Does the Headlight Restoration Kit on TV Actually Work? [Video]

As-seen-on-TV products, love 'em or hate 'em? In my experience they have been hit-and-miss. Usually more miss. But every once in a while one comes along that actually does what it claims to do. The 1 Second Slicer is one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. I never do onions without it. The microwave omelette maker is...adequate. Not a complete flop, but not a total failure, either. What about those headlight restoration kits? Do those actually work? I decided to find out.

I noticed around Christmastime that I one of the headlights on my car was pretty foggy. I asked someone that knows more about cars than I do if the TV restoration kit actually works. "Sometimes," he said. Which was no help at all. But it was winter, and it was cold and/or snowing all the time, so I wasn't ready to do anything about it anyway. Yesterday it was pretty nice out, so I ran out and picked up a kit. The price was $9.99, so I figured that even if it doesn't work, I'll only be out 10 bucks. It was worth a chance.

The process is pretty simple. The kit comes with everything needed for the project, except water. The headlight needs to be wet in order to clean and polish it before applying the restorative material. There is a small, two-sided rectangular pad that is used to clean the headlight, and then polish it with the other side. The kit also comes with a microfiber cloth to dry the headlight, after it's been cleaned and polished. There is a pair of latex gloves included for handling the restoration material, which is on a pad in a sealed package. The instructions indicate wiping across the foggy headlight one time, while being careful not to touch the pad to the paint of the car.

We gave it a try on my cloudy headlight, and it worked! The headlight looks 100 times better than when we started. Maybe not brand-new, but a huge improvement. The entire project took only 10 or 15 minutes, but that was because we were shooting video of the process. If there was no video, it would have been finished a lot faster. $9.99 well spent.