Lux Auto Detailing | Details Make the Difference
By LAUREN JURGENSEN | Photos by CARTER GASKINS
Ashley Zupko was working three jobs when she decided to reconnect with a teenage hobby: painstakingly cleaning and reconditioning cars.
“In high school, I would sit there and clean my tiny little car,” Ashley said. “It would take me six hours and I’d do it with a Q-tip and toothpick. I’ve always been like that because my dad’s like that with his cars and trucks.”
She was talking with a friend who ran a window cleaning business one day when he suggested she give auto detailing a try. At first, Ashley dismissed the idea.
“I thought, ‘That’s not a thing. There’s no market for that,’” she said. “Turns out there is.”
BEHIND THE BUFFER
After researching the Topeka auto detailing market for about a month, Ashley officially launched Lux Auto Detailing in June 2022. She started with a modest client base of family and friends, but word-of-mouth referrals and Facebook advertisements helped expand her reach.
Six months was all it took for Ashley to leave her three other jobs in the rearview mirror.
“January 1, 2023 was the first day I was 100% self-employed,” she said.
By the summer of 2023, just one year after starting her business, Ashley had secured her first shop and gone from “detailing in [her] front yard” to running a business from her own physical location. Last year, she doubled the size of her shop to 2,000 square feet.
Ashley attended McPherson College on a softball scholarship to study auto restoration but felt discouraged at the time because of gender bias in the industry.
“I fell into that whole ‘You’re a girl, so no one’s probably going to bring their cars to you,’ mindset, and I believed them,” she said.
Following a challenging period in her personal life, Ashley said she needed something for herself. Auto detailing gave her a creative outlet, as well as other practical benefits.
“I knew it would give me freedom and time for my kids and family,” she said, adding the financial uncertainty of starting a business did make her worry at first. “It always bothered me to be making the same amount of money as someone else at an hourly job, even though I’d be doing most of the work.”
ROSIE APPROVED
As a single mother of two children — a five-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy — Ashley knows she has a lot of responsibilities riding on her business venture. That’s why she sees her success as an example for other women, especially women leaving difficult situations.
“I want to show other girls and women who want to work in the car industry that it can be done,” she said. “I’m driven by women who are getting out of abusive relationships. You can get out of that situation and still make a better life for you and your kids.”
In a world full of car guys, Ashley makes no secret that her business is run by a woman. In fact, running a woman-owned auto detailing company is how she stands out.
Her advertisements often feature images of Rosie the Riveter and the phrase “Rosie approved.”
“I’m not just using it as a marketing gimmick,” she said. “It’s also me saying, ‘Hey, I’m a woman, I’m not gonna screw you over.’ As a customer, that’s how I would like to be approached.”
Running a woman-owned business is something that resonates with Ashley’s male clients as much as it does her female clients. While her social media following is evenly split between men and women, many of her male clients tell her it was their wives who found and recommended her services.
“I do know women hold a lot of weight in a relationship as far as finances,” Ashley said.
Experimenting with TikTok has helped her marketing efforts, too.
She uses the platform to produce before-and-after cleaning videos that show off the satisfying results of her auto detailing work. Ashley says she gets a lot of business from people who watch her videos on social media.
SMALL TOUCHES, BIG DIFFERENCE
Ashley describes her service as “reconditioning” rather than mere detailing. She focuses on restoring vehicles to feel new again, regardless of their age.
“I can make it feel the same as when you buy a new car, even though the car’s not new,” she said.
Lux Auto Detailing’s services range from interior cleaning to exterior polishing, waxing and ceramic coating. Ashley is thinking about adding vinyl car wraps someday, but says she’s only “dabbling” right now and wouldn’t yet call herself a vinyl wrap professional.
What really sets her business apart, she says, are thoughtful touches — the extra attention and care that put the “detail” in detailing.
She says she carefully stages each vehicle before returning it to the client, arranging everything from the position of vents and knobs to how the car is parked when the client picks it up.
“Everything’s positioned and staged,” she said. “If it’s cold outside, I make sure the car’s warmed up. I try to set myself apart by caring a little bit more about the client’s comfort.”
It’s one reason why she chose the name “Lux.” For Ashley, auto reconditioning is a luxury service, similar to personal training, her previous profession. She wants every client to have a deluxe experience.
Car dealerships kept Ashley busy early on. But as word of her services spread, she started taking on more everyday vehicle owners — something she finds more enjoyable and profitable. Today, about three out of four new customers become repeat clients, she said.
“That one-out-of-four client is usually someone who doesn’t get auto detailing unless it’s an emergency,” Ashley said. “Someone spilled something or got carsick in their vehicle and they need someone to take care of it.”
Connecting with other business owners has helped her get ahead. She speaks with other entrepreneurs to get practical advice on everything from payment systems to managing employees.
“I’ve never really been afraid to ask for help,” she said, explaining it’s how she overcomes obstacles.
Ashley loves to attend car shows and often sponsors community events like raffles and 5k races, but says she met most of her business network by chatting up other business owners who came to her as clients.
“Some of them have been exactly where you are and they’ll know how to help you get out of it,” she said.
While some business owners are protective of their knowledge, Ashley takes the opposite approach.
“I’m the one who’s friendly to a fault and says yeah, you should do this,” she said. “It makes me feel better to help someone else.”
POLISHED TO PERFECTION
Ashley is always looking for ways to perfect her business, including upgrading her facilities.
Her ultimate dream traces back to what she studied in college: vehicle restoration.
“I want to restore a car from the ground up,” Ashley said. While restoration isn’t one of the services Lux Auto Detailing currently offers, she says one day she might add complementary services like leather and vinyl upholstery repair.
At the end of the day, Ashley says she just wants to put quality — and people — first.
“Whenever I feel stressed, I stop thinking about money and focus on quality. Then everything realigns,” she said.
