When choosing a car detailing light, the key is finding a tool that allows you to clearly inspect paintwork from multiple angles. Some useful features to look for include:

• Adjustable brightness to inspect different surfaces and lighting conditions.
• Colour temperature between 4000k and 6000k.
• Focused beam pattern for highlighting paint defects.
• Rechargeable battery for longer working sessions.
• Handheld style design for tight areas and to avoid fatigue over long sessions.

For most detailing work, a colour temperature between 4000K and 6000K is ideal.

Lighting in this range closely replicates natural daylight, which helps reveal swirl marks, scratches and polishing haze more clearly. Cooler light temperatures tend to highlight surface defects better than warm lighting.

Many professional detailing lights use a neutral white output in this range because it provides a good balance between clarity, colour accuracy and defect visibility.

Using the right colour temperature allows an inspection light to expose imperfections that might otherwise be missed under standard garage lighting.

Yes, a good inspection light can make it much easier to identify high spots in ceramic coatings.

High spots occur when excess coating is left behind during the levelling stage. As the coating begins to cure, these areas can appear darker, smeared or slightly oily compared to the surrounding surface.

A quality car detailing light helps reveal these differences by creating focused illumination across the paint. When the light is moved across the panel at different angles, high spots will often reflect light differently from the properly levelled coating around them.