Eco Touch Waterless Wash Kit

[Lowiepete]

Hello Folks,

What Is It?

Eco Touch Waterless Wash - a straight from the bottle cleaning potion. The kit
comes with a 50mml bottle and 2 microfibre cloths.

What Does It Bring to the Table?

This handy waterless car wash kit contains everything needed to begin cleaning your
car without wasting water. A 500ml bottle of Eco Touch Waterless Car Wash and two
microfibre towels is the perfect introduction to this new method of car cleaning.

Spray, wipe and admire away!

Eco Touch Waterless Car Wash is a spray and wipe cleaner designed to wash your car
quickly without using a drop of water. A powerful blend of surfactants ‘lifts’ dirt away
from the paintwork while polymers leave a smooth and protected long lasting finish.



What Am I Using It On?

A Renault Laguna Coupé with very soft paint. Half the car is wearing Harlys Wax,
applied with the spit'n'polish technique, and the other half an FK#2180 /2685.

I'm going to present this review with a twist. It seems that views on waterless
washing are quite polarised, with anyone who dares to raise this as a serious
washing alternative having their remarks often treated either with disdain or
as somehow being part of the lunatic fringe. Indeed a great deal of unfounded
mis-information is proffered as fact to bring disrepute to this type of cleaning.

What do I Think Of It?

When I first opened the package my first impression was one of respect. Clearly,
with this product the manufacturers are serious about projecting a quality
image! Not only is the microfibre cloth of good quality, the nozzle on the spray
bottle looks like some thought went into its design.

After a good shake, the next surprise is just how fine the spray is and just how
controllable your aim can be. One major drawback with some waterless products is
how they can dry white, mostly because of their kaolin clay content. None is
present in Eco Touch. Not only that, there's no mention of carnauba wax either.
So, the liquid that you spray is almost clear.

Preparation

My departure for this review is that I'm also going to include a short tutorial
on using waterless washes to best effect. Now, with this heading, it sounds like
this could be an involved procedure; perish the thought, it'll be the work of
moments. All you need are a couple of clean microfibre cloths, preferably short
pile, you run them under the tap and wring them out.

The next stage is to fold your cloth into four. This is important, as is keeping
the integrity of those folds whilst you wipe. Next, spray the area that you're
going to clean with the product. Allow this a little time to dwell. If you spray
and immediately wipe, you could be working against yourself, just by making
a simple job a tad more difficult.


Area sprayed and dampened cloth in position

Wiping will also be carefully done, mostly in straight lines. With the folded
side of your cloth as its leading edge, grab that edge twixt your thumb and
forefinger. Then lightly drag the cloth across the paint in one fluid movement.
You should not be using any pressure over and above the weight of the cloth!

With the Eco Touch I was pleasantly surprised, not only by how it behaved, but
by how "finished" the wiped area looked. I was able to do three swipes across
half the roof before picking up the dry microfibre to do some buffing off. This
photo shows the cloth after the first wipe and the next after the three wipes.


After the first wipe

It's All In The Wrist Action

At the end of the first wipe you'll notice that there's a leading edge of dirt.
It isn't that pronounced in the photograph because of the lightness of my touch.
When the cloth is free like that, you'll get several leading edges rather than
just one! Really, for your second and subsequent passes you do need to present
a clean leading edge if you can.

This part of the wiping can be controlled by either of two methods. You can
either grab more of the cloth for the next pass, or simply keep hold and just
rotate your wrist a little so that a clean leading edge is being presented.


The cloth after cleaning half of the roof

So, How Does Waterless Work?

Okay, so now I'm going to do some real myth busting here! Most of the dust that's
found on the surface of a car is only abrasive when dry! Indeed, most of it will
fully dissolve in water. The exceptions to this are sand, stone, cement and salt.
What the waterless product does is to bring out the best in another technology,
the microfibre cloth.

So, an understanding of how that works is where most of the secrets lie. You'll
probably have seen the images of the Korean Army on the march with their goose-
stepping. That's probably the closest way of understanding how the MF works. As
you drag the cloth across the surface, you'll have millions and millions of tiny
strands doing their goose-step, and, as they encounter dust, they gather it.

However, that's only half of the story. For a MF cloth to work as intended, it
does need to be dampened. Generally, all that's needed is water. However, what
the waterless product also brings are ingredients to make the water wetter, and
polymers to encapsulate the dirt. Dragging the cloth through the sprayed cleaner
creates a momentary bow wave within which some magic takes place.

The dirt is whirled around temporarily, helping those elements that can to
dissolve, at which point the polymers envelope it. Any further contact twixt dirt
and paint is lubricated. The dirt then gets absorbed into the cloth. If the cloth
was not presented already damp, you would short-circuit this rather vital stage
in the process. So, your leading edge of dirt that's revealed is nothing more
than a glorified tide mark on the cloth.

At this point what I'm cleaning is dust from the dry atmosphere that's stuck to
the surface by late evening and early morning dews, then baked hard during the
day by an unremitting sun. In its dry state, it could do some damage! So, how
good is the cleaning? This next picture shows a full resolution 50/50 of the roof,
bearing in mind that specks in the clean part are flake-pop.



When it came to buffing-off, I was pleased to feel the instant slickness of the
surface. What I hadn't expected was that the buffing off would be so easy! Not
only that, I hadn't expected the finish to be so glassy; sadly that's not to my
personal taste.

Waterless and Swirls

This next picture I think speaks for itself. If anyone tells you that waterless
is nothing but a short-cut to swirl heaven, here's the proof that it isn't! In
fact I took several pictures and this is the one which was the worst in terms
of showing swirls. Yeah, you've gotta look hard..!



This car is nearly four years old, and throughout its entire life it has only been
washed either with waterless or less-water products! Now, lets burst another
myth. This one will seem counter-intuitive. Deep pile MF cloths should only be
used _dry_ for buffing-off protective coatings. They should never be used for
waterless washing because they can hold sharps at an angle which could scratch
and if used for drying, say with the 2BM, they should be lightly dampened first!


The cloth after cleaning the roof and bonnet

Keeping the folds integral, in both cloths, provides you with 8 clean sides as well
as providing a cushioning effect. Any pressure, bearing in mind your lightness of
touch, will be distributed through a wider area, with no risk of concentrating any
mishaps. Also, there's nothing to limit you to using more than one cloth!

On vertical surfaces, it is better to wipe downward, holding the cloth at the
top edge. Avoiding any pressure over and above the weight of the cloth will
take some practice. You also won't get any kind of even leading edge of dirt.
If there's extra dirt, say on panels behind the wheels, it may be beneficial to
give it a second spraying.


What the Eco Touch Didn't Touch

This was probably the biggest disappointment during the session. There were a
number of these marks on the car and although fairly softened, they were being
left behind. I would have expected these to be dissolved by the dwell time I
had given the product. In view of this, I'm not sure how well it would cope with
tree sap.

Eco Touch and Glass

Waterless cleaners are growing in popularity as being a first product choice for
cleaning car glass. How it wins over dedicated glass cleaners is that you very
quickly get a smear-free finish. Not only do you get clean glass, you get a
protective coating too.

This next photograph is another full-resolution 50/50 picture of the rear window
being cleaned. I was impressed with how easy this was to clean although it was
not a "one cloth" operation, unlike other waterless products I've used. However,
I did take a chance with doing the windscreen because the surface left behind
didn't feel like it had any coating at all. This could be big a mistake on my part!



The Finish

In common with other waterless products the Eco Touch made cleaning the car a
quick and easy job. Overall, the whole experience was one where I had complete
confidence in the product and its ability to provide a quality of finish. One
aspect that I've not previously encountered was the glassiness of the shine.
There's no carnauba in this product, so the shine comes entirely from polymers
within the formula, as seen in this picture.



As for washing wheels, especially alloys, I'd still use a hose-free wash in a
bucket. This is just a personal thing because I have severe reservations about
wiping brake dust off wheels into microfibre cloths and putting those into a
washing machine. The wheels were not touched for this review.

Conclusion

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Eco Touch Waterless Wash! Certainly, as Stuart
mentioned, cost is a factor. However, if you intend to regularly use this, then
there is the opportunity to buy it in bulk and substantially reduce unit cost,
though at roughly £12 a litre it still isn't cheap! If you do buy in bulk, I would
recommend that it be dispensed from a pump sprayer with a decent adjustable
spray head.

As for all-year round use, I'd hesitate. Certainly with road salt, especially
that which is dispensed with molasses, I'm not sure that the product has enough
strength to work safely. If waterless is the only option I'd tend toward using
a less water wash product if only to ensure that all the salt gets dissolved
safely.

Manufacturers of waterless washes are clearly still investing heavily in R&D
and that shows in this product's quality. For some people the finish might be a
tad too glassy. It can be applied to any surface and its biggest strength is
that it doesn't dry white. If there's overspray, it doesn't detract from the
finish.


Twenty minutes later

With only the horizontal surfaces having anything of consequence on them, I
was able to do the whole car in less than 20 minutes. For anyone who likes a
bit of bling, this product won't disappoint!

Where Do I Buy It?

Eco Touch is available direct from their Web Site

Regards,
Steve