Kathryn Bird tests Dry Sparkle's waterless wash system on her motorhome, showing how to clean a van without water access. The spray-and-wipe method removes grime but requires extra elbow grease on heavily soiled areas, and using two cloths prevents streaks. It works as a backup when water isn't available, though it's more labor-intensive than a jet wash.
One of the most frustrating things about keeping our motorhome in a storage yard is that we don't have anywhere to clean it. Now, personally, I'd probably not worry too much about this, but Mr. WB likes a clean motorhome. So if you're like us and you don't have anywhere obvious where you can wash and clean your van, this is the video for you. Hey, I'm Kat from Wandering Bird, where we share tips and tricks for motorhomers and campervanners to help you make the most of your time on the road. And in this instance, at home. Now, we have an issue with our van where we like to keep it nice and clean on the outside and on the inside, but doing that when it is in a storage unit where we don't have water— they obviously don't want us to start cleaning and sudsing it all up. We can't, we live on a boat, so we haven't got anywhere nearby where we can take the van that's got a decent water source, and taking it to a car or motorhome wash can be problematic. Now, of course, we could take it somewhere like a truck stop and use the jet washer and clean it all off there, but there is another solution, and that is waterless wash. And a company called Dry Sparkle sent me a whole range of their products. So this is the full range. I don't yet know what everything is, but there's car waterless wash, tire and trim— that's fairly self-explanatory— fabric and upholstery cleaner, road tarn, the black streak remover, The plastic dashboard cleaner, caravan waterless wash, motorhome waterless wash, and then we've got some of these fantastic cloths. I don't understand what they're doing with the red one. I need to read the instructions. And then we've got a mop that goes on this extendable brush. We've got mop thing to clean the outside and a little sponge bit, a little brush. I'm quite excited. Look how pretty it all looks as well. Yeah, I'm quite looking forward to, uh, having a go with this. And the way that they work is really quite straightforward. You spray and you wipe. So let me give you a little demonstration how easy this is to clean your van without any water source whatsoever. Now this is very difficult. You might want to go back a little bit, sweetie pie, because you're pointing at the van. There we go. This is very— have you got my head in? You didn't have my head in, did you?
Right.
Do I need to do something clever? Oh yeah, need to do something clever. Okay, so it does look quite like a big pump. And then, so I saw this on Dan Trojan's video, and he folded up a little cloth and he wiped. I was like, that looks way too easy. Oh wow, okay, all right. And then he wiped again.
Can you see that?
Can you see how clean that's just got? I genuinely wasn't expecting that to be that clean. And then he wiped again. It's going to really annoy you because it's going to be a really clean panel on the van. And then he wiped again. I'm making it to eighths. And the trick, and the reason I'm using it like this, is how we don't want— I shouldn't spray this bottom bit. I probably should. I like the way it's gotten— oh, can you see the wheel arch?
Right, are you ready? Clean cloth.
Freaking helicopters. Hang on, no panic fire about the little streak. Okay, look how much dirt's come off. You can talk, I don't mind. Okay, fair point, you can't actually talk. Look, look how much has come off. This is going to annoy me now. I didn't realize our van was this manky. I mean, you can clearly see— I tried to show it before— you can kind of see the bit there, it's manky, and then that bit's clean.
You'll see how manky that is. Do that panel there.
Yeah, to be fair, that is— I'm gonna need a different cloth, I think.
Okay.
That is manky. When did we last clean the van?
Week. I'm kidding.
You're all right, Donald.
Don't make me swear on video.
You can't swear, they can't hear you anyway. Okay, that bit's gonna need extra elbow grease. It definitely needs— it's not just a wipe off. It definitely needs some elbow grease. The van is manky, yes, but that's okay. The whole point is that it's got a manky van. Cleaning a clean van's pointless. Definitely worked, didn't it? Look how much Dirt's come off.
That's just from your hands.
If you didn't hear that, because I've got the microphone on, he said that's just from my hands, because he's a charming chap. I'm quite impressed given that we don't have a way of cleaning with water at the moment. Yeah, well, we've got 2, and to be fair, I don't think there'll be much difference between the motorhome and the caravan when we've got one of each. And also ours is particularly manky at the moment and we haven't used that for a while, but certainly to keeping on top of things like the windows and stuff. And this can be— hang on, let's try it on the window. Find a clean bit. I'm cheating on the bomb bit. And then once you've wiped it off, you need another clean bit on the windows to dry it so that it doesn't streak.
Ideal scenario is 2 cloths.
I should have bought a second cloth. I'm not disputing this. I should have bought the second cloth. It's in the van.
You can really see the difference.
Actually, you can, can't you? You can see the inside that Nanny's doing too, but that has actually come up really, really well. But yes, 2 cloths, a wiper offer and then a non-streaker. Um, yeah, don't use the same one because that's a bad plan, but overall I'm quite impressed with that. Cool, thanks Dry Sparkle. Can I just say on a side note how much I love these little things? So this stops the bottle from being accidentally depressed in a lock or something. You just pop it back in when you're done with it and it clips in place. It's really, really well made, really neat. And then in the storage unit. And for the top of your van, we've got a plan. Hang on, right, how am I going to do this? Can I do that? Yeah, why not? You're in a hedge, by the way, just for the record. So, spray that—
yeah, it is up there.
Then we've got a mop.
Extends and it just cleans and it goes around the corner.
Actually, it's great. Way quicker with the mop. I'm getting a bit into this.
Need more, need more. Under the door. So put that around there and at the top up there.
I better get brownie points for doing this. I'm not gonna get brownie points for doing this. I need a little cloth. Okay, I'm gonna carry on. It's really quite easy with the mop, way easier than doing it by hand. Yeah, quite impressed with this. And then you go around with the cloth and just Wipe it all off, or get another one of the mop heads to have one for wet and then one for cleaning off, and go around and buff it all up again.
Easy peasy.
I think it's fair to say that any waterless wash is going to be far more manually intensive than using a jet wash. Obviously, it's going to be a lot more elbow grease and probably going to take you a longer time. But if you don't have the option of having water for your washing, then this is a really, really good backup. So if you would like to try Dry Sparkle out, you can go on their website— the link is below— and use the code that's coming up now for you, and that will give you a little bit of a discount. Thank you very much to Joy Sparkle for sharing their products with us and allowing them to test them all out. Hope you found the video useful, and I'll see you on the next one.
Bye!
