Soap Suds Myth

doged said:
Why do people believe, the more suds, the better the soap is cleaning?
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Becuase the sudsy-ness helps lift the drit away from the paint. The suds will actually pic up the loose specs and carry it with it.
 
Danase said:
Becuase the sudsy-ness helps lift the drit away from the paint. The suds will actually pic up the loose specs and carry it with it.
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Especially if you're using a foamgun or some other "dislodge, encapsulate, and flush" technique. IMO it's not so much a matter of things getting *cleaner* as it is a means of avoiding marring. Less marring is better so it *is* better cleaning in a sense.



But no, you don't need suds to clean; just look at how well solvents like PrepSol will clean with no sudsing at all. So I guess it's a matter of how you interpret "good/better cleaning".
 
Myth Busted!!!



Actually the suds do not do anything. Suds are a marketing gimmick created by the soap companies because people think that suds make soap powerful. I think they were first used in soap to hide the dirty dishes in the sink. Any real soap manufacture will tell you this. This will no doubt bunch some panties up. Rainbow suds at the car wash. ;)
 
For one thing, bubbles are fun. Who didn’t play with bubbles in the bathtub?



People like to have visual feedback. If you can’t see something how do you know it’s working? It doesn’t matter that what they see has no relationship to what’s happening. They can see it so it must be important. And if they see more of something it must be better. (Just like wax, you got’ta see it go on really thick to get a good coating right? ;) )



Most people have never taken chemistry and don’t know the difference between surface tension of like molecules with gas entrainment (sudzing) and wetting of particulates and ionic interactions with different molecules (cleaning/lubricating).





PC.
 
I may not know much....but I do know this: If I reach into my soap bucket and try to "scoop" up some suds with my mitt, it feels a lot safer, and glides a lot smoother than if I had just dunked my mitt in the bucket!
 
if soap suds were responsible for the cleaning, the likes of companies like Protecall and Optimum would not have their quick and easy series.. and we'd be all using Dawn :D hehheheheh
 
the other pc said:
Most people have never taken chemistry and don’t know the difference between surface tension of like molecules with gas entrainment (sudzing) and wetting of particulates and ionic interactions with different molecules (cleaning/lubricating)..
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I'll admit that I've forgotten most of my college chem courses (hey, it's been a good 25 years :D ). I *do* know that suds serve no useful purpose with regard to laundry detergents, dishwashing, and some other situations and are often counterproductive, but those applications seem very different from my washing vehicles with a foamgun.



If it matters, I *am* talking specifically about situations like with the foamgun, where you have a constant stream of wash solution and are trying to remove the contamination with the least physical contact possible (contact between the paint and both the wash media and the dislodged dirt).



Don't the suds serve a functional purpose with regard to encapsulating/migrating loosened contamination off a surface without marring it? Don't they help suspend the contamination away from the surface of the paint? I vaguely recall DavidB discussing this in a past thread on the topic...
 
If you've used a foam gun, you know that suds do something.





IMO, they emulsify and pull the dirt to the surface of the bubble. Also, the mitts glide over the surface better due to the sud content creating a "barrier" between the paint.
 
GSRstilez said:
If you've used a foam gun, you know that suds do something.





IMO, they emulsify and pull the dirt to the surface of the bubble. Also, the mitts glide over the surface better due to the sud content creating a "barrier" between the paint.
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Interesting how decades of marketing hype make people believe in myths. Remember the world use to be flat and the moon was made of cheese :LOLOL
 
I think this illustrates the importance of us professional detailers understanding the "science" of cleaning. I think it is important here, to distinguish between soap and suds. Is soap and suds one in the same? I am not completely sure. What I do know is that soap definitely has has an effect on cleaning. Both in breaking down the soil and suspending the soil. I agree, however, that rainbow foam at a commercial carwash is for show.
 
doged said:
Interesting how decades of marketing hype make people believe in myths. Remember the world use to be flat and the moon was made of cheese :LOLOL
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Hey, I use QEW (zero suds) and its a great wash. However, if you've used a foam gun you'd know what I'm talking about. Some senior members on this site have/use foam guns and absolutely swear by them. Until you use one :wavey.
 
I also feel that suds help lift dirt up and off the paint. Just today I saw this. Last night it had rained so when I went to school the roads were wet. Long story short, my entire car was covered in dirty waterspots (and i just washed yesterday :( ). Anyways, I get home and wash the car again. At first I spray down the whole car with straight water. This really didn't do anything for the dirt. Next I foamed the car (without using the mitt, a foamy pre-wash rinse so to say). After I rinsed the foam off, a good 80-90% of the dirt was gone. The foam helped take the dirt off the car before I even touched it with a mitt.
 
Suds are not a �thing� separate from the soap solution. They are the soap solution. Just like the liquid solution in the bucket.



Suds are a structure that a portion of the solution had taken due to being mixed with air.



How a soap cleans (weakens and breaks chemical bonds between dirt and the finish), lubricates (reduces the strength of molecular bonding between the finish and dirt particles, your mitt’s fibers, etc), encapsulates (chemically bonds to the entire surface of particulates, obstructing molecular interactions outside of the encapsulation boundary) and suds (makes bubbles) are characteristics of the soap molecules in solution. They are not intrinsic indicators of one another.



It is not the suds that do the encapsulating, lubricating or cleaning. Suds are “caused� by the soap, just as the other effects are “caused� by the soap. For a given soap compound they will have some relationship. For a different soap compound the characteristics will be related differently.



For some soap compounds suds may be a rough indicator of solution concentration. For others it may be entirely meaningless.



The foam gun doesn’t change the chemical properties of the soap. Soap dispensed by a foam gun is no different from soap in a bucket. What is changed is the physical structure of the solution. The foam is much lighter than liquid soap (technically, its density is lower). It will have less of a tendency to flow off the finish under the pull of gravity. More soap will stay available to the finish for a longer period of time.



More soap, staying longer is what does the job better.





PC.
 
GSRstilez said:
Hey, I use QEW (zero suds) and its a great wash. However, if you've used a foam gun you'd know what I'm talking about. Some senior members on this site have/use foam guns and absolutely swear by them. Until you use one :wavey.
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No offence but the foam gun is a toy. It’s a delivery system for sudsy soap and nothing more. If the toy works for you then please, play with it. Who am I to tell senior members that Santa Claus is A fictional character . This is really amusing!!!
 
Doged, PC hit on the reason for higher effectiveness with the foam gun: "The foam is much lighter than liquid soap (technically, its density is lower). It will have less of a tendency to flow off the finish under the pull of gravity. More soap will stay available to the finish for a longer period of time."
 
With PC's description of bubles and why they're effective, I would assume that in my situation is was because of the foam. Regular water just beaded and rolled off the paint. The foam gun allowed the soap to stay on the dirty areas for a longer period of time. This is probably why most of the dirt was rinsed off after the foam prerinse.
 
According to Ken Neuman of Protect All, suds have no real function in car washing products. They are there to make the customer happy. Take it for what its worth.
 
I think some of this argument is at cross-purposes...the foam gun thing is really a different animal as to whether suds have a function as part of the car wash. As has been said, it's a way to get the soap to stay on the car longer, to perform cleaning without contact.
 
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