Review Capture the Rapture and DLux pt. II

[swanicyouth]

I just spent a day (about 18 hours ) detailing my car. The goal was to change my LSP and apply CarPro's DLux to some of the trim. The car didn't really need to be polished, but it was near impossible to strip the old LSP chemically. Anyway, this is a wax & trim coating review, so lets get to it.





Prep:

- Car was foamed with Chemical Guys Citrus Red. Panel impact Ratio (PIR) was about an oz per gallon (1:125). If your not familiar with PIR, its the concentration of the soap when it hits the panel from your foaming device. How does one know this? You have to figure it out. Here is how:

1. Fill your foam cannon with water

2. Dial the cannon to the concentration setting you want to use.

3. Spray the foam cannon in the bucket like you were "foaming it" ( but your only using water, no soap). Stop spraying exactly when the cannon bottle is empty of water.

4. Measure the total volume of water in your bucket. It should be about the GPM of your pressure washer x minutes sprayed. Say its 3 gallons. Then you know all your soap you put in your bottle will end up being diluted in a total of 3 gallons of water (since you stopped spraying when your bottle was empty).

5. So if you want the soap to hit the panel at a concentration of 1 oz per gallon (about 1:125) you want to add 3oz of soap to your bottle and fill the rest with water.

***********

After foaming, I did a 2BM wash, same shampoo (1oz per gallon). Wheels were cleaned with Chemical Guys Sticky wheel cleaner and several brushes.

Wheel wells & tires were cleaned with an awesome degreaser / APC: LA's Totally Awesome (LATA). LATA costs a dollar.



This stuff IS totally awesome. I compared it to Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner, and the isn't too much difference on tires. It also cleans pads good as well. Only thing is, I don't know how safe LATA is on paint (wheels) - which some is bound to get on. I have a gallon of Meg's Degreaser in the mail to compare it to, but that will be another review.

The idea was to strip everything. All the old LSP and "dressings" to prepare of DLux and Capture the Rapture (CTR).

- Paint was then treated with Trix. The soap didn't kill the beading, so I tried other products:



I tried all the above products on the paint - nothing killed the beading. There was no purple from Trix, but I treated the whole car anyway. I even added an extra 2 oz of Citrus Red to the wash (7oz ~ 4.5 gallons of water). No good. Previous LSP was WG's Deep Gloss Liquid Seal (WGDGLS) topped with Souverän. I'm guessing the Souverän went pretty quick. But the DGLS was another story.

Oh, by the way, the WG DGLS was applied over a "glaze" (Amigo). I'm pretty much 100% convinced acrylic type glazes like Amigo and Black Hole have no affect on "sealant bonding". I don't claim to understand it, it's just what I've experienced. There was/is no problem or issue using Trix on clear bra material.

Now, some may think "clean paint" beads - so the previous LSP products were probably gone. I'm not buying that. For 2 reasons:

1. Beading was killed on some spots, but they were few and far between. I've stripped this car before with other LSPs on it and the water lays flat.

2. I posted a "sealant torture test" here a while back. I tried all the products here (along with others) and nothing killed the beading there either (on glass). Until I tried wheel acid (Meg's Chrome Wheel Cleaner) - that killed it. Killed it 100%. So if a clean surface beads, why does a clean surface treated with wheel acid, (then rinsed with water well) not bead ? Acid is water soluble, so I don't believe it leaves anything behind that could "mask" beading.

That test:

Sealant Test: PowerLock (+/-) BlackHole, Wolfgang DGPS, & BlackFire WD
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...t.php?p=816784

Here are a few pics if the beading after: Citrus Red, Trix, Eraser, and Sonus All in 1 (1:10). All products were sprayed on slightly wet clean paint and rubbed / agitated in with a towel. Then rinsed with a hose.







So, that was a failure. Anyway, I also wanted to strip the dressing (Prima Infinity) off the cowl trim plastic, and mirror trim pieces for DLux. The wiper arms had a previous applied sealant - which one I can't recall. Stripping those areas I believe was a success. For that I used Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner, LATA (strait), Griot's Paint Prep, Citrus Red, and finally Eraser.

Stripped plastics:





After that, the car was rinsed with my CR Spotless for about 5 minutes to knock off all the tap water. I'm going on 7 washes still with the original resin using it as a final rinse. Readings are still 000. Then I let the car just dry in the noon sun. Once it's mostly dry I went around and blew the water out of the cracks and dried the wheels with an AirForce Blaster. The car was never touched with a towel of any kind to dry it. It was dried 100% by the sun, evaporation, and the blaster

Then the car was polished with a GG6, LC Cool Wave black & blue CCS pads and Prima Amigo. I started out with Wolfgang PPE. I never really used PPE before this - and I hated it. Maybe it was the heat and humidity, but it just wouldn't wipe off all the way.

I started off taping off the clear bra when I was using PPE. When I removed the tape, the only part of the hood that looked good was where the tape covered. PPE left the paint cloudy and was grabby to wipe off. I noticed the bottle has no machine directions - maybe it only works well by hand. Dunno.

Anyway, after the hood I started over with Amigo. Amigo is such an awesome product. You don't have to tape off anything because the product basically fades into the paint. Its a paint cleaner, glaze, and light polish all in one.

It works just as well on clear bra material as paint. So, I went over the clear bra with it as well. There's no dust and even less product to remove. It just leaves the surface glossy and sealant slick. It doesn't get caught in the cracks or the crevices, and if it does - it's invisible anyway. Its the best "paint prep / light cleaner" product I've tried.

If your looking for a fool proof / humidity proof paint cleaner type product I would get Amigo. It works well by hand or machine. Its pretty close to a flawless product.

Here's a pic I snapped of the work in progress after hitting the door with Amigo:



After the Amigo, I layer down a coat of Wet Glaze 2.0 just for kicks. I find WG 2.0 to boost gloss. Its just another easy to use wipe on wipe off product. It can be used above or below your LSP, as it has no cleaners. I know Amigo already has a "glaze" in it, but you would really have to try WG 2.0 to appreciate it. It actually acts more like a very glossy sealant.



Since it's looking like WG 2.0 is no longer being made, I cherish this bottle. I found that by spraying the applicator with half a spritz of DI water, I could make the WG 2.0 go twice a far. And, that's pretty far, as it takes probably less than a half an ounce to do the whole car.

Now, the main event: CTR. I was going from Souverän to this, so I was curious to compare the two.

This is what the wax looks like:



If it looks "wet" - that's because it is. Its actually a little "wetter" than Souverän in the jar. Wet and oily. Its almost more "Souverän-like" than Souverän. Just barely touching the applicator to the wax is enough to load it up to wax a panel, sort of like Glasur but more so.

Its a fairly soft wax, a bit softer than Souverän, but it's not mushy like some of the Zymol waxes. Texturally its more like Souverän than Glasur. Its spreads like oil. As soon as it touches the paint, its like your no longer dealing with wax - but oil. It's like spreading oil.

The smell is odd. Its kind of hard to describe. It kind of smells like the Christmas Yankee Candle to me. It smells like a mix of pine, cherry, spices, and wintergreen - all in one. Its a very unique smell. Its distinctive, once you smell it, you remember it. I like the smell because it's complex and unusual for a wax.

The product spreads far and easy. It is an oil heavy wax for sure. The directions say to apply, and remove after 2-5 minutes - and - not to let the product dry on the paint. You can tell there are no sealants in this wax. This is pure 'nuba. You can tell when you go to wipe it off.

When you go to remove it, it stays "tacky". I tried a swipe test, but never got a clean swipe. And, following the directions, I didn't want it to dry totally. Its not the easiest wax to remove, but is not the hardest. I found using a Cobra 530 gsm towel worked best. I started with a BOA towel, but I needed something more substantial.

You have to apply this stuff very thinly, or you will be left with an oily mess on your paint, as, its not quite as easy as Souverän to remove. Its not more work in a way that you have to "buff harder", just that you have to "buff more". But, only a little more.

CTR reminds you of a home made natural product. It smells like the inside of a candle shop. And, the smell is quite strong. It doesn't smell or look like it contains chemicals or sealants. It doesn't feel "slick" when you remove it. It feels like real wax.

I believe Bouncers says the durability is between one to two months for this wax. It seems pretty substantial when you apply it, so I'm guessing it lasts as long as any other pure carnauba show car type wax. The car has been detailed as perfect as I can get it and is garaged kept, so I won't be hosing it down to see the beading.

The amazing thing with this product is how little you use to wax a car. One benefit of applying a wax by hand (applicator) is you use less, much less IME. The applicators are smaller than a pad and less product is absorbed by them. You don't need a machine to spread this product thin, so that not a benefit here. I'm guessing I could wax this car 40-50x more time just with this jar. Bouncers says you should get 60-75 applications per jar. I used a Polishin' Pal with a 3.5" Lake Country beveled edge red foam pad to apply it.

Here's the jar when I was done:





So, as you can see, hardly any wax looks used. Actually, I was able to wax a 1/3 of the car just from the little bit that was stuck on the lid. This wax is designed for looks only. It's Bouncer's flagship wax. Its said to contain select glossing and passion fruit oils. It definitely leave a glossy, wet, rippling appearance on the paint.

Is it better than Souverän or Glasur? Looks wise, I think I like it a bit more than Glasur. With Souverän, its really a toss up. This wax just seems very similar to Souverän in many respects. But, you so get the feeling its a bit more substantial, so I get the feeling the durability may be a little better. I'll never know, because I'll top it every month.

You seem to get more (use a little less) wax compared to Souverän. I was able to put wax on the applicator, wax a panel, then instead of re-loading the applicator - I just gave it half a spritz of DI water. That was almost a enough to wax a whole other panel. It's also a few dollars cheaper than Souverän. Bouncers is giving you a full 8.8 oz of wax for your money. The pot was full to the top and there was wax on the lid.

I can't really pronounce a winner between the two, as I need more time with CTR. But I can tell you at this pint both waxes seem very similar in composition, just completely different in color and smell. Both waxes probably look as good or better than products costing several times their price. CTR is hand made and hand poured in the UK. You kind of get that "special" feeling when you use it. I don't think the "I would never spend more than $20 for a wax" crowd would appreciate the uniqueness of this product.

Some pictures after CTR:









There was no sun when I took these pics (8pm). The car hasn't been driven and is still inside. I'll get some better sun pics up by mid Monday as long as there is no rain.

Tires got a single coat of Prima Infinity after being stripped completely of the previous Poor Boy's dressing. The bottle says this stuff leaves a satin finish, I think its quite wet and glossy:





Either way, its a great dressing.

[swanicyouth]

After I finished with the paint and the tires, I taped up a few areas to apply DLux to some trim and the wiper arms:



Before DLux:





plastic louvre thing on drivers side wiper arm:



After DLux:



DLux on wiper arm and plastic cowl trim here:









Louvre thing with DLux:





Outside photos:





Now that I've applied DLux to two of my cars, I can give a little more feedback on it.

First, on textured trim its just a no brainer. All you have to do is wipe some on with anything handy. You can use a piece of a folded blue shop towel, a piece of sponge, or whatever. Its very easy to apply to textured plastics. You don't need to use the special mini suede towels that come with the kit. Also, once you use them once, the silica in the DLux dries in them and they get hard unless you rinse them out immediately (or even faster than that).

On smooth plastics and metals, application is only a bit more tricky. You want to avoid over smoothing it out. The key is to use it sparingly, very sparingly. 1 or 2 drops is all that required to do those mirror trim pieces. On smooth material DLux can add a bit of texture, its only noticeable under very close examination.

I've found the best thing to use to apply DLux to intricate areas is one of these little foam paint brushes on a stick:



You can get the little ones in the paint department anywhere for about fifty cents each. All you need to do is put one or two drops of DLux on the end of it and start spreading it out. Then you can smooth out any heavy spots with the other side of the foam.

DLux beads water very well. Here is a video of it beading from my other car.

http://youtu.be/8kqh0ZnCaww

That kind of shows how this stuff is fairly hydrophobic. DLux seems a bit expensive ($40 for 30 mls), but the stuff goes so far. Compared to trim coatings from G Techniq ($40 for 15ml of C4) and 22ple ($45 for 20ml VR1 Plastic & Trim Restorer), DLux isn't priced so bad. After doing several trim areas on both my cars, I still have at least 3/4 a bottle left. You can tell this stuff is a real "coating" type product, because it dries kind of crusty around the bottle threads from the silica.

I like DLux a lot so far. I haven't used anything else like it. The expected longevity is 6 month to a year. As you can see, it adds a significant amount of gloss and darkness to the trim you apply it to. My only concern is the shelf life of the bottle once its been opened. The key to using the product is making sure the trim is 100% free of old dressings. To do that, a multi product cleaning approach followed by Eraser seems to work best if the area had trim protectant recently applied to it.

Thanks for looking. I'll keep this thread updated on CTR and how DLux is holding up. So far, I can recommend both of these products as top notch.

Both of these products are available at AutoGeek & CarPro USA. The wax I bought from CarPro, it came with a free applicator and BOA towel (about a $7 value), the DLux was from AutoGeek. It was on sale for $30 as a kit with a foam block and 4 suede mini towels.

[sproketser]

Thanx mate , I need some DLux now , after viewing your threads about it .

[SON1C]

excellent work and review, thanks for taking the time

[swanicyouth]

Thanx mate , I need some DLux now , after viewing your threads about it .

So far, so good. I just can't comment on the durability yet. I've been let down before with "trim restorers", but Corey from CarPro USA has some videos of this stuff on YouTube holding up well in the 4-6 month range on greyed out faded trim. I'd be very happy with that. Assuming the shelf life of the product in the bottle is over a year.

I don't think he'd mind if I shared the link:

http://youtu.be/_jX01ntst0g

I'm storing the opened bottle in 2 air tight bags. Hopefully this will help preserve it. I've heard of people using silica coatings that "cured" or crystallized in the bottle after the bottle sits a while - ruining the product. But with paint coatings, the bottle gets used up pretty fast, since it takes almost a whole bottle to do one or two cars.

With trim coatings its completely different. You could probably coat 15 - 20 cars' trim with a bottle of this stuff, as it literally only takes a drop or two to coat a small trim piece.

I know from being a pharmacist and figuring out "days supply" of eye/ear drops there are approximately 20 drops in an ml (depending on the fluid it's +/- a few). That means, each bottle of DLux has about 600 drops or so in it (1oz).

Hopefully, CarPro has thought of this and made the product so it lasts a while in the bottle. Like I mentioned, the DLux bottle's lid threads get "crusty" from the cured glass coating when you go to re-open the bottle.

[ihaveacamaro]

Your recent reviews and threads have all been top notch. This one probably takes the cake.

I was thinking about getting CTR, but instead went for Sherbet Fizz. I just wanted something with better durability.

I also find that DLUX is not very easy to apply on smooth trim! It just wants to move around and is very hard to get that "light touch" to get it perfect if you know what I mean.

[Tinwhiskers]

Nice right up and the Bimmer looks great. I've always been a fan of BMW wheels!

I've been waiting to try my CTR and now I might just have to go and do it. You might have just pushed the "I won't spend more than $20.00" on a wax crowd all the way up to $30.00 lol.

[dpk20x]

Thank you again for another excellent review Swanic! I can't even imagine how much time it must take you to write one of these up.

[swanicyouth]

Just got home from work a bit ago and the sun was going down! Pulled the car and and noticed some "wax holograms" from the CTR. I've seen the before from oily waxes (and Optimum Car Wax). So, I did a quick wipe down with ORN 1:16 so I could get a little better sun pics.

Also, noticed something strange. The CTR seemed to get "slicker". Well, not really "slick", but the surface feels smoother (before ONR).

Here are some more pics:







Closer:



















DLux

[90sedan]

Nice review.

I really like Capture the Rapture as well. It provides great looks and smells fantastic. It is very oily and does need to be applied very thin. I've noticed that it does get more "slick" over night, same with vanilla ice, so it might be a bouncer's wax trait.

I have both souveran and ctr and imo ctr edges out for the win. Souveran wins in application/removal, both have great looks, but ctr provides nice durability for a show wax and it beads very nice and tight.