long as the toothpaste is not gel, it will do the work. Try to choose regular white toothpaste for this purpose.
You can use toothpaste, baking soda, coke, and cooking cleaner spray to clean your headlights. The most effective way to clean headlights in household items is toothpaste and baking soda.
Lemon juice contains citric acid and is very effective in cleaning dirty, sticky areas of any type. Due to this property of lemon, it is mainly used in washing soaps to improve efficiency. But if you are thinking of cleaning your headlights with lemon juice, do not forget to add baking soda.
