Most stuff on glass is acidic. To clean effectively our solution should be alkaline. So that it neutralizes. It doesn’t need to have sudz. That just helps us see what we are doing. Especially when doing fancy stuff with a long pole. Even if its just six feet over our head. You can get slip without sudz of course. Back to. The more alkaline our solution the more effective it will be at cleaning the glass. Dawn has not more than 1 percent sodium hydroxide. Which is a powerful degreaser. Because it is very alkaline. It is added to products used to clean grills at restaurants. And is sold as a 100% granular product as a drain cleaner in hardware stores. Don’t mess with this stuff though. It is REALLY bad. Will burn the skin off your hands and the eyeballs from your head. Not good!
You will find some detergents are more effective at removing fingerprints and foodstuff from glass. Those that are more alkaline will be more effective. When we shift to the much more mild detergents we lose this ability to really cut through stuff like greasy fingerprints. Of course these ‘soaps’ are much kinder to our skin. Like cocamidopropylbetaine an amphoteric synthetic detergent made from coconut oil. It comes around 30 to 35 percent active and gives me just enough sudz and glide. It does clean but not as well as Dawn or something else with a higher pH.
So what I wanted to develop was a product that would clean mostly through abrasion rather than detergents. I first located a mild totally green synthetic detergent made from the fatty acids of plants. This provides even better glide than Ecover. Which is a totally excellent product by the way. Mine also gives adequate sudz to my personal liking. And it does emulsify the dirt and grease that is removed for quick removal with the squeegee. BUT. The chief agent that removes the acidic grease and foodstuff from glass is the micro-abrasives suspended in the ‘soap’. These particles are actually smaller than the micropores of the glass so they reach down into the surface literally scrubbing the window clean. You know those Mr Clean white pads that work with plain water? They do that by the action of superabrasives. Similar idea. Except what I have done is made your entire bucket of cleaning solution a white pad. And added enough of a green very mild soap to give us the other properties we want. It is a truly synergistic blend. Kind of like soaping a window first and then lightly steel wooling the whole thing before squeegeeing it. Every time without it taking any extra time.
If you would like a free sample just send me your shipping address by email to [email protected]
I am working on putting together a batch right now so will be shipping the first of next week. My soap should be in today.
Henry
