"The Absorber" - the microfiber drying towel of the 80`s does anyone still use it? I do.

A few months ago, I came across an old "Absorber" towel, the synthetic chamois that was all the rage in the 80`s. It was all dried out and hard, but curiosity got the best of me, so I soaked it with water and it immediately returned to its old state - almost like new again. So I wondered ...

I would NEVER use it on a "detailed" and "waxed" car in good shape, that is the place for my Griots Garage PFM towel. But what about a car that was ABOUT to be detailed and needed washed & dried? So when detailing season opened up here in Ohio, I used it on all three cars I`ve done so far. My niece`s KIA Soul, my wife`s Escape and my mother in law`s Edge. It still worked great, and since I was going to be using Turtle Wax Hybrid Solutions 1 & Done Compound ANYWAY, if it left a slight swirl or two, would it matter?

Turns out it didn`t `mark up` any of the cars, it just worked as I remembered. For me, this was exciting, because I DON`T want to use my PFM on an undetailed car (call it a quirk). So now I have an old tool that I found, that once again has a purpose.

In addition to drying cars `yet to be detailed,` I found another thing that it works great at. Drying buffing pads after they have been washed after use. Wring them out like normal, and place the Absorber on a clean table or bench, folded at least once and place the pad on top of the Absorber, and fold the other half of the Absorber over that pad and press down on the `sandwich.` This will force what water is left in the pad out and the Absorber immediately soaks it up. Do this only a couple of times and the pad is nearly dry enough to use right away (you probably COULD use them right away, really).

So I started wondering if anyone else still had one and used it like this.

Not recently but went thru several back in the day. They were all the rage and best way to dry a vehicle. They did a great job on glass.

Before microfibers came on the market we distributed thousands every year to the detail trade.

I used those until the PFM towels came out. I can’t say I had problems with swirling

If there cars you are going to keep for a while I wouldn’t use them. When we polish we remove clear coat.

Why add more swirls thus needing to remove more clearcoat just because paint is in bad shape.

In any condition I try to take care of my paint as best as possible to have to polish the least.

It’s why we do test spots, right? A compound will correct most paint but we try a polish first to be the least aggressive to remove the least clearcoat. To a lesser degree we should do same when drying a car…. My thoughts anyways…


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