*chikselog: I would recommend Mom's Step 1 for maximum results, but if you are quite happy with your paint right now you can skip this part. On how i understand it Step 1 does not hide swirls, it just cleans your paint with chemical cleaners and very very mild abrasives, Step 2 hides and fills swirls. So for example your paint has scratches and its scratches are dark lines, Step 1 can make the dark lines become lighter towards the color of your paint. Another example would be if you have a dulled paint or a dirty paint where the stains can't be removed by thorough washing and claying, Step 1 usually does the trick in removing these stains. Another thing that i have noticed with Step 1 is that it can really improve shine and depth of neglected paint and make the color pop out more but in the process of cleaning and making your color seem more prevalent it also makes the defects appear more noticeable. And this is where Step 2 comes in.

*parekoy:

It kinda looks like it got applied with a bad batch of paint wax or something, Notice how the white spots are all over the windshield spray nozzle?

1. Do you wax regularly?

If you wax regularly and on the time these stains appeared, your car no longer has wax protection then it might be caused by lack of protection, normally the whole car should be affected if this is caused by water drying rapidly and if its the case of oxidation, but we have to take into consideration that the hood of the car suffers from more heat than any other paint panel so the wax on the hood is basically the first to wear off or wear thin.

2. What items or chemicals have you used so far?
(Shampoo, Polish, Wax, Protectant, Sealant, Glaze, Cleaner?)

I've had an incident where i bought a Waxco Windshield washer fluid and poured a measly amount on my black car's windshield reservioir and after using it, some washer fluids dripped from the nozzle to the front of the hood. It left a really really bad white stain on my black metallic paint. I thought it was time for panel repaint already but i decided to use Mom's Step 1 and it didn't totally remove the stain, tried APC fine liquid polish and worked it in the affected area and i had little improvement, lastly i tried Carlack AIO and it did the job of cleaning out the remaining stains. Another incident was when i used a very old paste version of finish 2001 by turtle wax, this is the very first version of F21 and applied it on my fireball red car and as i was applying it i noticed that the haze won't come off so i discontinued using it and had to have the paint repolished

3. Did you have an overheat a few days before this happened?

My friends Pajero that i worked with yesterday has some white stains too, its on the outside of the hood scoop and from the sides of the hood. What we did was use TW Polishing Compound, APC Super fine Liquid Polish and Moms Step 1, We used all 3 in the same order, applied using a BnD Rotary Polisher with yellow LC Pads and it did a pretty good job of removing a whole lot of it, its no longer noticeable from afar and when a bit close. You could only notice a slightly lighter area in the paint if you look really really close.

4. Just a thought, have you ever run the car for a very long time where the hood was really really hot and it suddenly rained?

5. Have you had your paint recently repainted or sprayed with a protective layer of paint protection? ( those like PPG, Dupont and Armor)