# Are spray on rinse off products really the future?



## Andy from Sandy (May 6, 2011)

EDIT: I selected a post that I thought was a spray on rinse off product like Gyeon Wetcoat Paint Protection. Sorry for the confusion.

I am talking about products like Wet coat. I have seen a couple of others now that is applied in the same way.

Are these products really the way forward when considering a finite water supply?

What will you do when hose pipe bans are introduced?

We can argue that water companies are doing a rubbish job fixing leaks etc but we are where we are with that.


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## \Rian (Aug 23, 2017)

Andy from Sandy said:


> So as not to de-rail the latest thread on spray on rinse off products
> https://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=412787
> 
> Are these products really the way forward when considering a finite water supply?
> ...


If trying to save time, then yes, but some people enjoy the process of waxing a car by hand.

Spray on Rinse of have been around for years used in the automatic car washes, obviously, they were not as good as what we have today e.g purity x etc

I have very limited time 3 kids under 3 years old, full-time job and im studying a diploma so i would not get time to apply a wax by hand so for me a spay sealant that can be applied in the drying stage or with a spray and a rinse are a life saver,


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## mr.t (Oct 1, 2010)

i Think certainly any products that speed the process up has a place 

As much as i love cleaning mine, sometimes the setting up takes so long that i get annoyed by the end of it and i jsut want a clean looking car.

Ive recently used meguiars spray and wax , on and buff off and worked a treat , great as i got to clean the car but in 10 minutes too without having to faff around with the rest takign half a day up.

Ill save the main products for when i have a nice whole day off and in the mood


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## v_r_s (Nov 4, 2018)

I used sonax spray seal recently and it's absolutely brilliant my car a brilliant wet glass look finish couldn't praise the stuff any more


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## \Rian (Aug 23, 2017)

v_r_s said:


> I used sonax spray seal recently and it's absolutely brilliant my car a brilliant wet glass look finish couldn't praise the stuff any more


I dont think thats a spray on rinse of product, im thinking the OP is requesting info around stuff like Purity-X


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## Andy from Sandy (May 6, 2011)

I have edited my first post. I thought the post I selected was for a product similar to Gyeon Wetcoat Paint Protection in the way it is applied.

Sorry for the confusion.

So to re-state are these the products that should be developed or should we be looking to try and be more environmentally friendly?


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## Red Dwarf (Jul 25, 2018)

Have you considered the autoglymm trio. Polar series, polar blast, wash, seal. You will need a jet wash adapter but if time is on your mind. Polar seal supposedly good for a month according to autoglymm.


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## init6 (Mar 28, 2012)

I get your point that they can be wasteful of water - but car drivers obsessed with cleaning are probably not top of the list of eco-warriors 

I see them as winter products. You can get a good clean and some valuable protection (but we only really care about beading) quite quickly in the deepest of winters when water is aplenty. 
I can't see most people on here using them so much in the summer when we can use all those fancy waxes we have. These products take the fun out of cleaning a car.


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## GleemSpray (Jan 26, 2014)

I am a bit uncertain about these spray on rinse off products -I haven't yet tried any, but they seem a bit wasteful and messy to me. 

i like quick n simple spray on wipe off products like AG Aquawax, as they have the added bonus of being used as a drying aid and leaving a bone dry spotless car. I use BSD this way too.

Am I wrong about spray on rinse off products?


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## Carlos Fandango (Dec 24, 2016)

I can see why people like them because of their quickness and ability to shift water. However, as you still have to dry the car off, you might just as well give the the car a spritz of carplan supergloss no 1 or Sonax BSD when it is wet


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## tosh (Dec 30, 2005)

Sonax have a video where they
- wash the car with shampoo and soap
- couple of pulls of Spray and Seal on top of the soap
- rinse off the panel (or whole car)

It really works, saves water, saves time, gives the whole car a quick sealant top up in about 35ml of product, way easier to dry as well

If you spray once inside the door shuts before your rinse, you’ll seal those hidden bits of the car as well. 


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## Jack R (Dec 15, 2014)

I use a combination of hose pipe and water butt in winter and waterless where I can though the summer. I tried polar blast the other day and it saved a load of time and didn’t use anymore water as I substituted the water used with a pre wash as the car didn’t need it.


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## pt1 (Feb 8, 2014)

I use spray on, rinse off products on my wheels.. Saves my back  use wax and detail sprays on the body

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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

I've always thought they are a bit of a nightmare - wasteful on so many levels.

Most are essentially large bottles of water, so all the transport and shipping costs simply for moving water around and then there is all the extra rinsing to use them - rinse the car, then rinse again, and of course people go WAY over the top rinsing the product off to avoid marks. I bet more water is used removing these products than in all stages of the wash itself.

Then there is the run-off heading into the drains (and therefore local streams and rivers). Drains are meant for rain water run-off so now we're chucking all this si based stuff down there as well.

I see the convenience factor but at what cost?


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## pt1 (Feb 8, 2014)

Bigpikle said:


> I've always thought they are a bit of a nightmare - wasteful on so many levels.
> 
> Most are essentially large bottles of water, so all the transport and shipping costs simply for moving water around and then there is all the extra rinsing to use them - rinse the car, then rinse again, and of course people go WAY over the top rinsing the product off to avoid marks. I bet more water is used removing these products than in all stages of the wash itself.
> 
> ...


Good points raised 

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## Steampunk (Aug 11, 2011)

Andy from Sandy said:


> So to re-state are these the products that should be developed or should we be looking to try and be more environmentally friendly?


Good subject. :thumb:

Firstly, I laud anyone who questions the impact their decisions have on the greater world around them.

As detailers, we represent a tiny fraction of the population, and as such our actions are tiny compared to the amount of waste or pollution created by larger entities... A_ single_ golf course will consume hundreds of thousands or millions of gallons of water in the course of a month just to maintain its greens (with much more chemical runoff from what they use to treat them.). With something like this in mind, anything we do as individuals amongst that tiny minority to be more responsible about our consumption is like switching from incandescent to LED in your keychain flashlight... It doesn't make it less important for us as individuals to be smart about what we do, but it does give perspective to the issue.

On a whole, as detailers, I feel there are other things we do that probably contribute more to pollution or waste than this... Being consumers of items with packaging waste, consumption of non-durable goods, high transport carbon footprints (For most of us, our favorite products are shipped from all over the world; few are locally made.), and also the washing of microfibers (It is suspected the laundering of man-made materials is a possible source of microplastics in water.) I suspect are far greater concerns than spray & rinse sealants...

Bigpikle below has hit upon most of the salient points below for the spray and rinse sealant concern, so I will respond with my thoughts to these directly...



Bigpikle said:


> (A) - "Most are essentially large bottles of water, so all the transport and shipping costs simply for moving water around..."
> 
> (B) - "...and then there is all the extra rinsing to use them - rinse the car, then rinse again..."
> 
> ...


(A) - This is a good point, and one that can be leveled at so many non-concentrated detailing products. However, some spray & rinse products are sold as concentrates (I use Hydro2, myself; 5:1 concentrate.), so the consumer can make the decision in this case to improve upon this situation.

(B) - It adds precisely one extra rinse to the wash process, yes.

(C) - This is a valid point... However, again one that can be leveled at 2BM washing in general. There are so many little factors that can cause an increase in water consumption over that absolute minimum... Including needing to re-rinse repeatedly on a hot day to avoid water spotting, using shampoos that might not rinse as freely as some others, not turning off the hosepipe at the other end quickly when open-hose flooding the car to help make drying easier, or just spraying the car to observe the water beading performance of the latest LSP you are testing... All of which consume far more than spray & rinse.

(D) - Have you used spray & rinse products before, and done so regularly enough to learn how much water is needed to rinse them? Your supposition that it is greater than any other stage of the wash is a little exaggerated, as in my experience the rinsing stage with such products consumes the least of all the other rinsing stages in a 2BM wash...

I estimate my own consumption to be (Assuming the vehicle does not need to be re-wetted during the wash, as one frequently needs to do in summer.) no more than 20% additional with Hydro2 (Which you can actually rinse successfully with a pressure sprayer, if it has been applied correctly and sparingly.) when using a hosepipe in addition to the two previous rinse stages.

The trick is partly in applying them correctly. You use very little product per panel, work it in with a wet microfiber or sponge to distribute and help it bond, and then rinse off panel by panel. This uses the least product, has the least chance of leaving residue, aids in bonding durability, and also makes it substantially easier to rinse... Over applying these products can result in massively increased water consumption, and product waste. The only time I spray them on directly is on small, intricate things, like wheels.

(E) - This is a valid concern, but again, the excess SiO2 runoff from such products should be minimal (And how much of it will reach a drain before trying to adhere itself to the most convenient hard surface is again something I would question.), and the number of people using them to the best of my knowledge are few. If large companies start using thousands of gallons of these products, and using them in a wasteful fashion without correctly capturing and treating their waste water, then that's a more genuine concern... Otherwise, the at-home detailers, and small detailing businesses are using them in low volume, and can also continue to do more to use them more responsibly.

(F) - There is a huge convenience factor... Especially when we can conveniently add protection to our cars which is durable (Over poor prep, Hydro2 lasts me about a month. Over good prep, it can last substantially longer... At least three, on a regularly washed vehicle, though on ones which are washed infrequently I have seen much longer.), and can be applied to inconvenient parts (Like wheels.) with very little additional effort...

The cost I have estimated to be about an extra ~12-24 gallons of water per vehicle in rinse water. Plus the consumption of buying another detailing product... As a mostly DIY detailer these days, I use Hydro2 about 6-12 times a year at most (Most of the time on wheels only, which I spend only a few gallons rinsing. Without these products, I probably wouldn't have the time to properly seal my wheels inside and out most of the time. I can tell you for certain that using reactive wheel cleaners every week, versus being able to clean them with either shampoo or ONR, is a far bigger waste of water, and a rather more worrying source of runoff.).

For me, the number of products I have bought which I did not strictly need (Many shipped by plane or cargo ship from all over the world.), and subsequently thrown out due to not having satisfactory performance (Or not using them up before they went off.), has been a far greater waste and harm to the environment than using these particular products. That's something that so many of us as detailers are guilty of, and probably our biggest negative impact... However, compared to the general population (Who often do the same thing in their own non-detailing fields of interest.), let alone large businesses, we are a drop in the bucket. We can improve, and be less wasteful in many different ways... But it is always valuable to keep a greater perspective in mind, of how an individual action compares to the whole. Every little bit helps, but some improvements we can make have a bigger difference than others... It just depends on whether you want to take a hardline stance on the little things, or the big things, and how much time and energy you have to spend on it.

These are just my thoughts on the subject... I respect and appreciate the opinions of others on this matter. When it comes to responsibility over our actions, and making the best decisions, we all do the best we can.

- Steampunk


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## Andyblue (Jun 20, 2017)

tosh said:


> Sonax have a video where they
> - wash the car with shampoo and soap
> - couple of pulls of Spray and Seal on top of the soap
> - rinse off the panel (or whole car)
> ...


Oh that's worth knowing - might try this route with DetailedOnline Nano sealant I have next time I use it to see what the outcome is :thumb:


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

I've used Auto Allure - cant remember the name of it. 
Ive also used Auto Finesse - again, cant remember the name!

The reason i probably dont remember the names is because they were pretty useless in my opinion.

I used a hell of a lot of product, for not exactly amazing results. As mentioned above i think i emptied to local water source to rinse it off - and - still ended up with 'spotting'!

I get a much better finish using a QD as a drying aid


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## tosh (Dec 30, 2005)

Bigpikle said:


> Most are essentially large bottles of water, so all the transport and shipping costs simply for moving water around and then there is all the extra rinsing to use them - rinse the car, then rinse again, and of course people go WAY over the top rinsing the product off to avoid marks. I bet more water is used removing these products than in all stages of the wash itself.


Agree on this point - Carpro started selling Hydro2 in very small bottles that you had to dilute yourself - the product took off when it started selling in pre-diluted form and everyone else followed suit. Carpro and Gyeon still sell their concentrate, but I bet they don't sell anywhere near as many as the pre-diluted versions.

Regarding run-off and drains - isn't that already covered by some sort of environmental assessment of these types of products? That they don't harm aquatic and other life? I've done some work for the Environmental Agency, but never came across them evaluating these types of products (detergents and cleaning products) - mainly agricultural and building materials and chemicals.


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## Andy from Sandy (May 6, 2011)

When I am washing my car I have no idea how much water I am using and I am not thinking environment when doing it. I am as wasteful as the next guy in that respect so not tree hugging or beating a drum here.

In the UK there is 38,000,000 registered vehicles. I wonder how many get washed and of those how many washed regularly?

Let's go with 10% and then use steampunk's number of washes.

3,800,000 x 9 x 18 = 615,600,000 gallons of water per year on average. If I use the maximum figures it is 3,800,000 x 12 x 24 = 1,094,400,000 gallons of water.

I think washing a car actually has quite a large impact on the amount of water used especially if that is every rinse or wet down stage and this is only for the UK.

As an aside to that I just looked up waste due to leaks and for the latest figure I could find 681,904,670 gallons of water *per day* is lost due to leaking pipes in the system. So what we might use in a year water companies manage to lose by leaks in a every single day.


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## Brian1612 (Apr 5, 2015)

I initially wasn't overly keen on them but now... must have product imo. Gyeon wet coat is fantastic as is the bathe+ shampoo and are great, quick topper products when short of time or working in the rain.

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