What Is SONAX?

SONAX is a German car care manufacturer based in Neuburg an der Donau, in southern Bavaria. The brand first came to market in 1950 under the family company Franz Hoffmann & Söhne, and it's still owned by the Hoffmann family today, now selling into more than 120 countries. The name itself is a leftover from that era — "Sona" was the family's household silver polish, and an "X" for wax was added to create a car care brand.

That history matters for one practical reason: SONAX has been refining abrasives for a very long time, and it shows in the polishing range. In Australia the brand is best known for two things — the PROFILINE compounds used by professional paint correction shops, and the XTREME consumer range that brings a lot of that same chemistry into bottles aimed at enthusiasts.

What makes SONAX worth understanding as a system rather than a shopping list is that the range covers every stage of a detail — from the foam shampoo you start with through to the ceramic coating you finish with — and the products are formulated to work in sequence. This guide walks through the entire SONAX range we stock at Detailing Shed, organised the way you'd actually use it: wash first, protection last.

If you'd rather browse than read, the full range lives on our SONAX Germany collection page.

The SONAX Range By Detailing Stage

Eight stages cover the whole catalogue. Jump straight to the one you need, or read top to bottom for the full picture.

01 · Wash

Everything in a detail depends on how well you wash. SONAX splits its wash products into foam shampoos designed to run through a foam cannon, and hand-wash shampoos that add a layer of protection as you go.

Foam Shampoos

• SONAX XTREME RichFoam Shampoo (1L) Most Popular — the one most people should start with. Designed to produce thick, clinging foam through a foam cannon so dirt gets lifted and softened before you touch the paint with a mitt. pH neutral, so it won't strip existing wax or ceramic protection.
• SONAX ActiFoam Energy Foam Shampoo (5L) Best Value Per Wash — the bulk option. Same idea, much larger format, aimed at detailers and anyone washing multiple vehicles a week. If you're refilling a foam cannon regularly, the 5L works out substantially cheaper per wash than buying 1L bottles.
• SONAX Gloss Shampoo Concentrate (1L) — a straightforward, highly diluted bucket shampoo. This is the everyday two-bucket wash option rather than a foam-cannon product.

Shampoos That Add Protection

• SONAX XTREME Ceramic Active Shampoo (500ml) — a shampoo with SiO2 in it, so every wash tops up the hydrophobic layer on your paint. Best used as maintenance on top of an existing coating, not as a replacement for one.
• SONAX XTREME Wash + Seal (500ml) — same principle with a sealant rather than ceramic chemistry. Good for someone who wants a bit of extra beading and gloss without adding a separate protection step.

Wash Tools & Bug Removal

• SONAX Microfibre Washing Glove — a soft microfibre mitt for the contact wash. Pair it with a grit guard bucket to keep grit off your paint.
• SONAX Insect Sponge — a textured sponge for bug splatter on the front bar and mirrors. Use it wet, with plenty of lubrication, and let the shampoo do the work rather than scrubbing.
• SONAX Dirt Eraser (2 Pack) — for stubborn marks that survive a normal wash. Use sparingly and only where needed, these are more aggressive than a wash mitt.
• SONAX Multistar Sanitiser & Power Cleaner Concentrate — a heavy-duty dilutable APC for engine bays, wheel arches, door shuts and workshop cleaning. Dilute it right and it covers a lot of ground.

03 · Decontamination & Prep

Between washing and polishing sits decontamination — removing the bonded contamination that a wash leaves behind — and then prep, which strips the surface bare so protection can bond properly.

• SONAX PROFILINE Prepare Finish Control Essential Before Coating — a panel prep spray that removes polishing oils, fillers and residue from the paint after correction. This matters more than most people realise: polishing compounds contain oils that temporarily mask fine defects and, critically, will stop a ceramic coating from bonding properly. Wipe down with this before you coat, and you'll both see the true condition of your correction work and get the durability the coating is capable of.

For iron removal, the Wheel Cleaner Beast covered in the wheels section above is an iron-removing formula, though it's sold and labelled as a wheel cleaner rather than a whole-car fallout remover. There's no SONAX clay bar in the range we stock, so for the full decontamination stage pair the PROFILINE prep spray with our clay bars and lubricants and dedicated iron removers. The order that works: wash → iron remover → clay → polish → panel prep → coat.

05 · Protection

Once the paint is corrected and prepped, protection locks the finish in. SONAX covers the full spectrum here, from a genuine multi-year ceramic coating down to a spray you use while drying.

Ceramic Coatings

• SONAX PROFILINE Ceramic Coating CC36 Kit Longest Protection — SONAX's professional ceramic coating, supplied as a kit. This is a proper coating: it requires corrected paint, a thorough panel prep wipe-down beforehand, controlled application conditions and a cure period afterwards. Do the prep properly and it's an excellent coating. Skip the prep and you'll get a fraction of the durability.
• SONAX XTREME Ceramic Spray Coating Easiest To Apply — around six months of protection from a spray-on, wipe-off application. Nowhere near the longevity of CC36, but it's forgiving, quick, and requires no special conditions. For a lot of people this is the sensible choice.

Sealants & Drying Aids

• SONAX XTREME Spray+Seal Most Convenient — spray onto a wet car, rinse, dry. Protection applied during the wash with no separate step. Excellent for maintenance between coatings.
• SONAX Hypercoat Wet Sealant Drying Aid Concentrate Commercial Volume — a highly dilutable concentrate designed for wash bays and volume operations applying sealant as a drying aid. Priced as a commercial product but the dilution ratio means the per-car cost is very low.

Detail Sprays

• SONAX XTREME Brilliant Shine Detailer — the general-purpose quick detailer. Light dust removal, fingerprints, boosting gloss between washes.
• SONAX XTREME Ceramic Ultra Slick Detailer — the SiO2 version. Adds slickness and tops up hydrophobic behaviour on coated cars. If you've got a ceramic coating, this is the detailer to maintain it with.

For the full protection picture across all brands we stock, see our ceramic coatings and spray sealants collections.

07 · Interior

SONAX's interior range is broad and unusually well differentiated — there are separate products for hard surfaces, fabric, leather and air conditioning, rather than one all-purpose cleaner doing everything badly.

General Interior Cleaning

• SONAX XTREME Interior Cleaner Start Here — the everyday interior cleaner for dash, door cards, console and hard plastics. Cleans without leaving a shiny or greasy residue.
• SONAX XTREME Cockpit Cleaner Matt Finish — cleans and dresses in one step, finishing matte rather than glossy. Matte is the right look for a modern interior and it also means no distracting windscreen reflections off the dash.
• SONAX Interior Cleaner Concentrate 10L Bulk / Workshop — dilutable bulk interior cleaner for high-volume interior work.

Fabric & Upholstery

• SONAX XTREME Upholstery & Alcantara Cleaner Foam — an aerosol foam for cloth seats, carpets, headliners and Alcantara. The foam format is deliberate: it lifts soiling without soaking the material, which matters a lot on headliners and Alcantara where over-wetting causes permanent problems.
• SONAX Pet Hair Special Brush — a rubber-bladed brush that drags embedded pet hair out of carpet and fabric. If you've got a dog in the car, a vacuum alone won't get it and this will.

Leather Care

• SONAX PROFILINE Leather Cleaner 1L — step one of the two-part leather system. Lifts body oils, dye transfer and soiling out of the grain.
• SONAX PROFILINE Leather Protection 1L — step two. Conditions and adds UV protection. In Australian conditions this step is not optional, UV and heat are what crack and fade leather.
• SONAX XTREME Leather Care Milk Matt Effect — a simpler one-bottle option that cleans and conditions together, finishing matte rather than shiny.

Air Conditioning

• SONAX AirAid Car Air Conditioning Cleaner Symbiotic — treats the source of that musty smell when the air con first kicks on, rather than masking it with fragrance. Genuinely useful on older cars and anything that's been sitting.

Round out the interior stage with our interior brushes and interior microfibre.

A Full Detail Using SONAX, Start To Finish

Here's how the whole range fits together in one job, in order. Not every car needs every step — a well-maintained car might only need steps 1, 2, 8 and 9.

1. Wheels first. Wheel Cleaner Beast on cool wheels, agitate, rinse. Doing wheels first means overspray lands on dirty paint, not clean paint.
2. Foam pre-wash. XTREME RichFoam through a foam cannon. Let it dwell, don't let it dry, rinse thoroughly.
3. Contact wash. Two buckets, microfibre glove, straight lines, top down. Insect sponge on the front bar.
4. Decontaminate. Iron remover, then clay with lubricant. Skip this and you'll grind bonded contamination into the paint when you polish.
5. Dry. A quality drying towel, or Spray+Seal as a drying aid if you're stopping here.
6. Correct. Machine polish with the appropriate PROFILINE compound — Perfect Finish for most jobs. Test a section first.
7. Prep. PROFILINE Prepare Finish Control to strip polishing oils. This is the step people skip and then wonder why their coating failed early.
8. Protect. CC36 Ceramic Coating for long-term, or XTREME Ceramic Spray for a simpler option.
9. Glass, trim, tyres, interior. Clear Glass, Plastic Restorer Gel, Tyre Gloss Gel, then the interior last so you're not tracking product back in.

Where To Start With SONAX

If you're new to detailing

If you already detail regularly

If you're detailing professionally

Common Mistakes With SONAX Products

1. Reaching for PROFILINE because it says "professional." PROFILINE compounds are formulated for machine application. Applied by hand, in the sun, without the right pad, they'll give you a worse result than an XTREME product used correctly.
2. Skipping the panel prep before coating. Polishing oils sit on the paint and block a ceramic coating from bonding. This is the single most common reason coatings fail early, and it's entirely avoidable.
3. Starting with the heaviest compound. Always test the least aggressive combination first. Clear coat doesn't grow back.
4. Using acidic wheel cleaner on the wrong wheels. On polished, anodised or aftermarket finishes, acid can permanently stain. Use the pH-balanced Wheel Beast unless you're certain.
5. Letting products dry on the surface. Almost every issue with wheel cleaners and shampoos in Australia traces back to the product drying before it was rinsed. Work panel by panel and keep surfaces wet.
6. Treating a ceramic shampoo as a substitute for a coating. Ceramic Active Shampoo tops up existing protection, it doesn't create it from scratch.
7. Over-wetting Alcantara and headliners. The upholstery product is a foam for a reason. Soaking a headliner can delaminate it, and that's not a recoverable mistake.
8. Using one towel on glass. Two towels — one to clean, one to buff. This fixes streaking far more reliably than switching glass cleaner.

Choosing The Right SONAX Products

The most useful thing to take away from this guide isn't a product recommendation, it's the structure. SONAX splits into three ranges aimed at three different users, and the range covers every stage of a detail in sequence. Once you know whether you're a Classic, XTREME or PROFILINE buyer, and which stage of the process you're trying to improve, choosing the right bottle becomes straightforward.

And if you're not sure which stage would make the biggest difference to your car, work backwards from what's bothering you. Dull, flat paint on a car that's otherwise clean is a polishing problem. Water beading that's disappeared is a protection problem. Grime you can't shift no matter how hard you scrub is usually a decontamination problem, not a stronger-chemical problem.

Shop The SONAX Range More Buying Guides