Surfactants in soap good or bad?

[SRTSean]

After seeing another thread discussing favorite car soaps I started clicking around and reading about various soaps and how they're described as working. I found the following interesting and am wondering which manufacturer's claim is closest to the truth, or if this is all shades of grey or what.

My curiosity stems from the fact that I've been using Megs GC for a couple years now.

Meguiar's Gold Class:
"This is the real thing! - not some inexpensive imitation of dish-soap labeled for “automotive use”. An inferior product contains surfactants, so wrong for auto paint, they effectively strip the finish of all its protective waxes and polish wouldn’t stand a chance!"

Duragloss 901:
Chemically, Duragloss Car Wash Concentrate is made up of mild surfactants, which are the safest way to clean. They surround and suspend foreign particles so they easily rinse away. Duragloss Car Wash Concentrate is non-alkaline and non-acidic so it will not remove wax or dry out the paint.

 

[rwright]

Funny, Duragloss Car Wash Concentrate doesn't strip Duragloss polishes (wax/sealants).


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[WRAPT C5Z06]

I thought all car wash soaps have surfactants? I'm not so sure about Meguiars claim.

 

[jfelbab]

Not 100% sure that was a claim Meguiar's made. I've only seen it here at AG. Meg's doesn't make that same claim on their own e-site <Meguiar's Direct Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo & Conditioner> or any of about a half dozen e-sites I've checked.

Paging Mike Phillips to the courtesy phone.

 

[FUNX650]

I would think that all car wash shampoos contained some type of surfactant(s). They would be needed to aid in the removal of dirt and road oils from the paint's surface. But, I may be mistaken.

Also if your referring to Meg's G71 Gold Class, it does have surfactants. So does Duragloss 901. At least their MSDS's say so. What kind of surfactants, though....

http://www.meguiars.com/msds/G71 MSDS.PDF
http://www.duragloss.com/documents/MSDS 901,902,903,902-5.pdf

Bob

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Gentlemen, there is very little "soap" today. Pretty much everything is a detergent (made up of "surfactants", a term created around "surface active agents", which BTW, was made up at an ad agency). So pretty much everything, from your dish soap, laundry detergent, car wash, and your Axe shower gel, is a surfactant, not a soap.

 

[Cat ji]

It would be good to have a more technical understanding of the car wash products instead of only the marketing hype and the user reports based on subjective experience.

Feed back please

 

[BillE]

Gentlemen, there is very little "soap" today. Pretty much everything is a detergent (made up of "surfactants", a term created around "surface active agents", which BTW, was made up at an ad agency). So pretty much everything, from your dish soap, laundry detergent, car wash, and your Axe shower gel, is a surfactant, not a soap.

I'll be dipped! The word is an acronym...whoulda thunk it. No wonder I could never find 'true' definition of the word.

Thanx for posting that! :dblthumb2:

Bill

 

[XLNTShine]

Kinda funny that you say that, I remember my grandfather telling me "Soap is a Rock/Stone".

 

[Setec Astronomy]

I guess I got a little carried away, bar "soaps" still seem to mostly be soap, while of course things like laundry detergent and dishwash detergent are, well, detergents, along with most liquid soaps.

 

[ScottB]

Reminds me of the old posts on "silicones" and how all must be bad. I suspect as with anything there are better ingredients and lower quality ingredients as well as how they are used within a formula. I might steal a quote from Mike, "use what you like , and use it often"

 

[CEE DOG]

There are a lot of great soaps at this level and the ones that are not at this level aren't going to end the world either.

Personally I have 4 favorites and I've used many different car shampoos.

 

[kronos]

Meguiar's Gold Class:
"This is the real thing! - not some inexpensive imitation of dish-soap labeled for “automotive use”. An inferior product contains surfactants, so wrong for auto paint, they effectively strip the finish of all its protective waxes and polish wouldn’t stand a chance!"

Their claim is that surfactants remove LSP's, maybe they're just twisting the words a bit. A concentrated mixture of these soaps would strip LSP's wouldn't they? At the proper dilution rates they wouldn't, but at higher concentrations...

 

[HeavyMetal]

I think the Meg's claim is a typo. They probably meant to say that it does not contain aggressive surfactants since all soaps and detergents are, by definition, surfactants. Anyway, the MSDS clearly shows the Meg has surfactants. As far as the difference between soap and detergents, soaps are alkylated natural fats and detergents are synthetic alkylated sulfonates, glycols, oxylates, etc. Synthetic detergents were created to be less sensitive to hard water than plain soaps. All of the car detergents are pretty much the same compounds. They're less aggressive than dish and laundry detergents because you want to get fats, grease and waxes out of your clothes and off your dishes but you don't want car wash to strip the wax. Pick one that cleans well and you've accomplished as much as you're going to.