Started DetailForge because I got tired of seeing swirl marks on cars that clearly cost more effort than mine to keep clean. Here's the one habit that fixes 90% of that:

The two-bucket wash. One bucket for soapy water, one for plain rinse water. Every time you load your mitt with soap, dunk it in the rinse bucket FIRST to knock off the grit you just picked up off the paint, then reload with soap. Grit is what causes swirls — not the soap, not the mitt. The rinse bucket is what pulls the grit off the mitt before it goes back onto the car.

A $10 second bucket will do more for your paint than any $40 wax. Do this before you upgrade anything else in your kit.

If you want the whole starter setup (mitt, foam soap, ceramic spray, glass cleaner, towel) built around this method, that's literally why I built DetailForge — check the store.