Currently I use enough Dawn to give me a small amount of suds in my bucket. I’ve heard ( and it makes sense ) that dawn is for dishes as it is meant to be rinsed with hot water to rinse away the residue I don’t want to leave any thing behind that would allow dirt to stick to my clean windows. All the windows I’ve done look great but I can’t see the residue left behind. Which brings me to “professional” cleaning products which are formulated for window cleaning, they say that these soaps leave no trace of any residues, which sounds good to me, cleaner longer right? My question to you is what do you use? And why?
I’ve never thought of that but I used Sunlight dish soap for like 20 years without problem but I don’t see any suds. If I see suds it’s too much and it soaps up my sponge.
If you’re worried, I just had a thought, we got this high effeciency washer and we have to use this concentrate soap. It actually says to wash cloaths in cold water with this soap. I still use hot water though because I’m used to it. 2X Ultra Tide for Cold Water.
btw, I’ve been using Glass GLeam 3 for the last month or so, I’m not sure if I notice any difference in anything.
I’ve used several of the “professional” window cleaning products over the last twenty-five years and always return to my dawn.
Chip May
Sunshine Services
Florence, MS
[QUOTE=Sunshine Services;100256]I’ve used several of the “professional” window cleaning products over the last twenty-five years and always return to my dawn
What makes you go back to Dawn? Why don’t the profesional soaps impress you?
I don’t like the way the squeegee drags on the glass when making my second or third pull. I should say though that the glass does feel very clean when using these products and I do use one brand when doing the second floor of a two story building that I can’t use a wfp on. The reason I use it in that case is because the edges seem to clean better.
So why not add some glide to the solution? I’m just trying to figure out if the " professional " soaps are in fact better for window cleaning or if it’s just a bunch of bs
Tried the glyde and didn’t like it.
You said it felt very clean, what do you mean by that? how does the clean feel compare to Dawn?
I thought that was my imagination, it’s really true eh?
These solutions probably do leave the glass a little cleaner but I and all my customers have been satisfied with the results achieved with dish soap and I just like it better. (I’m sure others who are using the professional cleaners can explain why they prefer them.) As a matter of fact the only time I ever had a problem was when one of my employees bought a dish soap with something in it that is supposed to be gentle on the hands. That soap left an obvious residue. I had to reclean a $1,000 job.
And if you added glide, even that would probably be negated.
It’s hard explain, I guess it’s has to do with the way the squeegee drags, like there is nothing left on the glass to allow the squeegee to glide. Makes it hard for me to do the Fan move too.
Thats why I go back to dawn
You know I’ve never actually tired using anything but dawn, maybe its because its worked so well for me so far so why switch? 
Yawn.
With any soap less is more. The more soap you use the quicker the solution dries and then more residue is left behind. The reason you get a little more squeegee drag is because Glass Gleam is leaving almost no residue whereas the dish soaps which are designed to need a rinse to remove them from glass have glycerin and leave a residue of it on the glass so you feel less drag. The result is more rapid resoiling of glass and frames. I use Winsol Super Slip which is designed for 2 things - aid in glide and low residue so the combo of slip and GG will not leave as much residue as dish soap.
If you do storefront residue isn’t probably a big concern since you’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I do residential and I want the customer to see clean windows as long as possible so low residue is important for my company. So I guess you just have to analyze what your customer base is made up of and pick the soap that delivers for those customers what you want them to have.
I too do residential as my mainstay, not only do I want my windows cleaner longer but I want to represent myself as a professional,now I’m not saying that if you use Dawn or any other type of dish soap that your not a pro, but I don’t want my customers seeing me put regular old Dawn in my bucket either. But like I said before I use it now and it cleans very well. I am concerned about the residue left behind however.And this may sound like overkill but I also use Winsol super slip,the glide I get with this combo is amazing and there are no streaks left behind…I have a couple questions first how much longer ( in normal situations ) will the glass remain clean with say GG4 over Dawn? Second, I don’t currently use scented soaps, but would this leave even more of a residue or would it cause any streaking?
I can say that from comparing jobs I’ve done w/ GG and ones I know of done w/ dish soap there seems to be a month or two difference in resoiling. I have also had customers say that the last wcer used dish soap and whatever I was using kept the windows cleaner longer.(I’ve had at least 4 say that)
Not sure about the scent thing.
So Tony would you be inclined to recommed switching from Dawn? I’ve been eyeing up GG4 as there is hard water in my area.
I always recommend going w/ GG4 for hard water areas. I have a few floater bottles of GG4 and give them to local wcers to try it out.
