:iagree:
As a side note I'm still flabbergasted by the amount of people who think that Dawn is magic in a bottle.:dunno:
It is one of those detailing myths. I think it is either a myth which is perpetuated because of:
1) Hero worship - detailers are terribly trusting of people with thousands of posts on detailing forums. Often I think less experienced detailers just repeat such myths rather than ever testing them.
2) Confusion - the designed characteristics of products like Dawn will make it appear to be potent at stripping LSPs. As I have discussed elsewhere, if you understand the design of the product, you will reconsider your views.
I don't ever use dawn on my cars, but I think the idea is dawn is a heavy degreaser. It'll break down most things on your paint, wax, sealants, some contaminants, road grime, etc. So it makes sense to use it as a 'first step' to a full detail, to aggressively strip anything you can before claying, polishing, etc. So the theory is here, if he has a layer of something bonded to the OC, the dawn might wash it off (since the dawn won't harm the OC)
We are referring to Dawn Wash Up Detergent??! You can stick your hands in it for hours and have little more than some wrinkly skin, but it will do all of the above? Honestly, there is no science behind that. Dawn and similar will help to break down oily soils which you find on dishes. These oils are typically very easily dealt with, many of them can actually just be saponified. Vehicles, Dawn might well work against the light oily residues which you pick up from the roads but waxes and sealants are engineered to be resistant. You are often discussing macroscopic networks which, at the very least, need high levels of alkalinity to destroy them. As discussed elsewhere, the small molecules in dawn are designed to bond to oils and then effectively encapsulate them. With light oils, that can be done because they are relatively small and not bonded strongly to anything. With a wax or a sealant, the dawn is trying to catch hold of an oily looking molecule which now forms part of an integrated network which is bonded together. The probability of it achieving that is low so the 'dawn molecules' cannot take the sealant/wax into the wash solution. Rather, they are thus stuck to the wax or sealant (specifically their oil loving ends). This means that their water loving ends are left poking out into the world. So you pour water over and it grabs the water and forms a sheet which sticks to the surface and makes it look like an LSP is gone. Again, as discussed before, Dawn does this with dishes - that is how it inhibits the formation of water spots.
I suggest you get some silicone oil and spread it on your hands. Now try and rinse it off with some dawn solution. It will be a damned nightmare to get off. Silicone oil is pretty much the least resilient component in a polish/sealant so now imagine how hard it would be to rinse off the most durable elements, if they were bonded to your hands. It should be pretty clean that Dawn is not going to cut it.
More generally on the topic, again as discussed elsewhere, detailing use of the term 'sheeting' is not entirely in agreement with the rest of the world. Detailers refer to sheeting when a surface is hydrophobic and the water runs off as a sheet (but does not stick) - most typically this is the same effect as with beading but the hydrophobic character is not sufficient to break the water sheet into smaller elements. Elsewhere, sheeting more typically is something used to describe a hydrophillic surface. The water sticks to the surface and spreads out to form a sheet. This sheet does not run off leaving the surface dry, it sticks and dries by evaporation.
