The "TikTok Detailer" Plague: Why Your £300 Ceramic Coating on Dead Paint is a Scam

Let’s be real for a second. We all love those satisfying 15-second clips on social media. The thick snow foam, the aggressive brushing, the sudden glossy reveal. It looks great on a phone screen. But there is a massive difference between creating content and preserving a vehicle.

There is a cancer eating away at our industry in the UK.

It’s the rise of the "TikTok Detailer" often a glorified valeter charging £300+ for a "Stage 1 Correction & Ceramic" on paint that is already clinically dead.

If you think agitating snow foam with a brush is "thorough cleaning," or if you think you can "fix" lacquer peel with a polisher, this post is for you.

The "Oxidation" Lie

Here is the science lesson that seems to be missing from the viral videos.

There is a distinct difference between surface oxidation (that chalky residue) and Clear Coat Failure (Lacquer Peel).

When a car’s lacquer has been exposed to UV rays for 15 years, the UV inhibitors are gone. The chemical bond between the clear coat and the base coat (colour) is broken. This is the "cancer" of car paint. It is structural. It is destroying itself from the inside out.

You cannot polish a cancer away.

When a "pro" takes a DA polisher to a bonnet that is showing signs of crazing, crow's feet, or delamination, they aren't fixing it. They are shaving off the only remaining (albeit dead) protection, thinning the paint further, and exposing the base coat to even more rapid destruction.

The Ceramic Coating Trap

Here is where the incompetence becomes theft.

I see "detailers" polishing dead paint and then selling the customer a high-end Ceramic Coating. This is malpractice.

When you apply a ceramic coating over a clear coat that has lost its structural integrity, you are sealing the problem in. You are applying a rigid layer over a substrate that is crumbling.

1. Trapped Decay: You are locking in the optical degradation. The coating acts as a magnifying glass for the failure underneath, often making the oxidation look worse than before.

2. Wasted Money: The ceramic bonds to the lacquer. If the lacquer is flaking off (because it's dead), your expensive ceramic coating falls off with it.

You are charging a customer hundreds of pounds to put a plaster on a broken leg. It might look shiny for two weeks, but when that customer returns in 3 months with peeling paint, that’s on you.

"I tried everything to remove the old coating..."

I recently watched a young "professional" struggle to understand why he couldn't strip an old ceramic coating. He told me he "tried everything." "Everything" turned out to be: TFR (Traffic Film Remover) and a strong shampoo.

Are you joking?

If you don't understand the basic chemistry—that a cured ceramic structure requires mechanical abrasion (compounding) or extremely specific heavy-duty chemistry to remove—you have no business charging for it.

And don't get me started on the guys agitating snow foam with a detailing brush. Snow foam is a pre-wash. It is designed to be touchless. If you are scrubbing that foam with a brush before you've even rinsed the road grit off, you aren't detailing. You are essentially sanding the customer's car. You are creating the scratches you later charge to remove.

The Bottom Line

To the customers: Oxidation and Clear Coat Failure are often irreversible. If your lacquer is peeling or looks like crazed paving, you don't need a detailer; you need a bodyshop. An honest professional will tell you this and refuse to take your money for a coating.

To the "TikTok Detailers": Stop faking it. Stop ruining the market by undercutting real professionals while delivering sub-standard, damaging work. Detailing is 20% washing and 80% knowledge of physics and chemistry.

If you don't know the difference between oxidation and delamination, put down the machine and pick up a book.