SONAX PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam" APC 400ml

An all-purpose cleaner in foam form — SONAX PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam"

What is an All-Purpose-Cleaner Foam and what do you use it for? The SONAX PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam" is a foam-based all-purpose cleaner in a 400 ml aerosol can — the foam holds the cleaner on vertical surfaces, stretches the dwell time and lets you clean textile, plastic, carpet and interior surfaces with a single product.

Most surfaces inside a car sit vertical or steeply angled: door cards, A-pillars, the dashboard and seat backs. Classic liquid cleaners run straight off these surfaces and barely get any dwell time before they drip to the floor. The SONAX PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam" solves that with a different product format: as a spray foam it clings to vertical surfaces and keeps the cleaning agent right where you need it. The stable foam stretches the dwell time on hard-to-reach and vertical surfaces by a long way — no running off, no wasted product. The 400 ml aerosol can is the compact, ready-to-use answer for interior cleaning in pro work.

• Foam-based agent for maximum dwell time on vertical surfaces. Once you spray it on, the APC Foam clings to the surface and releases the cleaning agent steadily over several minutes. That longer dwell time matters most with crusted-on stains, dried-in dirt and grease build-up on plastic surfaces — the active substances get time to emulsify the dirt particles before you go back over with the cloth. The result is a more thorough clean with less elbow grease.
• Versatile on textile, plastic, carpet and interior surfaces. A true all-purpose cleaner doesn't need different products for different interior surfaces: the APC Foam cleans plastic dashboards, fabric seats, Alcantara surfaces, velour carpets, rubber seals and faux leather with the same technique. That trims the product stock you keep on hand and boils interior cleaning down to a single product for nearly every surface.
• Compact aerosol format for quick reach and clean handling. The 400 ml format is built for mobile work and grab-and-go availability: the can fits in any tool bag and is ready to use with no decanting or diluting. Unlike concentrate products that have to be measured out and poured into spray bottles, the APC Foam works straight from the can — ideal for mobile detailers and for a quick touch-up between detailing steps.

Detailing1's tip from the shop: Spray the PROFILINE APC Foam onto the surface you want to clean, let it dwell for 1–2 minutes and lift it off with a lightly damp microfibre cloth. On textile and carpet it pays to work the foam in with a soft brush before you take it off with the cloth — that way the dirt bound up in the fibres lets go more completely. On delicate surfaces like Alcantara or pale fabrics, test on a hidden spot first. As a pre-clean before a SONAX PROFILINE FabricCoating textile sealant the APC Foam is a solid pick — it cleans thoroughly without harsh solvents that would damage the textile structure.

How the APC Foam is formulated — foam-based cleaning and pH value

The PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam" carries a mix of surfactants and emulsifiers, brought to a stable foam consistency in an aerosol formulation with propellant. The surfactants in the APC Foam are built for a broad range of dirt: they emulsify fats and oils (the typical marks on steering wheels and gear knobs), break the dust bonds on plastic (that familiar "sticky film" on old dashboards) and back up the mechanical lift of dried-in dirt on carpets.

The pH value of the APC Foam sits in the slightly alkaline range — strong enough to clean effectively, but gentle enough for delicate surfaces like Alcantara and dyed textiles. Strongly acidic or strongly alkaline cleaners would attack the colour on Alcantara and damage that signature suede look. The mild formulation of the APC Foam is tuned to the varied demands of a car interior.

One technical point that often gets overlooked day-to-day: shaking before use matters more with spray-foam products than with liquid cleaners. The propellant and the active agent can separate inside the can when it sits unused for a while. A solid 5–10-second shake before use gives you even foam quality and the best cleaning action. Spray without shaking and you often get almost pure propellant with no agent first — which is why that supposed "first spray" does nothing.

The foam in the APC Foam is formulated to stay stable for 2–4 minutes after you lay it down, then slowly collapse into a lightly damp, cleaning-active layer. That collapse point is the ideal moment for the mechanical clean with cloth or brush: the cleaner has worked its way into the surface by then and the loosened dirt comes off completely.

Using the APC Foam — interior cleaning, surfaces and dwell time

The standard run for interior cleaning with the APC Foam: shake the can, spray evenly onto the surface you want to clean (about 15–20 cm away), let it dwell for 1–3 minutes, wipe off with a soft microfibre cloth and follow up with a dry cloth if needed. On carpets and upholstery it pays to work the foam in mechanically with a soft brush before you wipe — that lifts more deeply embedded dirt than wiping alone.

For heavily soiled or strongly odour-laden textile areas (driver-side carpets with ground-in dirt, rear seats with kids' stains), a two-pass approach works well: spray and work in a first coat, take it off roughly with a dry cloth, then a second coat for the finishing clean. The two-layer method pulls out stubborn stains that the first pass only loosened through the dirt and that come off completely on the second.

A common use in the pro world is spot treatment: you can target single stains on upholstery or carpets with the APC Foam without cleaning the whole seat. The foam sprays precisely onto the stain without wetting the neighbouring clean area. That comes in handy in day-to-day dealership work, where a showroom car has to be back in perfect shape fast after a customer's been in it — with no full interior clean. Single fingerprints on Alcantara, fresh coffee marks on the carpet mat or dirt streaks on the steering wheel are gone in minutes.

In a pro detailing operation the APC Foam works for a quick interior clean between the exterior detail and handover: 10–15 minutes to clean the key interior surfaces (dashboard, door cards, carpets) with the APC Foam, and the car is in handover-ready shape — no full deep-clean process needed.

Where the APC Foam works — interior, boot and detail cleaning

The APC Foam covers every textile and hard surface inside the car: dashboard and centre console in hard plastic, door cards with a fabric or faux-leather panel, seat surfaces in fabric or Alcantara, textile headliners, carpet on the floor and in the boot, plus rubber seals on doors and windows. For each of these surfaces the APC Foam works as a single product — no product swap, no extra measuring of concentrates.

Headliners call for extra care: the headliner is often a textile material with an adhesive layer underneath. Cleaning too wet or letting cleaners dwell too long can loosen that adhesive on older cars, which leads to the headliner sagging. The APC Foam is gentle enough for headliners as long as you apply it sparingly and don't lay it on in excess. Short dwell time (1 minute) and gentle dabbing instead of rubbing protects the headliner adhesive. On very old cars, or where the headliner is visibly starting to sag, skip aggressive wet cleaning altogether.

Beyond the interior, the APC Foam also suits quick detail cleaning on exterior parts: engine-bay plastic trim, boot carpets and boot liners can be cleaned with the same product. You can use it on metal surfaces, but that isn't the main use case — for paint and wheels there are more specialised products in the PROFILINE range.

The APC Foam compared — all-purpose cleaners in the PROFILINE range

Within the PROFILINE interior cleaning range the APC Foam rounds out the other cleaning products: the SONAX PROFILINE InnenReiniger is a classic liquid interior cleaner for the base clean with a spray bottle; the SONAX PROFILINE CleanStar "Ecocert" is the eco-certified, mild all-rounder for delicate surfaces. The APC Foam rounds these out as the format for quick, vertical-surface cleaning — where a liquid cleaner doesn't cling efficiently.

For operations cleaning a lot of car interiors regularly, the APC Foam makes sense alongside a concentrate-based interior cleaner: the concentrate for the large-area base clean, the APC Foam for the detail work on hard-to-reach or vertical spots. The combination of both product formats covers every interior cleaning need efficiently.

Buy the SONAX PROFILINE All-Purpose-Cleaner "Foam" — for interior cleaning and detail work

The 400 ml format of the APC Foam is ideal for mobile detailers, interior cleaning pros and operations after a compact interior cleaning solution for quick work. The aerosol format makes handling especially easy: no decanting, no diluting, ready to use right away. Dosing through the can's spray head is easy to control — too much foam on delicate surfaces is easy to meter back.

Storing aerosol products like the APC Foam means following a few ground rules: temperatures above 50 °C (in a car interior in summer, say, or near radiators) can raise the internal pressure of the can and lead to damage. So keep the can out of direct sunlight and don't leave it lying in hot cars. Stored properly below 25 °C and away from any direct heat source, the product is stable and keeps without limits.

For operations with very high interior cleaning demand, the combination of APC Foam for details and a larger interior-cleaner concentrate for the base clean works well — that way the APC Foam isn't your daily high-volume cleaner but the specialist product for quick, precise jobs. As a verified SONAX dealer at Detailing1, the PROFILINE APC Foam is part of the regular range.