I'm really surprised to hear this since I used a PFM, which is about two years old, yesterday with no problems. I'm still amazed at how well it soaks up water.
It's both actually. I quit dressing my interior long ago in effort to stop it but that didn't help. I've only tried three cleaners on it so far so if Clarify doesn't do it, I'm going to polish both...
I used a black Sharpie to label the back of my pads with what product I used them with. Boy, do we have to have a ton of pads each used with one specific product.