Modern cleaning products
I want to write a little bit about this as I often when I travel see a lot of cheap cleaning products and even products from well known brands still working with old product set ups and systems. I very often run into two issues
- A lot of customers of our dealers and also some dealers itself from competitors still think that an alcohol cleaner is an all/multi purpose cleaner.
- A lot of floors and surfaces I see have a film build up and not even cheap or non branded products are there is use, worst sometimes this dirt films are in a way polished and people think they have a clean shiny floor, but all they do is polish / shine dirt !
- Point 2 gives me often a headdache as object customers argue, you see we used cheap chemicals and got a film build up and now we use more expensive ones and get the same results ?
Why is this so and how to think and act differently and make things better:
I start the other way around with point 3. - I see very often not even bad products in use, but the totally wrong products in the wrong application and mostly results are so bad because of no or just very bad assessments and training of the stuff in the objects - very often its just about sales and not about service and doing the right things at the right time with the right tools ! A simple alcohol cleaner with high tenside contend has no value in a swimming pool cleaning where every day 100ts of people move through and the water condition is hard !
Let me jump to point 1. now - historically I can understand why a lot of people think an alcohol cleaner is an all purpose cleaner - after soap products the alcohol cleaner was the next invention in home and professional cleaning and at that time used everywhere and for everything, BUT an alcohol cleaner has a very simple set up - a low alcohol contend, a low tenside/surfactant contend (sometimes worth and that is high) and some perfume and colors, so it can not really lift dirt - it is very useful if you have closed and or glazed surfaces where no dirt can stick on and it just more or less has to collect and transport that non sticking dirt and should dry up streak free very fast. Everywhere else it is simply the wrong products to work with. Again here its not about good or bad, cheap or expensive, its about using the right product for the right application and area. All/Multi Purpose products and I speak about real all purpose products, as some manufacturers only use an alcohol cleaner with a little bit more alcohol and a different color and name it all pupose cleaner, is much more complex in its build up, there is additional alcalidity, a bit higher tenside / surfactant (an this by mixing different surfactants anionic, ionic and so on) and a higher solvent / alcohol contend (also by mixed solvents / alcohols). So it can really lift dirt off non glazed porous surfaces and keep the dirt captured in the process, it canhandle much more and easier by lower dilution hard water situations and heavy dirt levels.
Now to point 2. a lot of manufacturers still work with products which have a contend of 8 % upto 15 % and higher tensides / surfactants in their products. Surfactants are made to take the water tension down, offer you a better wetting of surfaces, parallel they are a tool to lift and capture dirt (one side connects to dirt, the other to the water). So they are a very useful base of a cleaning product and help a lot, but there is a lack and we think that a well balanced modern cleaning product should hold only between 3-5 % tensides / surfactants mostly.
Why are many using to such a tensides / surfactant based product ?
Well the best know surfactant / tenside is soap, so to build such an product based on that is a cheap solution, although you can buy soap cheap and expensive, but mostly cheap components are used here. So its easy and cheap to build such a product.
Secondly many company`s are not moving with the direction of the market, some years ago the two wipe technology was still common (wipe ones with product and a second time with a wet mop) , so atthat time this system was quite efficient as you removed the left over tensides from the floor by the second wiping and still had some cleaning power, but today no one has the time nor the money to pay for that anymore.
What is meant by leftover tensides / surfactants ?
If you clean by a one wipe system today which is 95 % and more the case today you leave not acting tensides on the floor and what do they do ? Connect right away to dirt again, which is their duty - so the result is either you need to clean a few times a day or you clean the next morning and until then dirt and tensides have connected and build a hard film which can not be removed anymore with the next day cleaning and builds up every day again, that is when you see this grey films on surfaces and floors. In swimming pool or wet areas even worth it connects not only with dirt, but also with calc and builds a calc soap film which can get as hard as cement within time. A point I will come too in a seperate article (wet area cleaning and changing cleaning cycles).
So change the way of cleaning adopt to new technologies and look into detaisl, there is a reason when you build up films, not only this, also others, but this is a main reason for.
I tried to write this report very easy, there are more things to look into also a lot of different tensides and surfactant with different benefits, but mostly cheap ones are used with mostly the same results, but it would be to much and to long of an chemical review to go into all details.
I hope I could help a bit to understand why films build up and what and where to use alcohol cleaners and all / multi purpose cleaners. If you want any advise or want to know what we do different and what solutions we offer you are welcome to contact me at any time.
Controvers views and feedbacks are welcome, as I dont assume I am right in everything.
P.S. I have attached a grafic on the top as header how tensides work, it is simple but lets you see the benefits and parallel the problems if products are not well balanced with tenside / surfactant contend.