# Myself2x - Charm



## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

June Kim has been working on his homebrew wax for a little while now. Making good progress. I offered to write him a review in exchange for 1 of his homebrew waxes. He sent me a homebrew called "Charm".
In this review you will read how it performs, looks, smells etc.

*Smell:*
The wax smells like a soap that smells like flowery-candy. It isn't a very strong smell, and it's not very clear (hence the reference to soap). 
*Color:*
The wax is salmon-pink.
*Consistency:*
The wax is a bit grainy, but nothing out of the ordinary.
*Viscosity:*
The wax is soft. (more about this later).

The wax.
















When I first got the package I opened the jar and smelled it. The smell is nice, like a candyish-flower but with a soapy background. It's hard to explain, but try to smell a scented soap first and then a color-charged Dodo Juice wax. You'll notice the difference. I felt the wax with the tip of my finger which was fairly oily. It's a bit grainy but when rubbing it between my fingers, it melted easily and uniformly. I think the fact that it's still a bit lumpy might have to do with crystallization after pouring. However, it was nothing major.










To do a proper review I needed a few things:
A clean car to work on,
An unused applicator pad,
Something to compare it with.

So I took out the rotary and a bottle of Monello Finale. Washed the car, clayd it, polished the paintwork and cleaned it (with Carpro Eraser).

I still have a few applicator pads who have never been used, so this wasn't a problem. I prefer using a brandnew applicator pad because it minimises the variables that can affect the outcome.

Comparisation.
I've got about 80 waxes available, and I wanted to use a wax that was the most similar to this homebrew as possible. One of the things I look at is viscosity.
Since I don't have a viscositymeter at home, I needed to improvise.
Test: drop a knife from 10cm height and see how deep it enters the wax. I marked the depth it entered the wax and tried a few waxes. (I used a clean knife for every test).









Eventually I found 1 that was just right. After 3 tests, it was still spot on.
Unfortunately, it was my Dodo Juice Rainforest Rub in a glass jar. This was hasn't been used in quite a while, and I wasn't planning on ever using it at al. (it's a collector's thing  ). But I promised June Kim a good review, so with pain in my heart, I decided to use it. Rainforest Rub is a tough competitor, so if it holds itself against this respected and love wax, it's pretty good.
















As you can see I marked a C for how deep the knife entered the homebrew, and a R for how deep it entered the Rainforest Rub. It's spot on. After several repeated tests, I was convinced.
The Rainforest Rub is also a bit grainy, just like the homebrew. However, the homebrew is a bit more phatty, and the Rainforest Rub is a bit more oily. I.e. the homebrew might have more wax contents, Rainforest Rub might have more oil contents.









I divided the car into 3 sections, which also got divided.
I wanted 1. a flat surface (roof), 2. a slightly slope surface (hood) and 3. a very slope surface (side of car, next to hood). Every surface got divided into: left - Rainforest Rub, right - Charm (homebrew).
The roof got divided into 4 section because sum might say that water/dirt might act slightly different at the front then at the back of the roof. So, the front is: driversside - Charm, passengerside - Rainforest Rub. On the back of the roof it's the other way around.


















As you can see on the photo's I've marked the dividing lines with blue tape.

Applying the wax was very easy. It's quite phatty, so it spreads very good. For the hood, the side and the roof I only needed to rub it twice with the applicator pad. After doing those spots, I took the Rainforest Rub and applied that.

























Buffing was fairly easy. I did the swipe test after about 6 minutes orso, and ti was ready to buff out. The homebrew is a bit more phatty then oily, so after buffing there where still some spots. Solution: just turn the MF cloth over and wipe it again. 
I left it to cake on on the side of the hood (wheelarch), for at least twice as long. It was a bit more difficult to buff out, but nothing major. Which is good. 
Rainforest Rub was a bit more oily, so buffing that was a bit easier. Not much, but noticeable.
After buffing both left a nice gloss. The homebrew is pretty much as good as the Rainforest Rub from what I can see. Which is quite impressive. It's not easy to compete with a wax of this caliber.


















Now it's time to see how it performs.
For this I wanted to do several test:
1. beading on flat surface (roof)
2. beading on slightly slope surface (hood)
3. beading on sloped surface (wheelarch)
4. sheeting on flat surface
5. sheeting on slightly slope surface
6. sheeting on sloped surface
7. the towel-drop test

I made videos because words can't really explain what a video can show in seconds. You might wanna mute the audio, nothing usefull will be heard .

1. beading on flat surface (roof)





2. beading on slightly slope surface (hood)





3. beading on sloped surface (wheelarch)





4. sheeting on flat surface





5. sheeting on slightly slope surface





6. sheeting on sloped surface





7. the towel-drop test




The towel-drop test is to show how smooth the surface is. Not every wax leaves the same type of layer. Some fill the microscopic gapps better then others. Dropping the same towel from the same height on a slightly slope surface will show you the difference. You can see that the towel slides less on the homebrew then on the Rainforest Rub. Again, keep in mind that Rainforest Rub is a wax made by professional chemist and the homebrew isn't. So there will almost always be a difference.

It beads really well, and sheets really well.
Rainforest Rub isn't an easy competitor, so the fact that it performs almost equally to Rainforest Rub is a big achievement. I'm happily impressed with the wax. I wouldn't hesitate to use this on my car or others.
However, I do think there are improvements to be made. I think the crystalization might be a small issue, besides that I would recommend making it a bit more oily and a bit less phatty. So i.e. more lubricant oils, and a little less wax. The solvents are good however, I don't think a homebrew can be much better at the solvents area. Buffing out wasn't a problem. I've had professional waxes from big brands that are harder to buff out.

I like this wax till thus far. For a homebrew it's very good. And I'm looking forward to reviewing more of Myself2x's waxes.

Note to self: next time, film in landscape and remove sound 

Thanks for reading. Any questions/notes are welcome.

Supervinnie40.


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

I'll will see if i can make the images smaller, thought the forum did this automatically.


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## Goodylax (Apr 21, 2013)

Nice review Vinnie. :thumb:


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## sprocketser (Aug 4, 2012)

Great review supervinnie ! Couldn t done it better mate . This wax s a charm right ! I m real happy with it on my side .


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

It's pretty good. I hope my review will promote others to try it out. As far as a homebrew goes, this is quite a good one so far.

We still have to wait and see how it holds itself after several weeks.


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## myself2x (Aug 12, 2008)

Thank you for your delicate review. It's so helpful.


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## sprocketser (Aug 4, 2012)

Yep , the word s spreading .Easy on , easy off .


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

Time for an update. I washed the car yesterday and made some new videos.
The car has seen quite some miles, and hasn't been washed the entire week.

Beading roof: (Left=Charm, right=RR)




The beading is gone for a big part. Both RR and Charm don't perform very well on forming nice beads. However, you can still see a tiny bit of difference if you look closely. I'll leave it up to you to make up your mind which one is performing better.

Beading hood: (Left=RR, right=Charm)




Again, a lot of the nice beads from last week are gone. But you still see a little bit of sheeting effect on the bigger beads, and I dar to say that there is a bit of a difference between the two sides.

Beading fender: (left=RR, right=Charm)




In this case the sheeting effect on beads is becoming more clear. Charm has a better beading in this case then RR. But I'm sure if the beads themselves look better....

Sheeting roof: (Left=Charm, right=RR)




Sheeting on a roof is never as fast as on a bonnet, so we can clearly see a difference in the speed of the sheeting. I think RR performs better in this video then Charm does. But it's not a big difference!

Sheeting hood: (Left=RR, right=Charm)




On a slightly slope surface, the difference in sheeting decreases. It actually looks quite good. There isn't much difference between the 2 sides.

Sheeting fender: (Left=RR, right=Charm)




The sheeting on the fender is still very close. There isn't much difference between the two sides. If I really had to choose, I would say that RR is a tiny little bit better, but it would be a very close call.

Towel-drop-test: (Left=RR, right=Charm)




It's funny to see that there is a big difference between the first test, and this test. The surface is easy to clean and doesn't trap a lot of dirt. Which is a good thing off course. The fact that it performs better now then last week, could be because of some solvents that needed to gas out, or perhaps a little bit of oil in the wax that was left behind after buffing.

My opinion now:
Charm is still quite a good wax. I don't expect it to be as good or better then Rainforest Rub, cause that would be unfair. Dodo Juice has chemist working on their wax. Myself2x is just a homebrewer. But since the difference between the 2 waxes is so small, I'm a bit impressed. Even after a week and many miles, it still performed very good.
There might still be a little bit of improvement to be done. But I still stand by my first opinion: for a homebrew, this is one of the better ones out there.


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## sprocketser (Aug 4, 2012)

Thanx for the review SV , I really like the efforts that you put on these reviews fella ! 

I think that myself2x s pretty good considering he s alone compared to established big names as you re writing .

Great job .


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## myself2x (Aug 12, 2008)

Thanks for your update.
As Sprocketser said, I really respect your efforts !


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

Your very welcome mate. Keep up the good work. You're doing very well.


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