Whats the REAL difference?

jerber1

jerber1

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Whats the REAL difference between a sealant and a wax, and when should one or the other be used?
 
Wax is natural and sealant is man-made. While both protect paint, each offers unique advantages. As sealant is synthetic it affords maximum durability, wax arguably greater shine. To get best of both, apply sealant first then wax after sealant cures. But the shine from sealant is usually enough for me.

Carnauba Car Wax vs. Paint Sealants, carnauba wax reviews, paint sealant reviews

My favorite sealants:
- Menzerna Power Lock Polymer Paint Sealant, Menzerna auto sealant, car sealant, paint sealant protectant and
- BLACKFIRE Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection, paint sealant, synthetic sealant, blackfire sealant.

Favorite wax:
- Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax
 
The above poster pretty much has it right. I like to use both as well. I use wolfgang 3.0 and then use sovereign spray wax on top to boost the shine.
 
I used blackfire Wet Diamond sealant that i let cure for 12 hours then topped it with Meguiars Gold Class Liquid Carnubua
 
What happens if you dont let cure? Will it most likely wipe off with the wax if applied too soon?
 
Mizzoutiger said:
Wax is natural and sealant is man-made. While both protect paint, each offers unique advantages. As sealant is synthetic it affords maximum durability, wax arguably greater shine. To get best of both, apply sealant first then wax after sealant cures. But the shine from sealant is usually enough for me.

:iagree:I use Menzerna Power Lock for my sealant and then top off with a wax I want to try.

You will be able to tell the difference of your ride from sealant and wax. Sealant is more of a "glass shine" type look, wax IMO adds depth and warmth to the car. IMO a better look.

Way hard to explain, but you can tell. It has to be a good quality wax to tell.
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Does applying wax after take away that "glossy" look?
 
jerber1 said:
What happens if you dont let cure? Will it most likely wipe off with the wax if applied too soon?
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Curing maximized the durability of the sealant and for some products, amping up gloss and reflectivity.

Why use a wax on top of a polymer sealant? - Autopia Forums - Auto Detailing & Car Care Discussion Forum

The worst case scenario would be the sealant would combine with the wax to some degree and you get streaking in some areas of the paint; and after a couple of rainy days you have nothing left on the paint. Again, worst case scenario.
 
jerber1 said:
Im a Zymol Glasur/Concours user
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You should soon find out!! IMO, you will see a difference. Zymol is a quality wax especially Concours. Put a sealant on 1st and then the carnauba. You car will look wet!

Let me know when you finish putting on the Concours and show some pics!

:dblthumb2:
 
jerber1 said:
Whats the REAL difference between a sealant and a wax, and when should one or the other be used?
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Waxes are typically products perceived to use some type of naturally occurring waxy substance for protection and gloss.

Sealants are typically products perceived to use some type of synthetic or man-made ingredients for protection and gloss.



Read this,


3-Categories: Waxes, Paint Sealants and Coatings



And this,


The Difference Between a Cleaner/Wax and a Finishing Wax
Subtitle: How To Choose The Right Wax or Paint Sealant for your Detailing Project



This one has good info to if you're going to put one product over the top of another product...


Topping - Definition - How to Top also called Topping


Here's another one...

LSP - The definition and the story behind the term



And yet one more....

Word Definitions - Compounds, Polishes, Glazes, Paint Cleaners and Waxes



All good reading with lots of info....


:dblthumb2:
 
The natural/synthetic argument really is hard to stand behind these days. The truth is that it is an increasingly unusual wax which does not have sealant properties. Just think about it, waxes have supposedly been improving over the years but carnauba and similar haven't changed - it is the additional ingredients which have changed.

I should also point out that pure waxes are not even necessarily natural. There are any number of hydrocarbon waxes which are synthetic.
 
Yeah the natural-synthetic lines are so blurred now, the debate has become a moot point.

Waxaholics want more durability and sealant fans want the classic wax look...so manufacturers respond in kind by confusing the heck out of everyone by producing hybrids.

Case in point...just applied sonax polymer netshield two weeks ago. Its an incredible sealant in terms of durability with coating like repelling characteristics....but it looks stunning like the finest carnuba waxes. It shatters the myth that a sealant can't look as good as wax. I'm still amazed at how stunning this sealant looks and even more so at how it acts as good as any coating I've used. Nothing sticks to it and water sheets off like nothing I've ever used including coatings from various vendors. I hit the car after two weeks of driving in rainy dirty streets...with a foam cannon, rinsed using hp, and dried with a metro blaster. The car looked flawless so much so that I did not have to even touch the paint...at all.
 
PiPUK said:
The natural/synthetic argument really is hard to stand behind these days.
Click to expand...


Being a veteran of the NXT vs Zaino Wars... I've learned to write very carefully on discussion forums. In fact I've perfected the art of defensive writing. This means if I post something to a forum you can be sure I've already chosen each and every single word very carefully and I can defend anything I post.

Notice the word perceived.... in my post above...


Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Waxes are typically products perceived to use some type of naturally occurring waxy substance for protection and gloss.

Sealants are typically products perceived to use some type of synthetic or man-made ingredients for protection and gloss.
Click to expand...



A long time ago, maybe 25+ years ago a 3M Rep for the Oregon territory used to always tell me...

Perception is reality....

Over the years I've come to believe he's correct.


Water beading means protection.


I've also learned it's really hard to change people's perceptions.



:)
 
I wasn't targeting your words in any way, Mike. I guess I was just being very blunt that that stereotyped characteristics which people use for waxes and sealants are just not appropriate anymore.
 
PiPUK said:
I guess I was just being very blunt that that stereotyped characteristics which people use for waxes and sealants are just not appropriate anymore.
Click to expand...


And we can all understand this on a detailing discussion forum but the masses are way behind us as far as their knowledge level for all things detailing.

That's why I shared the part about perception.

When I worked at Meguiar's I wrote the concept paper for NXT Tech Wax, only three people ever gave me the appropriate credit for this idea, one will remain un-named, Atticus Firey, a former Vice President for Meguiar's and #### Koeth, the Strategic Planner for the company who has since passed on...

When I wrote the concept for this product it was to be an all synthetic product without any Carnauba or any cleaners, chemical or abrasive, to compete head to head against Zaino. The concept paper was page 31 in my Zaino Case Study. Until Tech Wax was introduced all paint protection products in the Meguiar's lines had either cleaners, abrasives or Carnauba in them and in the forum world Zaino created a market for their Z2 Pro product which is a 100% all synthetic paint sealant with no cleaners, no abrasives and certainly no Carnauba and back in the years 2002 to 2007ish it was the rage in the Wax Wars in the forum world. And Meguiar's had nothing to compete against it.

While Tech Wax is an all synthetic product, Meguiar's marketing staff, in their wisdom chose to call the product a wax, as in Tech Wax. The reason why is because it is a "Consumer Product" marketed at the masses.

In the retail world at the wax isle of a store, you have about 3-5 seconds to capture a person's attention. To have used the words on the label that would say,

Synthetic Paint Sealant

Might have worked but a simpler more Bubba-proof name that would tell Joe Consumer EXACTLY what the product is and what the product does was to use the word wax as the average Joe Consumer when shopping for car care products at their local store is looking for usually two things,

Car Wash (and that's only if they've moved passed dish washing detergent)

and

Car Wax


If you use any other name on the label you risk confusing the customer and losing a potential sale to a competing product that does use simple, historically used words.


This is all based upon perception. We can all talk on this forum about how Tech Wax is a synthetic product but to the world it's a car wax.


I'm not even a marketing guy and I can understand all this...

But yeah, I agree with you that the separation between categories has become blurred and I even explain this in my article here....



Mike Phillips said:
The Difference Between a Cleaner/Wax and a Finishing Wax
Subtitle: How To Choose The Right Wax or Paint Sealant for your Detailing Project


Have you ever been confused as to which car wax to use? There are so many car waxes on the market and all of them claim to be the best? Some say they’ll last through 52 car washes? But are you waxing your car just so it will make it through 52 car washes? Or are you waxing your car because you want the paint to look good again? Like it did when it was new?

Or what if you’re taking your special ride to a car show or on a cruise? Do you really need a car wax that will bead water after 52 car washes or is there something better that will really make your car’s paint *POP* especially if hundreds and even thousands of people will be looking at it all day long while it’s on display?

2- basic groups of car wax
Let me see if I can remove just a little bit of the confusion… There are two basic groups most car waxes and paint sealants fall into, these would be,

• Cleaner/waxes or Cleaner/Sealants
• Finishing waxes or Finishing Sealants


A cleaner/wax or cleaning/sealant would offer some level of cleaning ability using either chemical cleaning agents, solvents and/or some type of abrasives and often times a combination of all three. Cleaner/Waxes are also referred to as One-Step products or All-In-One products. Cleaner/waxes can be used to restore neglected paint to good to excellent condition depending upon how bad of condition the paint is in and the cleaning ability or strength of the cleaning agents in the cleaner/wax.

A finishing wax or finishing sealant would not contain any ingredients with the intended ability to clean or abrade the paint. Products in this category should only be used on paint in excellent or brand new condition or neglected paints that have been previously cleaned and polished and thus restored to new or excellent condition.

Besides dividing products into two groups by whether they have the ability to clean the paint or not, paint protection products are also divided into two other groups or categories and that's car waxes or paint sealants.
Car Wax
Contains some kind of naturally occurring waxy type substance, for example Carnauba wax.

Paint Sealant
Made from synthetic or all man-made ingredients.

​
So from the above, we can have,
Cleaner/Waxes
A product that cleans, polishes and protects and contains natural protection ingredients like Carnauba

Cleaner/Sealants
A product that cleans, polishes and protects and uses all synthetic protection ingredients

Finishing Waxes
A product that offers no cleaning ability with the focus on maximizing beauty with the protection based upon naturally occurring ingredients.

Finishing Sealants
A product that offers no cleaning ability with the focus on maximizing beauty with the protection based upon synthetic ingredients.

Hybrids
There's one more group into which waxes and sealant fall into and that would be the hybrid category. Hybrids contain a combination of both natural and synthetic ingredients.

If we use the loose definition above for car waxes and paint sealants, (For the wax group the primary protection ingredients are naturally occurring waxy substances and for the sealant group the primary protection ingredients are man-made or synthetic substances), then since hybrid products use a combination of both it would seem natural to group them and place them into their own category with both words, wax and sealant used to describe the category.

My comment...
Since no one to my knowledge has ever separated and placed the different products on the market into their own categories I decided to step up to the plate and take a stab at it myself, feel free to create your own categories and write your won article if you feel so compelled.
​
Click to expand...

In this article I introduced to the online detailing world the idea that the majority of products that would fall into the car wax or synthetic paint sealant categories are actually hybrids because most products now day contain both natural and synthetic ingredients.

But this is too deep for the masses... they just want to wash and wax their car.

That's why I always say, (regardless of what's inside the bottle),


"Find something you like and use it often"



:)
 
jerber1 said:
Whats the REAL difference between a sealant and a wax,
Click to expand...
IMO: That's mostly already been answered.

jerber1 said:
and when should one or the other be used?
Click to expand...
Usually I'm a proponent of the Meguiar's "system"...

(which I loosely interpret as using, for the paint sealing aka: "protection" step, either what's labeled as a Wax or a Sealant---not both)...

and it makes my vehicles' paint so sparkling-shiny:
So sparkling-shiny, (in fact), that it's very difficult to approach my vehicles on sunny days! :)

Bob
 
Sometimes I wonder if I obsess over it too much. All I know is that, like Bob, I prefer to lay down a layer of sealant, then go over that with a quality carnauba based wax. It doesn't have to be "pure" or anything, just a nice, fun to use paste wax.
 
dlc95 said:
Sometimes I wonder if I obsess over it too much.
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That would describe most of us here on the forum...


dlc95 said:
All I know is that, like Bob, I prefer to lay down a layer of sealant, then go over that with a quality carnauba based wax.
Click to expand...

That's the way I did it or years... M20 followed by M16. This was before the Internet and all the cool brands available today.


dlc95 said:
It doesn't have to be "pure" or anything, just a nice, fun to use paste wax.
Click to expand...

And that IS what's most important....


Just to note, the context for the word pure means non-cleaning, that is no chemical cleaners, strong solvents or abrasives. The idea being to NOT remove the synthetic sealant with your topper wax.


:)
 
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