Buffing pads come in variety of material. Traditionally, they were mainly done with pure wool. Cutting pads were heavy duty wool and finishing pads were done w/ premium soft wool. Wool pads are washed again and again, but if you do not know how to use it well, you could either burn the paint or put swirl marks. Newer pads are made w/ various density of foams described as ppi pores per inch. Higher the ppi count, the finer the pads. Finer pads are used for polishing and finishing. The lower ppi pads are used for cutting. One of the important thing all manufacturers have done is color co-ordinate these pads. Yellow foam is for cutting. Green & Blue for polishing and black for finishing. White is the softest one and it is specially used for dark color cas w/ very soft clear coats, generally very high end cars.