Separating dirt from clean and soapy water keeps abrasive debris off the wash mitt, and therefore off the paintwork for a scratch-less car wash. Traditional wash baffles use large vertical screens or disposable mesh filters in an attempt to separate dirt from water, which always ends up cloudy with loose contamination and abrasive filth. These designs are defeated by the mere act of dunking the mitt into the bucket, which pushes and pulls water and dirt straight through the vertical openings of the poorly-designed screens. Funnels of the Dirt Trap separate dirt through centripetal force and push it through tiny holes underneath the wash screen. The dirt remains trapped underneath the funnels and cannot easily flow back up through the tips once the mitt is pulled out from the water.