What is your favorite interior dressing?
- Thread starter jhe888
- Start date
Domas said:
Usually some urban legend about Armor all causing dashboards to crack. If this ever happend it would have been with very old vinyl/foam dashboards and probably with the old style Armor All formula (AA was reformulated ~2007?).
IMHO The main complaint with using armor all is that it is way too glossy/blingy and may leave an oily finish.
However clearly some people like the bling look, since they have an "ultrashine" version of AA.
Barry Theal
New member
duke4ever said:
i don't know maybe i look at interiors a little differently then most by honestly i hate it when i get into a detailed car and everything is all greased up. In all honestly how long does this uv protectent really last? as compared to and interior dressing that attracts dirt and hides a things that wern't cleaned. plus its more overhead. plus it shines for a few days then gone. as to a clean car will stay preserved longer.
bufferbarry said:
Again, it's not about having a shine, the idea is to just keep the dash clean and protected. You don't want to use anything that leaves your dash greasy, that defeats the purpose of protecting it from the sun and dirt.
If your dressing causes the dirt to stick, then you're not using the right stuff. Something like 303 won't have a greasy feel and it will not leave a shine. You don't even need to put all that much, spray on a towel, then wipe your dash down then dry and that's good enough.
I think you just need to make the distinction between "nasty thick dressing" and "functional practical dressing"
BostonBull
New member
duke4ever said:Again, it's not about having a shine, the idea is to just keep the dash clean and protected. You don't want to use anything that leaves your dash greasy, that defeats the purpose of protecting it from the sun and dirt.
If your dressing causes the dirt to stick, then you're not using the right stuff. Something like 303 won't have a greasy feel and it will not leave a shine. You don't even need to put all that much, spray on a towel, then wipe your dash down then dry and that's good enough.
I think you just need to make the distinction between "nasty thick dressing" and "functional practical dressing"
Wheres the proof that these products actually protect? i havent seen one study published backing this statement up. Are we just throwing good money out the window?
Barry Theal
New member
i understand what your saying. trust me on this. there are so many companies that push uv protectent. Even outside the automobile industry. what im getting at is if your car is properly clean, you shouldn't need to dress the interior. now if you gonna dress it for protection that i can understand. now we are talking protectents and not dressings. its to different things here. its like comparing apples to oranges. truthfully though i have never seen a true professional dress an interior. an interior is suppose to be clean not dressed.
BostonBull said:
If you're going to look for published studies of everything you use you would probably be sorely disappointed.
The truth is, how do you really know anything you use actually works it's intended purpose? Other than a cleaner you really can only go by what you interpret happens over some length of time. IE, "it's easier to clean my dash" , "my dash doesn't fade", "the wax makes water bead".
Is there a study that says for example, all in one polisher waxes actually do that?
All you can really say is "there's 1 less swirl mark and the water beads, thus there must be wax and some polishing action." But that doesn't tell you in fact, in any scientific way, that yes, the product is using some abrasive polishing action to get rid of paint imperfections while at the same time adding a coat of wax. If you really think about this, it sounds almost impossible. How can you claim that 1 product simultaneously does 2 things which are almost in direct contradiction to one another?
One action removes things from the paint and the other action (wax) is adding some sort of layer to it. But people will insist it does.
How do you know a wax is actually on your car if you haven't seen a study? Because water beads on it? I can put any petroleum based product on a surface and have water bead, it doesn't mean it's doing anything helpful other THAN keeping water on it.
It's a long example but I think it serves it's purpose.
bufferbarry said:
In that case then yes I agree, you shouldn't dress an interior. I was mentioning them as interchangeable because specifically, what I use, 303 , although it's a protectant does leave a ever so slight sheen as a consequence of what it's doing. It's just a side effect, but it's not my intent to "dress" the interior like you said, so I agree we should separate the 2 concepts. Dressings are for tires etc... I would never put anything on my dash or interior to somehow make it look "better" or add any type of "shine".
So to clarify, the only action that should be going on in an interior is cleaning and protecting.
I will admit though, while I have seen cracked and faded interiors; my father for about 12 years had a car which the dash never cracked. It faded ever so slightly but acceptable given it's 12 year run of being parked outside in NYC. He never put any additional protectant on the interior other than just keeping it clean.
BostonBull
New member
that's great that something polishes and protects. what happens if this product fails to make its claim? water doesn't bead, swirls stay, and we throw out the crap that doesn't work. you know, in pretty short time, that it doesn't work. huge claims like UV PROTECTION, and leather cleaner/protectant could cost money down the due to false claims. trouble is the results aren't instant. who's to say 303 really is like SPF40 for our stuff? who's to say it has NO UV qualities at all?
Kean
New member
....I posted the following after you first asked this question about 303 in the thread earlier but I think it bears repeating:BostonBull said:
I agree with duke's remarks about being disappointed if you expect to find conclusive, scientific evidence for most products you use. In many cases, all we have is the manufacturer's claims, our own personal experience and those of others. As I said before, 303 has had a strong following for a reason.Kean said:
btw, one of the most valuable aspects of this website (in my opinion) is the wealth of knowledge & experience shared by it's members about products, tools, techniques, etc. With this large pool of info to draw from, I believe you can make reasonable decisions about what products are actually effective and have more confidence as to which you should choose.
Kean said:
Right, this is one of the BIGGEST plus points of this website. So can we tell for sure off the bat that this stuff offers UV protection? No, of course with enough money and resources we could do our own scientific tests, like testing for light exposure under various materials etc... Very expensive to do to buy the right tools.
We can however mitigate our risks on buying crap products by looking at other people's experiences. You have people on here who have been using a certain product for many years and can attest to its effectiveness. I think this is really the best we can do in certain cases such as this, where the dispute is whether 303 actually offers UV protection or some other long term, slowly realizing condition.
salty
Active member
Automotive glass is a very good UV absorbent in it self.
SPF stands for 'skin protection factor', as in human skin not car dashes.
I think the whole SPF and UV protection is mostly a marketing gimmick, as the above examples are an example.
It has been stated, from one of the top sealant makers, than UV protection has a short life span. It converts UV light into heat and uses itself up.
I have seen 25 year old car interiors that still look new and I have seen others that have oxidized badly ( late 80's-90's Chev trucks that the steering column is 3 different colors, and it doesn't see direct light). It comes down to the quality of material.
This car have never seen any protectant, just a mild cleaning and still looks new.
Most damage is done by aggressive cleaning and chemicals.
Whether UV protection in a product is worth the marketing, most water based products are inert and it will not harm to apply.
SPF stands for 'skin protection factor', as in human skin not car dashes.
I think the whole SPF and UV protection is mostly a marketing gimmick, as the above examples are an example.
It has been stated, from one of the top sealant makers, than UV protection has a short life span. It converts UV light into heat and uses itself up.
I have seen 25 year old car interiors that still look new and I have seen others that have oxidized badly ( late 80's-90's Chev trucks that the steering column is 3 different colors, and it doesn't see direct light). It comes down to the quality of material.
This car have never seen any protectant, just a mild cleaning and still looks new.
Most damage is done by aggressive cleaning and chemicals.
Whether UV protection in a product is worth the marketing, most water based products are inert and it will not harm to apply.
salty said:
Depends on the UV chemistry, some protectants are using zinc oxide nano-particles. But most UV chemistries are transient.
Zinc Chemicals :: ZANO, Umicore?s nano or ultrafine zinc oxide transparent UV absorber
Like I said, the main use is to clean, and to leave a finish that is closer to new plastic/vinyl or else attractively glossy.
07mustanggt
New member
I love the 303, I just used it on a ' 99 Explorer and the owner was blown away. It looked unbelievable.
Nopstnz8
Member
Fk 108 Ftw!