No matter what kind of vehicle you drive, your low-beam headlights should illuminate 160 feet in front of you, while your high beams should illuminate up to 500 feet. However, your headlights can’t do that if they’re foggy or damaged.

Some people take their cars to a professional headlight restorer, and others attempt to take on the job themselves. Although DIY headlight restoration is possible, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it. To ensure you’re doing it the right way, here are all of the ways not to perform headlight renewal.

Toothpaste

Many people might not think about toothpaste as an all-purpose cleaning agent, and there’s a good reason for that: it’s not. Toothpaste is designed to clean your teeth, not your headlights. While a lot of people claim success with this method, the toothpaste is probably better off in your bathroom, cleaning your mouth.

Dish Detergent

If you want to shine up your headlights, dish detergent or dish soap is a fine way to do it. But if your headlights are foggy or dim, dish soap won’t fix your problems. Car headlights prevent countless accidents every day, so trusting them to Palmolive might not be the best idea.

Baking Soda

If you prepare a solution of baking soda and water, your headlights and the rest of your car will probably be nice and clean, but not much else other than that. If you have a headlight problem, you shouldn’t be looking to your baking supplies for help.

Bug Spray

Why anyone would use bug spray to restore their headlights is beyond us. Bug spray might repel insects from your skin, but it’s not going to stop them from flying out in front of your car headlights while you’re driving at night. Not to mention the fact bug spray is about as far as you can get from a cleaning agent.

The Right Way

If you want to skip the drive to a mechanic, there’s a right way to perform a DIY headlight restoration. Believe it or not, you can buy professional-grade headlight restoration kits that will actually help you restore your headlights.

Before you smear toothpaste or bug spray on your headlights, make sure you’re going about headlight restoration the right way, with a restoration kit.