Chemical additive to increase Foam/Suds?

[Noob1]

Noob looking seeking advice, do you knowof a chemical additive that could be used with any car soap to increase foamand lather properties? I’ve done a little research and I think what I’m lookingfor is Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate in powder form. Can you confirm orsuggest a product that I could use that might help. If you’re wondering why I recently purchaseda MTMHydro PF22 foam cannon and several car soaps specificallymade for this type of application and I’m not getting great result. I’ve tried troubleshootingeverything I can think of. I’ve contacted MTM and Hosty for advice and got nowhere. At the heart of the issue is that I’mnot getting decent amount of foam with my pressure washer/ foam cannon setup. Theonly way I’m adequate application is when I switch chemical flow nozzle tomax or increasing the soap to water ration in mix bottle. But this can’t be rightunless soap manufactures are incorrectly claiming 1-2 oz. application when itshould be 2-3 oz. mixture. Any advicewould greatly be appreciated.

[kkritsilas]

ONR (Optimum No Rinse (Wash and Shine))in small amounts is suitable for use as a water softener.

I don't know what size your MTM bottle is (15oz, 32 oz, 1 L, etc). If you look at the videos from 9thgenaccord on Youtube, he uses 2 oz. of soap in 10 oz. of water, and seems to get good foam density. The soap density will be very dependent on setting of the top knob, and it should be just off of the full on foam position (just slightly to the right of fully closed using my foam canon). The other factors will be water hardness (fill the foam cannon container with distilled water to see if that is your issue, and make sure it is warn, not cold), and spread pattern (the wider the pattern, the lower density of foam), and pressure from the pressure washer (at least 1500 psi). This leaves out the obvious: soap/shampoo/detergent, and they do vary in foam density. Watch some of the 9thgenaccord videos, as he does review quite a lot of them.

[Eldorado2k]

Watch some of the 9thgenaccord videos, as he does review quite a lot of them.

"Quite alot of them" would be an understatement... I watched a few of his reviews. I've seen that guy before under the username "backyard detailer" and scrolling through the comments on 1 of the vids I found yet another account of his where he posts more of the same, yup, more car soap reviews... Smh.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with posting content, but all his soap reviews are pretty much the same thing over and over. He foams down his clean car, says pretty much the same exact thing about the thickness of the foam, talks about the size of the bubbles, then checks to see if the foam has removed his layer of sealant/diminished beading [as if any current car wash is going to fail at that] etc etc etc...

If you watch 1, you've watched em all. Lol. The thing I found funny was his review of 3D Pink compared to his review of CG Mr. Pink.. It was quite amusing that he rated 3D Pink a 7.5, yet the very ordinary looking results of Mr. Pink ended with him proclaiming it makes his top 5 soaps! Lol. That dude is either stretching far out to please his subscribers, or is a bit of a fanboy himself, because there's no way on earth that soap looked anywhere above average in the vid. He should step up to much newer offerings if he's going to continue reviewing car soaps, because the long list he's done so far are basic soaps with little to no difference between them and the proof shows in his repetitive comments about all of them.
Just sayin.

[Bunky]

In my experience, when you add ONR to a traditional soap it reduces suds. Soft water helps but something else in ONR seems to suppress suds.

3D Pink is one of the better foaming soaps. CG Pink was nothing special. I have a whole house water softener and it made a big difference.

[idriveblackcars]

ONR never works well with car shampoo. It's a suds killer

[cleanmycorolla]

We had some good replies going here for you, why leave it?
https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...foam-suds.html

[kkritsilas]

Eldorado 2K:

He is trying to come up with a consistent testing method for testing these soaps/shampoos. He is trying to do something besides the "great....good...OK...bad" rating method. Having created a testing methodology, he follows it pretty closely to allow for a valid comparison. He tries to characterise the soaps in as many ways as possible, so that people can figure out what the differences are, and potentially what those differences mean to the performance of the soap. He always uses 2 Oz. Of soap in 10 Oz. of water in the foam cannon, 3 oz. Of soap in 3 gal. of soap in 3 gal. of water in the soap bucket. To allow that to vary, would make the results inconsistent, and most likely, invalid. He is trying to reduce all the variables so that the only difference is the soap's performance. He doesn't have control over the environment (Temperature, humidity; wind, and sun), but he is controlling everything else that he can. He has tested a lot of soaps, but it doesn't come anywhere near the number of soaps that are available. Individual brands have multiple soaps, some have 4-5, some have many more than that (see CG). He could do soap tests for the next 10 years and still not cover all the soaps available


As for washing s clean" car, it isn't. It is shown in the videos that there is some sort on the car. It may not be mud caked, like what an off road vehicle just coming back from mud bogging all day, but the cars he is washing are about right for use with a foam cannon. Really dirty cars are not going to benefit from a foam cannon wash. Very dirty cars need to get washed some other way. So the dirt levels of the cars he is using for testing are appropriate for a foam cannon wash.

I have had some discussion with Russel about the validity if some of the points he raises in his testing. Let's just say that we have agreed to disagree.

Optimum themselves suggest using ONE as a water softener. I think they suggested .5 oz. per gallon. Obviously it should NOT be ONE Eassh and Shine..

[FUNX650]

Noob looking seeking advice,
do you knowof a chemical additive
that could be used with any car soap
to increase foamand lather properties?

All soaps, shampoos, detergents, etc.
are going to foam---to some degree or
another---when mixed with air/water.

Adding foaming agents to a
stabilized car wash solution...in
order to have it become more foamy?
I know I sure wouldn't!

"Destabilization", of cleaning products,
may wind up being the least unfavorable
event that might occur.

**********************************

whats so important about suds?
suds doesn't equal cleaning,
its just means suds.....

^^So true^^^

•Some people tend to directly equate
"clean" to the amount of foam they
see during the washing processes:
-"Foaming", then, it seems, becomes
a critical component of satisfaction.

•But, IMO:
-Once it is understood that a wet, thin
film-layer of foam is optimal for cleaning...
"Foaming" soon becomes a less critical
must-see component of the cleaning
processes.



Bob

[Eldorado2k]

Eldorado 2K:

He is trying to come up with a consistent testing method for testing these soaps/shampoos. He is trying to do something besides the "great....good...OK...bad" rating method. Having created a testing methodology, he follows it pretty closely to allow for a valid comparison. He tries to characterise the soaps in as many ways as possible, so that people can figure out what the differences are, and potentially what those differences mean to the performance of the soap. He always uses 2 Oz. Of soap in 10 Oz. of water in the foam cannon, 3 oz. Of soap in 3 gal. of soap in 3 gal. of water in the soap bucket. To allow that to vary, would make the results inconsistent, and most likely, invalid. He is trying to reduce all the variables so that the only difference is the soap's performance.

Just to clarify: I wasn't knocking the fact that his reviews were all the same based on him using the same testing methods for each 1 of them... I said that all of his reviews sound the same based on the fact that he's testing general grade car wash soaps and it's no surprise they all perform about the same.

I've voiced my opinion about general grade car wash soaps on the market these days and I truly believe that the differences between all of them are so minimal that the only deciding factor comes down to how much of a preference aka how much fanboyism we have towards any particular brand.
Name 1 car wash soap that totally sucks when it comes to lubricity.
Name 1 that totally lacks suds.
Name 1 that simply fails to clean like the rest of them.
Name 1 that strips wax the moment it touches your paint.

I bet there isn't a single car wash soap that fails those basic requirements, which is why its my opinion that it's a complete waste of time to even bother comparing them to each other.

He should review higher grade car wash soaps that are available in 2017 i.e. Gyeon Bathe+, Carpro Hydrofoam, Reset, and other soaps that actually contain ingredients to make them stand out from the run of the mill general grade soaps which are basically all the same... His reviews prove they're all the same, because he pretty much repeats himself over and over in every vid.. I'm surprised he hasn't figured that out by now.

[forrest@mothers]

I'd be curious where the original poster lives, since it's not indicated in his profile.

In my experience, lack of sudsing is due to extremely soft water - Baton Rouge LA as an example.

The best use I've found for suds is to show where I have (or haven't) washed.