The ilogikal1 test thread

[harryjackson]

Okay so ilogikal has kindly let me post my review of a product on this thread.

 

Simoniz - Back to Black Bumper and Tyre Gel.

 

This is a product not in the mainstream but I'm sure it's highly available on the high street or online - http://www.opieoils.co.uk/pv-97704-simoniz-back-to-black-bumper-and-tyre-gel-500ml.aspx?utm_source=ProductSearch&utm_medium=GoogleBase&utm_campaign=GoogleBase_ProductsFeed&utm_content=97704&gclid=CPadw-bk0sICFYbKtAodKmgAaA

 

I wanted to share this particular product as I see a lot of company's marketing that they can bring back your interior/exterior plastics up in a shot. But at a price. I'll let you see the photos and make your own mind up but for its price point I think this is quite a good punt and value for money.

 

Prep work was just to clean it down with some car shampoo, in this case I used Auto Glym.

 

Next step is to dry off the area so there's no moisture remaining as if there is it will thin the product and it will be less effective.

 

Apply a small amount to a applicator pad. I'm using microfibre pads as I find they work fantastically well.

 

Begin the apply the product in any motion you'd like until you see the problem area get darker.

 

After 5 mins working the product I got this finish a 50:50 to show you the effect of the product...

 

I think the difference is quite substantial. Here are some more photos to show you the finish you can get.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking :-)

Edited December 19, 2014 by harryjackson

[Stutopia]

Looks good Harry, nice tip - any idea on longevity or is this your first use?

 

PS - add some fake bead shots at the end of a review

[harryjackson]

Looks good Harry, nice tip - any idea on longevity or is this your first use?

 

PS - add some fake bead shots at the end of a review

 

First use on semi interior plastics. A good application on exterior plastics lasted me(in good weather) 6 weeks id say. I should do a longevity test but it's in my maintenance wash now as I always like to have nice black plastics.

[Stutopia]

Looks good Harry, nice tip - any idea on longevity or is this your first use?

 

PS - add some fake bead shots at the end of a review

 

First use on semi interior plastics. A good application on exterior plastics lasted me(in good weather) 6 weeks id say. I should do a longevity test but it's in my maintenance wash now as I always like to have nice black plastics.

 

Fair enough, a regular "routine" means I tend to have no clue about longevity of my favourite products!

Edited December 20, 2014 by SuperStu

[ilogikal1]

PS - add some fake bead shots at the end of a review

 

Hey, fake beads are beads too y'know. Stop being so beadist!

[Stutopia]

PS - add some fake bead shots at the end of a review

 

Hey, fake beads are beads too y'know. Stop being so beadist!

 

You're right, it's not their fault, I embrace all beads, fake or otherwise.

[ilogikal1]

So, it's (relatively) late on Christmas day now, so if you haven't opened your Waxybox Hamper (for those who bought one, obviously) by now then it's your own fault.

 

The wax is on the bonnet.

 

The two "mystery" waxes are;

 

 

Car's due a clean in the next few days, just as soon as I can move again after all that turkey... it may be a while.

[ilogikal1]

I would like to apologise for the following update which is going to be quite long. I won't of course, but I would like to. Anyway, you'll probably want to make yourself comfortable before setting down to this, there's a lot of pictures...

 

430-odd motorway miles later and the Z looked like this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ilogikal1]

No snow here (yet at least) but it did rain overnight, so just for Stu ; actual, proper, real, natural, non-fake beadage. On a dirty car.

 

 

 

Edition 18;

 

 

 

 

Vitero;

 

 

 

 

Little unlabelled pot of wax;

 

 

 

 

Edition 19;

 

 

 

 

Edition 20;

 

 

 

 

The other Edition 20;

 

 

 

 

 

Compared to (older) HydrO2 on the wing;

 

 

 

BSD-Wipe Hybrid;

 

 

 

 

HubiTrim doesn't appear to be fairing so well on the headlights these days;

 

 

[ilogikal1]

I then spent most of the day removing the motorway from my car (I washed it...). Basic foam & wash for the most part but I did try out three new products in doing so.

 

First up, the wheels. Two were cleaned with Meguairs Wheel Brightener from the Waxybox Christmas hamper.

 

Megs review was posted on Instagram, so I'm lifting that picture straight from there;

 

 

Cleans very well, rinses very easily, foams a little (but not much) when agitated with Wheel Woolies, it smelt okay - nothing special but not unpleasant. It did the job. It did kill off the (pure) BSD though so it's quite harsh - it can be diluted though so unless you're tackling filthy rims I'd recommend that... well actually I'd recommend something else, but if you had this I'd suggest diluting it.

 

The other two were cleaned with this;

 

 

Clean & protect in one... yeah, I have to test that out!

 

It was simply sprayed on, allowed to dwell for one minute, agitated with Wheel Woolies & rinsed off with the hose. It cleaned very well, it rinsed very easily, didn't foam up at all for me, it smells very neutral - if anything it's a slight chemically smell - but added protection rather than killing it. Whilst agitating, the dirt was beading on the wheel (if you're using this on a hot day, I'd recommend rinsing often otherwise you're going to end up with dirty waterspots!).

 

 

The protection it left behind wasn't the strongest beading but it's not bad either (I think Gyeon have ruined me for easy, amazing beads!). The sheeting is very good though. Will have to see how durable the protection is and whether it can stand up to brake dust now - the two wheels cleaned by the Megs were also treated to a hit with the Wolfs after to add a bit of protection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ilogikal1]

And then I washed the rest of the car; Citrus pre-wash (to use the Car Chem CPW I had mixed up) followed by lunch then started again with Car Chem foam, 2bm wash and final rinse with DI filtered water.

 

The third new (to me) product was Chemical Guys Vintage Series Wonder Wash shampoo. It's... okay - neither bad nor particularly impressive to be honest. The dilution ratios are... try it and see (as with most CG stuff, their marketing exceeds their products which is a shame because their products aren't actually bad!) I used about 20ml in 15litres of water. It foamed up well enough and was moderately sudsy (if that's important to you), it has a scent that I've not placed yet but wasn't by any means unpleasant. It provides moderate lubrication - again, not the best I've used but also far from the worst. It did clean very well though. Again, it's one of those of products that does the job and I'd happily use it again but it's not likely to replace any of my current shampoos (of which I have far too many anyway!).

 

So on with the fake beads (sorry Stu, but it is the end of the update ) on a clean car.

 

Edition 20;

 

 

The other Edition 20;

 

 

 

The little unlabelled pot of wax;

 

 

 

Edition 19;

 

 

 

Edition 18;

 

 

 

Vitreo;

 

 

 

Edition 19 was the slowest at sheeting (but by no means bad at this point, just slow in comparison to the others), followed by Edition 18 which was slower than the others but more thorough on the sheeting front. The rest were much the same and very fast at sheeting the water off the surface.

My current favourite of the lot is the little unlabelled pot of mystery... annoyingly.

 

 

BSD-Wipe Hybrid seems to have been adversely affected by either the citrus pre-wash, the foam and/or the shampoo though;

 

 

The beading was much better before the wash. The sheeting is still quick and thorough though so I'm still quite happy with this at the moment.

 

 

PlasmaCoat and Tough Coat sections on the boot are much the same - the bead is **** but the sheeting more than makes up for it - the fact that they are both sealants, this is no surprise to me as that's the compromise with sealants over waxes.

 

PlasmaCoat;

 

and literally 2 seconds to zoom in later - you can see the sheeting in action;

 

 

and Tough Coat;

 

 

 

And some general "after" shots;

 

 

 

 

That's it, I'm done and you've made it all the way through. Well done you.

[Stutopia]

Nice work, as usual. If you're not careful you could end up with a beading complex

 

All this wax effort has made me curious. I generally can't be bothered with waxes, by the time I get to that stage on a regular wash I always take a quick look in the shed at the mountains of wax pots I have, but inevtibly reach for a spray QD or sealant which is easier to apply and takes half the time.

 

Am I missing out?

[ilogikal1]

Nice work, as usual. If you're not careful you could end up with a beading complex

 

Way too late for that.

 

 

All this wax effort has made me curious. I generally can't be bothered with waxes, by the time I get to that stage on a regular wash I always take a quick look in the shed at the mountains of wax pots I have, but inevtibly reach for a spray QD or sealant which is easier to apply and takes half the time.

 

Am I missing out?

 

Probably not to be honest. There's little between them in terms of looks and you'd have to be looking for it to notice it unless it's side-by-side (even then the vast majority of the population wouldn't notice it!).

The only difference I've noticed in application between waxes and traditional sealants is that sealants are almost universally easy off whereas some waxes can be trickier to remove - I'm big fan of easy on/easy off and tend to select my waxes based on ease of use over all else really (obviously it has to be worth applying once it's on, so durability does come into it too) so for most of the waxes I use regularly there's no extra effort in applying a wax over a traditional sealant (or 6 waxes over 6 sealants ).

 

More modern spray sealants/QD's that are wipe on/wipe off with no curing time are obviously quicker than waxing though, I just prefer to spend the extra time on waxing... for no real reason at all.

[ilogikal1]

The Z was treated to another wash the other day - basic foam & wash, the only variation this week was the use of Maxolen Repel, which is a rinse aid, from the Christmas Waxybox so I'll start with that.

 

Instructions were quite simple; mix the 50ml sample with 500ml of (deionised) water in a spray bottle, mist over a wet car and rinse with an open-end hose with low pressure. There is a note to test for compatibility with glass sealants so I avoided using this on my windscreen - I've currently got G1 on my glass and this doesn't appear to have had any detrimental effect on the rear screen.

I didn't apply it to the whole of car because I wanted to avoid anything interfering with the waxes on the bonnet or the on the wheels for example, but even so I probably used about 200ml of the solution.

It works fairly well for the intended purpose provided you get the water pressure just right, otherwise you would still end up with water spots where the beading/splashes dries thus achieving nothing. However with certain products like H2Go or WetCoat which are spray on/rinse off sealants, it's hard for me to see the point in rinse aids in general - for no extra effort at all you could easily add/top up protection with a sealant that has as good (if not better) sheeting capabilities or you could use a rinse aid and still need to add/top up protection. On top of this, if you already have a decent LSP on the paint it's unlikely that you'll need an additional product to achieve adequate sheeting anyway. For me rinse aids are a waste of money, time and effort, however if you want a rinse aid then this does the job.

Another nail in the coffin for this came when I used the remaining Repel solution on parts of the Leon today in order to compare Repel's ability to that of a coating... the coating won. Easily. Repel actually had an adverse effect on the sheeting ability of several-moths-old Gyeon Prime.

 

 

Now, onto Wolf's Nano Clean & Coat. The wheels were left spotless once again with nothing more than a snow foam & rinse with the pressure washer. Absolutely no agitation or physical contact (other than the water, obviously) at all. The beading and sheeting is still quite strong so I'm more than happy that there's still plenty of protection there.

 

The BSD-Wipe hybrid type stuff on the roof, the beading isn't as tight or tall as fresh BSD but then it is nearly a month old at this stage stage; there's still protection there but it's starting to show signs of weakening.

 

The waxes then - Edition 19 is lagging behind all the others in terms of sheeting, it's noticeably slower. Although by no means inadequate at the moment, it is just that; adequate. The rest are still going well and fairly similar, although Vitreo and the little unlabelled pot are just edging it at the moment I'd say.

 

Edition 20's looked like this (lower section first);

 

 

Upper section;

 

Edition 19;

 

Edition 18;

 

Little unlabelled pot;

 

Vitreo;

 

 

And just some randoms because they're pretty.

 

 

 

That's your lot for now.

[Stutopia]

No spacers I get, but OEM aerial!!! If I buy you one, will you swap it?

[ilogikal1]

No spacers I get, but OEM aerial!!! If I buy you one, will you swap it?

 

I like to be different and stand out for the crowd.

[ilogikal1]

A mere 8 months ago, back in post #99 made in early July, I started a second glass sealant test on the house windows. Well, I've not quite forgotten about that (yet ) and as I've got nothing better to do right now, have an update on that;

 

The windows get cleaned (read; wet with soapy water & squeegeed) once a month. G5, Urban and Glass Seal v2 are still going strong with no signs of fading yet. PIAA has long since given up and looks/acts no different to untreated glass. They currently look like the following, taken today;

 

 

Disclaimer; obviously this has very little, if any, relation to how each would behave on a car given the very different conditions. I have reviewed each for use on a car previously though so if you're looking for that, reviews are on this thread... er... somewhere.

[ilogikal1]

I've been unable to wash to Z for a while... until yesterday. The temperatures soared to the dizzying heights of almost 4 degrees, meaning that for the first time in a few weeks, the car didn't look like this;

 

 

 

So I managed to give the Z a wash yesterday and test out a product that I haven't used before. Namely;

 

 

Nanolex say;

Nanolex Reactivating Shampoo is designed to clean and protect your car in a single, easy step.

 

 

 

While washing your car, the advanced formula forms a chemical and molecular bond with previously applied protective layers and refreshes them.

Paint surfaces sealed with Nanolex sealants or other last step products become better protected as a result, and water beading is significantly enhanced (which aids self-cleaning via the Lotus Effect).

Nanolex Reactivating Shampoo also contains a high-tech rinsing aid that will leave your car almost completely dry after thorough rinsing it with clean, fresh water.

 

...so basically a shampoo that adds protection as it washes.

 

First off, there is a really nice, subtle scent to this quite reminiscent of the Polished Bliss air fresheners - if you don't know what they smell like, 1) you're missing out and, 2) it's a very "aftershavey" scent. The NRS has a similar "aftershavey" scent but less of a 15-year-old-bathed-in-it kind of strength, it's much more subtle. Also it's not the foamiest of shampoos - I used ~25ml in ~12litres of water - there are plenty of suds in the bucket to be fair, but there's very little on the paint. Now I appreciate that neither of these things have anything at all to do with how well a shampoo works, but such things can make a product more/less pleasant to use if these things matter to you.

 

Now onto my process; the car was treated to a Citrus Power pre-wash beforehand which left just a traffic film to clean off. Because I'm still doing (another) wax test on the bonnet, I didn't want the Nanolex to interfere with that so I used Juicy Details Pink Banana Suds on the bonnet (albeit via a slightly different method) first followed by the rest of the car with the NRS. This meant that I was directly comparing the two in terms of actual usage.

NRS cleans exceptionally well, even the underside of the rear/sides didn't pose it any problems without being pre-washed so well. It's fairly well lubricated, but I could feel it dragging slightly in places - Juicy Details PBS felt slicker by comparison, but NRS certainly wasn't the worst that I've used either. It's a pretty good shampoo.

 

This brings us to the protection that it leaves behind. I have some comparison shots but you need to remember that the "before" pictures are after just a pre-wash and there's still a traffic film on the car, particularly on the lower sections, which would inhibit the water behaviour. With that said, befores are on top, afters on the bottom, both taken roughly after the same amount of time after risning;

 

 

 

 

 

The difference between before and after is quite evident on the failing LSP's. The protection it leaves behind is very much a sheeter rather than a beader, the beading is quite flat and unimpressive but it actually takes a bit of effort to get it bead rather than sheet - presumably due to that "high-tech rinsing aid". As you can see from the roof and boot pictures, the sheeting is quite comprehensive (considering I was trying to get it to bead with the hose!).

 

Price wise, it's not cheap at £30 for a litre (or £17 for 250ml) which equates to about 75p (or £1.70) per wash.

 

The pros;

It's a good shampoo,

It leaves the car pretty much dry (unless you actively try to make it bead!),

I really like the scent.

 

The cons;

It's not cheap,

The obvious comparable product.

 

The obvious comparison being Gyeon Bathe+. Bathe+ is more lubricated, cleans just as well, leaves much more pronounced protection and is cheaper. Whilst I did quite like this shampoo, it would, frankly, be foolish to choose NRS over Bathe+.

[ilogikal1]

Also, I'm just going to leave this here...

 

 

[WhackyWill]

Great Result. :thumbs:

[Stutopia]

I liked the orange MF in the waxybox so much I ordered another two, one is just for my iMac though

 

Re: suds - Don't you think the amount of shampoo suds is indicative of the level of lubrication in between mitt/sponge and paint? I always feel so much happier with a sudsy shampoo as it glides over the paint, I imagine it's installing fewer defects ????

[ilogikal1]

They are very good cloths, those orange ones, I seem to have acquired a few of them myself.

 

 

I think that most people (myself included) associate suds with performance in some degree at some point but I've now used enough different shampoos to know differently - I've tried some that are very sudsy but lack any lubrication (and/or cleaning ability) and vice versa. It's similar to snow foam - thick foam might look pretty but it's no indication of an effective pre-wash.

With shampoo I always feel better if there's enough suds to visibly indicate that there's more than just water in the bucket before I touch the paintwork though, anything more is fine but not a necessity for me. Good lubrication is always essential though.

[ilogikal1]

Okay, I'll get the boring bit out of the way first.

 

 

 

Gyeon Cure is now on the passenger side from the door back, excluding the roof and the rear bumper. Dodo Juice Supernatural Acrylic Spritz is on the driver's side. There's also a section reserved for keeping track of the Nanolex shampoo's durability. It's also worth noting that there was absolutely minimal prep by way of a wash and nothing else, both products are currently sitting on top of various others. This is partly intentional but equally because I couldn't be arsed to remove the Plasma Coat, Tough Coat, HydrO2 and... er... whatever was under the HydrO2... if anything.

 

Application for both are simple wipe on/buff off. I initially thought that I'd got a good streak free finish on both fairly easily, however there are a couple of streaks on the DJ SAS side that are only evident when the panel is a bit wet - it's contained on the boot lid, just in front of the spoiler so I dare say it's lack of attention on my part as much as anything and it probably only needed an extra pass or two when buffing. There is absolutely no sign of smears on a dry panel at all.

 

Both are easy to use provided you follow the usual caveat of "less is more" - both will smear of you use too much. It seems both are easiest to use by spraying onto the cloth rather than directly onto the paint, a quick wipe over and then buff until shiny... and then maybe an extra buff too.

 

ETA: If you look really closely, in just the right light, at just the right angle, you might be able to see that the Cure side is ever-so-slightly darker than the Acrylic Spritz side which itself is slightly more noticeably darker than the Nanolex/Tough Coat tape line, although to be honest you'd have to be looking for it to notice it.

 

 

 

Now that you've skipped the boring bit a lot of pictures are about to follow. A lot! You've been warned.

Edited January 25, 2015 by ilogikal1

[ilogikal1]

No visible streaks;

 

 

See.

 

 

No? Exactly!

 

 

There's not even invisible streaks on this side;

 

 

 

 

More photos to follow...

[ilogikal1]

Then it magically rained in my garage. Yep, that's what happened, that's why the panel is not entirely dry any more....

 

Micro-beading!

DJ SAS;

 

 

 

Cure;

 

 

 

Cure on the left. DJ SAS on the right. Oh and Nanolex Reactivating Shampoo in the middle.

 

 

Comparison between Nanolex and DJ SAS;

 

 

Comparison between Nanolex and Cure;

 

 

Overall comparison;

 

 

You know I said there were a lot of photos? Yeah, there's more.

Edited February 11, 2015 by ilogikal1