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In the not-so-olden days, new vehicles came with sealed-beam headlights. According to CARiD, laws from the 1940s to the early 1980s required all U.S.-spec cars to have sealed-beam headlights, which was a typical headlamp assembly that consisted of an enclosed bulb in a glass lens. When the bulb inside one of these units breaks or goes flat, you need to replace the entire headlight assembly. It may sound tedious and costly, but the advantages are hard to ignore. Glass lenses are more resistant to yellowing, fading, and UV damage — but then again, they are also expensive to manufacture and are prone to cracking, breaking, or incurring damages in a mild collision.

From the mid-1990s to the present, composite headlight assemblies with replaceable bulbs have replaced the outdated sealed-beam units. Plastic headlights are more economical to manufacture, easier to form into shape, more lightweight, and are impact-resistant. The first U.S.-made vehicle to have plastic headlights with replaceable bulbs is the 1984 Lincoln Mark VII, according to Motor Trend, and the automotive industry has never looked back.

However, plastic headlight lenses lose their clarity with age and repeated exposure to the sun, rain, and other harsh elements, causing yellowing, fading, and oxidation. There's an old saying that our eyes are windows to our soul. In auto lingo, those dirty, tired-looking headlights will rob your vehicle of that coveted "wow factor," not to mention the safety issues you need to face due to sub-par illumination. Fortunately, it's often possible to restore a headlight's appearance with some effort and the right methods.

There are specific DIY solutions that we highly recommend when it comes to cleaning or restoring your car headlights, and you can do most of them using everyday household items from your cupboard or garage. Of course, nobody's stopping you from ordering commercially available headlight restoration kits online, but most will cost $20 to about $100. In addition, using those kits is not merely a wipe-on, wipe-off affair (it takes time and elbow grease to do it right), and choosing which to buy can be bewildering, for lack of a better term.

Here are three methods to consider to make your headlights look new again, starting from the basic to the more advanced solutions. Choosing which to follow depends on the severity of the fogginess or yellowing of the headlight lenses. Remember to only work if the headlights are cool to the touch. Avoid working on hot headlight lenses to prevent burns or inadvertently damaging the surface.

Plain white toothpaste has mild abrasives to clean your teeth. These abrasives are also excellent for removing hazy oxidation on plastic headlight lenses. The toothpaste method works well on mildly foggy or yellowish headlights. For this procedure, you need a small tube of white toothpaste, a small microfiber towel, some masking tape, and carnauba wax to seal the finish.

If you have a bottle of auto paint polish, you can use it to get rid of the fog, haze, and yellowing in your car's headlights. Unlike wax, genuine polish contains mild abrasives to smooth the paint finish and eliminate minor scratches, swirls, mild oxidation, and other imperfections.

If the toothpaste and polish failed to restore the like-new clarity of your car's headlights, the sandpaper method would get it done. You'll need 1000-grit, 1500-grit, and 2500-grit sandpaper, a few microfiber towels, a small bucket of water, and some masking tape.

Don't be disheartened if the headlights are still foggy after sanding. The damage may be too severe for a DIY restoration job in some cases. At this point, your best recourse is to replace the headlights entirely.