# JayR8 - Obsession wax



## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

Jay (aka JayR8) has been trying his luck with homebrewing for a while now. (http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=299766) In March he opened a topic on Detailing World about his homebrew trials, saying he already made a few which wheren't very good. He started his topic with version #8.
After his many trials (and errors) Jay told me he was gonne send me some stuff to try out. I proposed he would send me his latest wax and an older one. That way I can compare the two and it becomes clear how the wax has been improved. Showing why he wasn't happy with his old wax and decided to keep working till it was to his liking.

















(I made these pictures underneath the tanning bed to show that it really is fluorescent. It looks really cool in the sun, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to capture it on a photo)

Jay asked me what color and what scent I preferred. As to my request he used a pink-fluorescent color and a flowery/soapy fragrance.
The old wax has very little scent, so I'm guessing most of the scent is coming from the oils he uses. It doesn't have a particular color either.

The wax I'm gonna use in this review is Jay's latest recipe (at this moment) and an older version (not sure how old exactly).
The new wax is quite soft and very oily to the touch. Much more oily then many of the waxes I used so far.
The surface seems to be very smooth but when you press on it, you feel how soft and squishy it is.


















I still don't have a device to measure how hard/soft it is, but I compared the penetration of a normal knife, dropping it from 10cm into the wax. Marks on the knife indicate how deep it goes into the wax.
On the pictures you can clearly see that the knife goes much deeper on the new wax then on the old wax. The old wax is actually so hard that it cracked a little bit.


























As ussual, I will apply the wax to 3 kinds of surfaces: flat, kinda sloped and very sloped. (i.e.: roof, bonnet and fender)
I washed the car first, then clayed these areas and went over it with Poorboys Professional Polish. After polishing I wiped it down twice with Carpro Eraser.
I then devided each surface into 'new wax' and 'old wax'. The new wax is on the right (drivers side in NL), the old wax is on the left (passengers side in NL). This is the same on all 3 surfaces.
Because somebody mentioned that this wax doesn't leave white marks on plastic trims, I've rubbed a little bit on some trims to see what it does.









Hardly any white marks on it. Wipe it off with a damp/wet cloth and you don't see anything at all.

I started out with the new wax. Getting the wax onto the applicator pad was easy. It's so soft and oily that 1 swipe is more then enough to get a decent amount of wax on the pad. I done half the bonnet and half the fender with 1 swipe.
Since it's so oily, the pad just glides over the paint. No effort at all. It even spreads out very good.
Sometimes, when you apply a wax, you'll notice that you need to go over the same spot several times because the wax doesn't cover the area in one swipe. Since this is very hard to photograph I used another trick to show it.
I swiped a applicator pad across the surface of both wax, and then swiped it on a piece of paper in an X shape. I only swiped once in both directions and tried to use the same pressure. You can see on the pictures that the new wax leaves more wax behind and covers more area. This is due to it being more oily and softer.
(the last pictures was held into the light, making the oily area better visible)


















The old wax is a bit harder. Transferring the wax onto the applicator pad turned out to be a bit more difficult. While applying the wax I noticed that there was a little lump of wax on the pad. Normally you just rub it onto the paint and it 'melts' and dissapears. Not this little lump, after doing half the bonnet it was still just sitting there. Smiling... giving me the finger... .



























I left both wax for about 5 minutes. Then I swiped it to see if it was done. Both wax needed a little longer to sure.
After about 10 minutes I swiped again, the old wax was almost ready but the new wax still needed quite a bit more time.


















After about 12 minutes I buffed out the older wax which was a bit tricky. It left a few smears and spots, which needed a couple passes with a MF towel before they where gone.









(it's hard to see, but in the reflection you can see that it's not 100% smooth. It needed a few more buff's before it was completely clear)

After a good 30 minutes the new wax was still not ready, but I decided it cured long enough. I buffed it out. It was easier to buff out then the older wax, but still left a few smears. I think this was due to both the oily-ness of the wax and the humidity (it was about 19 degrees and very cloudy (grey clouds). It will probably rain later today).
Eventually, everything looked alright.

When I was done, I applied a little bit on another space on the car, and left it to cure for about an hour. The new wax was still not 100% ready (according to the swipe test), but buffed out without to much trouble. The old wax was a little bit harder to buff out but not much.

Now it was time to check the beads and the sheeting.
(Left is OLD WAX, right is NEW WAX. I tried to keep the dividing line between old and new in the middle of the video)

Beading: roof
New wax: 




The beads glide from the paint easy enough.
Old wax: 




The water seems to need a bit more before it starts sliding off.

Beading: bonnet




There isn't much difference, but the new wax showed that beads slide off sooner then with the old wax.

Beading: fender




Again, the beads seem to cling on just a little bit longer with the old wax then the new wax.

Sheeting: roof
New wax: 




Sheeting is good. The area that was covered with water is almost waterless after the sheeting. Not much left behind.
Old wax:




The sheeting is a bit slower, but still not very bad. It can be improved upon (like Jay did) but it's not to bad.

Sheeting: bonnet




You can see that water on the right forms 1 big slab of water better then on the left. But the water slides off quicker on that side too. Sheeting is better on the right.

Sheeting: fender




On this very sloped surface it's even a bit more clear then the sheeting is faster at the right, and water behaves a little bit different on that side.

In my own personal opinion, I found that the older wax was 'okay', but needed a fair bit of improvement. It was to hard, to difficult to buff out, bbut the sheeting wasn't bad at all. The beads wheren't impressive, but not really bad. I've seen much worse.
I can understand why Jay decided to fine-tune this recipe and improve upon it. The new wax might not be absolutely perfect (yet), but it is quite good. Do (keep in mind that the coloring or fragrancing might have affected the curing time.) Applying is easy, buffing out could be improved upon and general looks is not bad at all. :thumb: 
This review shows in the first place why Jay decided to improve his old wax, and not just be satisfied with it. It also shows how he made those improvements and what his new wax is like. It shows the difference in his earlier trial (and error  ), and his latest trial which is much better.
I liked the oily-ness, but didn't like the difficult buffing. However, it has become clear that in some cases the coloring and fragrance can have a negative effect on the performance of a wax. This might well be the case in this situation. Since I've read good things from others, I believe that the difficult buffing and very long curing-time is mostly due to the coloring and/or fragrances used.
This is one of those things that you need to learn with practise as a wax-maker.

I think Jay made a good homebrew, and I believe that with just a little fine-tuning, this wax could be comparible with big names. The only thing I can't say anything about is the durability. But this will become more clear in time.

Thank you for reading, and thanks to Jay for sending me these samples to try out. I'm very much looking forward to be seeing/hearing/reading more about this.


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## JayOW (Dec 8, 2008)

Wow...Thanks a lot for such a thorough review. ..

One thing I have realised is the cooling process has a massive affect on the wax... The long curing time is down to these being cooled the old way just sat on the side with no lid on the pot.

I now cool the waxes a lot slower and it has improved it a lot.

I am going to send you a new pot as per PM and see what you think. 

This new blend cures in about 5 - 10mins and is easier to buff off.

Hope you see the improvements.


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## Jonnybbad (Jun 12, 2013)

Excellent review can't wait for my sample to try it out


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

Thanks. I'll try out the new wax and see how it compares with these 2.
Cooling (various ways, temperatures, humidity etc.) can all play a role in the actual wax. It's difficult to figure out what method works best for what wax. But that's all part of the learning-experience.


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## Mikej857 (Jan 17, 2012)

I've just put another layer on the fiesta and found the buffing even in the sunlight to be comparable to other high end waxes but as you say this could be due to the fragrance used.


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## supervinnie40 (Jul 22, 2012)

Time for an update:

A very wet week has gone by, didn't drive as much as normal, but the wax still saw some good kilometers.
After washing the car this morning I thought I had a few hours before it would rain again, but when I got my camera out it was pouring. Weather forecast said it wasn't gonne stop either.
(important note: I always wash the car with a neutral shampoo with no additives and no wax-boosters or something. I also never use QD in a wax review, because QD can change the behavior of water on the paintwork, which could make you wonder: am I looking at the beads from the QD or the beads from the wax?)

Nonetheless, the wax performs a bit better then you might first think. Let's start with some beading photo's.
(before making the photo I tried to wipe the paint dry a little bit, that is why you might see a bit of wet streaks on the car.

New wax is on the right, old wax is on the left. I did my best to keep the dividing line in the center of the photo.

The roof:
New wax:









Old wax:









The bonnet:

















The fender:









So the beading really isn't very good anymore. But as I said before I think this is mainly to blame to the coloring and/or fragrancing of the wax. The cure time for buffing off was well over 30 minutes.
However, there is still protection left, perhaps not as beading. But beading doesn't say it all. It really depends. Beading can be helped/caused by using certain oils that help creating the hydrophobic layer. But flat beads doesn't have to mean that there is no oil or wax left.

We can partly see this with sheeting. And as you'll notice in the next video's, there is nothing wrong with the sheeting. Although the beads are almost gone (compared to last week) the sheeting is pretty much the same.
If you look careful you'll notice that the left (new wax) sheets a little bit better then the right.

Sheeting roof:
New wax: 





Old wax:





Sheeting bonnet:





Sheeting fender:





In conclusion; this was a comparison between Jay's old recipe and his new recipe. The old recipe shows that the beading was already bad at the beginning, and the sheeting was a little bet less then and now.
The new wax has slightly better beads and better sheeting. Right now the beads are almost flat but the sheeting is still quite good.
Because I'm fairly sure that this wax would've performed a lot better without the coloring or fragrancing, I'm confident that the results would've been much better and clearer if it wasn't for the bad curing time.
This is offcourse no fault of Jay or the waxrecipe. Learning how much coloring and/or fragrancing can be used is tricky. Each recipe demands different ratios. And there is even a big difference between liquid (oil-based) coloring or solid color-pellets.

At the moment I've got 2 other recipe standing by to be tested. I've already tried them out in the kitchen to evaluate their behavior and I can tell you that these come a lot closer to what this should've looked like. Which re-affirms my initial believe that Jay made a good wax. It was just the additives that kinda ruined it. An experience Jay has learned from, which is part of the whole homebrewing process.

As soon as the weather clears up a bit, I will make another comparison review between Jay's improved version of the 'new wax recipe' from this review and a hybrid he's been working on. Both look very promising!


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## JayOW (Dec 8, 2008)

Thanks for the update...The next 2 waxes you have...The Green one will cure very quickly but don't be fooled...leave on for a good 5 to 10 mins before buffing...when removing remove in straight lines down the panel with 1 swipe then turn the cloth to buff...

The purple one cures in about 20 mins so still a bit slow but again this enables you to do a whole care before buffing... Both waxes again have been improved since these samples were sent out.


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## Goodylax (Apr 21, 2013)

Sounds like good stuff Jay!
Nice review Vinnie :thumb:


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