Oxidized headlight before cleaning with toothpaste
A much cleaner headlight after cleaning with toothpaste
I’m stepping away from my design updates to share a brief experience. If you watch television regularly enough, you probably have seen the infomercial advertising a specialized cleaner for oxidized, dirty headlight covers on a vehicle. I have no idea if the advertised cleaner works, but I can tell you a certain “home remedy” works just fine.
The recent infomercial no doubt piqued my interest because the headlights on my 1998 Toyota Camry have needed a cleaning for some time.
A recent Google search for “how to clean your headlights”–or something similar–revealed a common ingredient among the results: toothpaste. It seemed too good to be true, so I decided to put this home remedy to the test. Let me say, I am quite impressed with the results and want to share my experience and some photos with you.
These photos were shot with an old cell phone camera, so the quality and color are a bit compromised. I hope you’re able to see the difference in before and after. The photos are untouched, raw images.
Here’s my process (culled from various sources in my search):
- Prep the surface:I used a touch of auto soap and a bucket of water to wash off as much grime as possible. It’s important to note: Soap and water won’t remove oxidation, so don’t confuse the results I experienced with the thought that perhaps the soap and water cleaned the headlights. After washing, dry the surface.
Squeeze toothpaste onto a dry cloth or paper towel
- Squeeze on the paste: As you can see from the photo, I happened to have Crest Tartar Protection–I’m not sure if other types of toothpaste would have produced different results. I squeezed a bit of toothpaste onto a dry paper towel.
- Lather: Next, I wiped the headlight with the toothpaste, adding more as needed to cover the area. The temperature was pretty hot, too, (lower 90s) so the toothpaste wasn’t spreading as easily.
- Rinse:Once the headlights were covered with the toothpaste, I cleaned them with a sponge and warm water.
- Repeat: The results are from cleaning the headlight twice, and regardless of how well it may show up in the photo, the difference is quite remarkable.
So, there you have it. You can clean your oxidized headlights with toothpaste–and it leaves your car feeling minty fresh. Give it a try and share your experience!
Only had Colgate Total, which was gel and didn’t work. BUT did also read and tried silver polish and it was amazing and easy! Wipe on and work a bit then buff off. Found out I have a cracked lens that I couldn’t even see before!
Hi Lori. I’ve heard about using silver polish as well. That’s good to know about the gel. Next time your headlights get dirty, you should try the toothpaste method as I did. I’ll try our silver polish sometime soon. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Hi Lori,
I was told that colgate PASTE, cleans the headlights. I didnt believe it until I tried it. It does work.
You have to let it dry completely then just rinse off with water hose(and in the heat we have been having that doesnt take long).
But you said that silver polish worked for you that’s great. Besure to use a car wax on the headlight after cleaning, that helps keep it clean longer.
Lori, what brand of Silver polish did you use? I’m very curious since the toothpaste did not work for me. Thanks.
So glad I found this site / subject for my 2006 Toyota Corolla. Took my car in yesterday for regular service on changing transmission fluid, $$$ already, and the guy did his BEST to talk me into the $90 way to clean them. Yeah, right – I had already been surfing for a cheaper way to clean them and read several ways, but this toothpaste deal is worth my trying it – THANK YOU for pointing out the type with tartar control.
Hi JoAnn. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing. Very glad to hear the toothpaste method worked for you as well. And I’m certainly glad you saved yourself $90. What an outrageous price. Next time, I may test Lori’s method of using silver polish. Cheers!
I just took my ’04 Corolla in to the body shop. I paid $60 to get mine done. Didn’t mind it a bit because they took quite a bit of time doing it. Really didn’t want to do it myself and the plastic looks like brand new. The plastic was really oxidized badly. I will pass on the toothpaste tho to anyone interested.
(Please don’t give my email to anyone.)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU ( IT WORKS)
Hi Anne. Glad to hear it worked. Thanks for stopping by to comment.
It’s funny because I have the same car and year and even same paint job. I did this earlier today to my car and then I found your posting. It works really well. I just have one question does using toothpaste on your headlights (which I already did) have any long term effects on your headlights?
Abel, that’s a good question. I’m not sure if there are any long-term effects on the headlight covers or not. I’ll look around and see if I can find out anything. If you find some good info about this, I hope you’ll leave a comment and let us know. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi all,I’ve cleaned several cars in my area with toothpate,with good results,but whatever oxidation doesn’t come off,then you have to sand them down with some 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper,because the toothpaste itself,doesn’t take it all off on some vehicles.Don’t use the gel,just regular white stuff.Wash it off with water and put wax on it to protect it.You may have to repeat every few months,when you see it clouding up again.
Good advice, Kevin. Thanks for the comment and insights.
when i read your title i laughed a lot but when i asked my employee to do that the results were amazing. it really works so thank you
Cleaner Jobs
My pleasure, Emily. Glad to hear it worked for you. I just sold that Camry in the photos above, so when the new car begins to have oxidation, I’ll be anxious to try out the toothpaste again or the silver polish idea. Thanks for commenting.
Well, I tried this technique with Colgate Tartar Protection toothpaste and it did not work for me. I hoped I could save some money by doing this, but not this time, I guess. Thanks for the tip anyway.
I also tried this method after coming across the recommendation on Pinterest. For about 60 seconds it appeared that it had solved the problem but then the water I had used to rinse the toothpaste off dried and it was completely back to it’s original cloudy state.
Just this past weekend I asked my son what I could use to clean my headlight covers. He said he buffed his with his electric buffer. I decided to google cleaning solutions and saw this website. I am going to try your method this weekend. Can’t wait to see what happens!
The toothpaste does work. It does clean the headlights. You just have to have the sense to know how to do it. The people that states that it doesn’t work are the people who don’t have any common sense and know how, to do anything. They are lazy and ignorant.
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