How many drying towels do you actually need?

The honest answer is fewer than most detailing kits sell you, and more than one. One large, high-GSM towel can dry the paint on a whole car. The problem is everything else that needs drying, and what happens when that towel is in the wash.

One for the paint

The paint is the surface you are protecting, so it gets its own towel and nothing else touches that towel. A large twisted-loop towel of around 1000 GSM holds enough water to dry the roof, hood, trunk and sides of a mid-size car, wringing it out once or twice along the way. It should never go near the wheels, the door jambs or the lower sills, where the grit is.

One for glass and the dirty jobs

Door jambs, the trunk opening, the area behind the fuel flap, mirrors, wheels and exhaust tips all hold water that drips out after you have finished. They are also dirtier than the paint. A second towel handles all of that, so whatever comes off them never ends up on the hood.

Glass can share this towel, or get a thin waffle weave of its own if you want streak-free windows.

One in the wash

Microfiber needs washing after every use, and a heavy twisted-loop towel takes a while to dry. If you wash your car weekly, the towel you used last time is often still in the laundry or still damp. A spare means you are never tempted to reuse a towel that has not been washed, which is how grit from last week ends up on this week's paint.

So, how many?

• One car, washed now and then: two. One for paint, one for everything else.
• One car, washed every week: three. Paint, everything else, and one in the wash.
• Two cars, or a large SUV or truck: three or four. A big vehicle can saturate one towel before you finish, and two cars double the dirty jobs.

Keep them apart

Whatever number you settle on, keep the paint towel separate. Some people use a different color for the dirty-jobs towel; others fold it differently or keep it in another bag. The point is that you can tell which is which at a glance, even with wet hands.

For how to look after them between washes, see how to wash a microfiber drying towel. For the drying technique itself, see how to dry a car without swirl marks.

The Nytride drying towel comes single or in packs of two, three and four, priced lower per towel as the pack gets bigger.