Hi everyone! Today on the repertoire, we have SHINE ARMOR and their all-marketed Fortify Quick Coat! It seems to be popping out everywhere lately.
Now before we dive into this, we would like to give a slight warning. We aren't sponsored by any company and buy all these products at our own expense. Meaning we can give you an unbiased, honest review of the product. This also means that we can tell you all about how Shine Armor Fortify Quick Coat performs in the real world.
That is very important for you to know because some of these products will be amazing. Others, not so amazing.
So be sure to read the full review of the product you are interested in, as we will break it down, so you know exactly what you will be getting when buying it. We will also, as with all our reviewed products, give it a grade based on multiple factors, so you have a general idea of how it compares to other similar products. Let us dive in!
Just to clarify - we are not sponsored by SHINE ARMOR or any other manufacturer of Paint Protection products, and we will test and review the product as it is in real-world conditions. We will follow the manufacturer's instructions during the application process, and we will prepare the surface to ensure the best finish and best adhesion possible. We are leaving an affiliate link to all our review products, but in case the product turns out to be of low quality or not as all as advertised, we leave a warning to all our readers, and the quality of the product will always be reflected in the grade we assign to it at the end of every review. So if you do not want to sit through all of this text, you can scroll down to the Average Grade and read our Final Thoughts to get a general idea of what the product is all about.
- Should you choose to go for it after reading the review -
Get your SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3sMTn5X
You have most likely heard of this product as it is heavily marketed and is a best-seller among other Ceramic Spray Coatings. If you aren't familiarized with how these Spray Ceramic Coatings that keep popping up everywhere differ from the standard Ceramic Coating that you can get, from our experience and understanding - they are weaker substitutes than their big brothers.
Usually mixed with waxes or polymer sealants and applied in almost the same way as the two, we can confirm they usually perform similarly to them. Though some have surprised us, most are, as we said before, highly advertised and have a strong marketing strategy that might have perhaps stretched their abilities a bit. We do not speculate. We have bought a bottle of SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat and eagerly tested it ourselves.
What does SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat promise:
advanced 3 in 1 formula that provides a waterless wash, coat, and shine
gentle and effective car polish
cuts dirt, grime, and grease and gives a showcase look
safe for all surfaces
gives a clear shield of protection and a beautiful gloss
best hydrophobic car spray available
8 Fl Oz of product
A lot to live up to. Let us see how it performed when tested!
First of all, before you use any paint protection on anything, you will need to prepare the surface first. To learn how to do it as a professional would then click here and find out. But basically, you would want to wash the car properly, clay it and do paint correction and polishing for the best final results.
Now SHINE ARMOR Ceramic Coating Spray is marketed as a waterless wash product that can be used as an effective car polish - meaning it has fine abrasive materials that would polish the surface of the car. That helps bring out a better shine, and abrasives help in removing harder to get rid of dirt from the car's surface.
We would never recommend using such a product for a waterless wash for two reasons - it is wasteful and could damage the paint.
What do we mean by that? Well, if you would use the product only to give the whole vehicle a waterless shine, you would burn through it very quickly, and it would end up costing you much more than giving the car a proper wash before using the product for its protective purposes. We can only justify giving a waterless wash if you are in a tight spot and washing the car is not an option, and you just want to have a clean, shiny car at that time ( e. g. a wedding or a similar ceremony ). Even then, you run into the second problem - damaging the paint.
While this product was designed for a waterless wash and it promotes cutting dirt, grime, and grease while giving the car a showcase look. It also has those fine abrasives in it for polishing purposes.
That is all great! But let's be honest here and use logic for a second if there are hard contaminants or any harder minerals or particles in general. While it may remove them, keep in mind that you will tag all those minerals along on the microfiber towel during cleaning or application and they will act as abrasives as well - just not that fine or small abrasives. They will sooner or later create swirl marks or deeper scratching that you will have to correct. Not to mention that you will be burning not only through the product but also through microfiber towels to clean the whole car. It is highly inefficient, and while it will clean, we would never recommend you clean using this method.
We have tested those claims so we wouldn't have to speculate, but actually, see it in action. It performed well where there were oils or grease, but we have seen scratch marks when cleaning rougher dirt or even dust. So we definitely recommend you NOT to use it for waterless washes for all the reasons stated above.
Next, it claims it has polishing properties. Not even getting into it - if you want to polish your car, it is far less expensive to buy a dedicated polishing paste and use a microfiber cloth or an applicator to polish the desired surface. It will most likely perform better as well because it comes in different grades depending on the damage in the paint you will be working on.
It claims that it cuts through dirt, grime, and grease. We have seen good results when using it for that purpose. Even though we had a few stubborn spots where we had to use some elbow grease as well as spray it a couple of times. At the end of the day, even if it works - using a degreaser for that job is, again, much, much cheaper.
SHINE ARMOR Quick Coat is supposed to give your car a beautiful gloss along with a protective surface. It did enhance the car's paint but only a small bit. Probably the polishing abrasives are to thank for that, as it did make the surface more reflective by removing some swirl marks. But it really took some hard work for it to be effective. A polishing compound, in our opinion, performs much better, and you can also use those compounds with a polishing machine making the job easier and quicker. Probably also better in the end unless you are experienced. As for the protected surface, we will come back to that shortly.
Now SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat claims it is the best hydrophobic car spray available. Well, we do not agree on that either. What it did, though, was make a super slick surface very quickly and easily. You literally sprayed, buffed off, and there you have it. Place the bottle on the area you just coated, and the bottle will slide right off if it has even the slightest angle. That looked promising, so we continued investigating!
We used the product on the whole hood of the car, and we cleaned, clayed, and polished the surface beforehand. We shook the bottle properly, sprayed on the hood, worked the solution onto the paint, and used a clean and dry microfiber towel to buff off the product from the hood. Before you buff it, we recommend waiting until it hazes off after about 15-30 seconds when applied. While buffing, you could feel some serious resistance at first, and only after a few seconds, it became extremely slick and slippery. We were pleased.
Just to see if there would be a difference, we covered half the hood with another coat.
It is said that you can use water on the treated surface immediately, but we gave it 24 hours as we would with any Ceramic Coating product - spray or not.
Next thing was to cover the surface with water to see how it performed. We wouldn't rank it number 1 in its hydrophobic properties, but that aside it performed really well in that area. Water was sheeting more than it was beading, even though it felt as slick as ice. But it left little to no water on the treated surface. The twice-coated part of the hood did seem to perform a little better, perhaps because that way, we ensured that 100% of the surface was covered with SHINE ARMOR Ceramic Spray Coating.
The next thing to do was to wash the panel using shampoo.
We have used pH-neutral car shampoo, as most professionals would, but classic car shampoo that is much more acidic because of the chemicals on it would be much more aggressive and possibly have very different results that do not go in this product's favor. Note that you will find regular car shampoos or sometimes even hydrofluoric acid in car washes, automatic or manual.
If you want to protect the paint of your car or have the paint protection last - the best thing is to do it to use pH-balanced car shampoos.
We used pH-neutral car shampoo for the job, used a microfiber glove to clean the surface using horizontal and then vertical motions, and worked the whole surface once. Then we rinsed the shampoo off with a pressure washer using water. The hydrophobic properties were already very weakened. Even on the double-coated part of the hood, even though that part performed visibly better. We performed the shampooing process 2 more times, 3 in total. The hood still had some weak, hydrophobic properties in some parts of the hood, while other parts performed as if they weren't coated at all.
We used the product on a testing panel that lost most of its clearcoat due to UV radiation from sitting in the sun for too long. The paint was, as expected, dull and damaged with no shine whatsoever. We used SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat on it, giving it two coats. You could see that the worked area gained a slightly glossy texture, but it was still very dull. It was super slick, though, and the hydrophobic properties were weaker than what we got from the previous testing on the hood of a car that was in good condition beforehand. That is, we believe the bad condition of the paint and its many hills and valleys prevented the water to escape as easily.
We didn't expect that the dull, oxidized paint would become shiny or glossy as it would if we've used Car Wax, but we didn't expect it to have little to no effect on the gloss department there. That just proves that most of its claimed gloss comes from the polishing effect when applying and buffing the product.
What have we learned?
Marketing is key when selling a product. That is for sure! When we compare it with similar products from other manufacturers, we find that it performs mediocre overall. It has nice packaging and color, and it has a nice grapey smell. That is certainly refreshing. But it definitely is not a long-term solution for protecting your car's paint.
We would describe this product as something to use to clean slightly dirty surfaces of your car to give it a quick clean, slightly better look, and some immediate short-term hydrophobic surface and slickness. It is not a complete flop, but the hype is certainly real.
Let us see how we have decided to grade the product:
product life time when applied: E
resistance to elements: E
resistance to damage: D
resistance to chemicals: E
application difficulty: A
hydrophobic properties: C
gloss / shine: C
Average grade: D
Cost: 2.49$ / 1 fl oz
0.08$ / 1 ml
Our thoughts on SHINE ARMOR Fotrify Coat?
We do not recommend this product as we believe it is too expensive for what it offers and how it performs. It is a solid product to use in some last-minute scenarios where you have perhaps no water or cleaning supplies available. But even then, we would still not recommend it. There are products that perform colossally better in their category, and we cannot justify going for this one unless all the others aren't available in your area.
- Should you choose to go for it after reading the review -
Get your SHINE ARMOR Fortify Quick Coat on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3sMTn5X