Tire dressing, Water Based, Solvent Based?
 

I’m sure you all heard about water-based products and the governments push to move away from oil-based coatings as much as possible across various industries.

Here is how it is relevant to our niche obsession, and why I strongly agree with the move towards water-based formulas and products.

What is a solvent? A solvent is liquid, solid, or gas that dissolves another liquid, solid, or gas. It’s when a substance is disolved into another substance, creating a solution. (Stay with me here, there is a point coming). The opposite to this situation is when compounds are insoluble, such as sand mixed in water. It doesn’t evenly disperse or dissolve.

What’s the point? I’ve learned is there is a HUGE difference between a solvent-based product and a water-based product. The best method for me to explain the difference between the two is with a very specific “car” example. Tire Dressing.

About 15 years ago, most tire dressing used HEXANE (or Heptane) as their solvents. In other words:
HEXANE + SILICONE = Quick drying shinny tire dressing.

Each manufacturer used different amounts of hexane and silicone and maybe some emulsifiers and colors etc. to create their own tire dressing formula, but these were the 2 most important ingredients at the time.

So what’s the problem you ask? Lets give Wikipedia the spot light:
The long-term toxicity of n-hexane in humans is well known. Extensive peripheral nervous system failure is known to occur in humans chronically exposed to levels of n-hexane ranging from 400 to 600 ppm, with occasional exposures up to 2,500 ppm. The initial symptoms are tingling and cramps in the arms and legs, followed by general muscular weakness. In severe cases, atrophy of the skeletal muscles is observed, along with a loss of coordination and problems of vision. Chronic intoxication from hexane has been observed in recreational solvent abusers and in workers in the shoe manufacturing, furniture restoration andautomobile industries, and recently, plastic recyclers and assemblers and cleaners of capacitive touch-screen devices.
In 1994, n-hexane was included in the list of chemicals on the US Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations on the control of emissions of hexane gas due to its potential carcinogenic properties and environmental concerns. [and its flammable!]

I’m not sure what all that means, but it sounds pretty bad. Especially the carcinogenic properties part. I love my car, but not enough to even slightly increase my risk of getting cancer because I want SHINNY TIRES! The reason Hexane was so effective as a solvent in tire dressing is that it evaporated quickly, leaving the silicone (aka shinny-ness) behind on the rubber, while lowering the rate of “wheel-sling”. A minute or so after you applied dressing to all 4 tires, it would be bone-dry and shinny as hell. BUT.... you might die. Errr.


So the next logical conclusion is to find a new solvent (other than Hexane) because no one wanted to trade nervous system failure for bling-bling wheels. Next, the industry produced a “Low odor” based solvent, we called LOBS. (BTW: if you asking yourself, “why don’t I just use 100% silicone on my tires?” The answer is: Because it’s really expensive, ridiculously wasteful, and doesn’t make a huge difference in tire shinny-ness.

Anyways, after using LOBS for a while, I discovered something interesting about my rubber gaskets used in the storage of the finished “solvent-based” tire dressing. All the rubber gaskets would become rock-hard after a few days of storage (because of the constant contact with the tire dressing inside the container) If you are not completely unconscious by now, I hope you can read between the lines…. Solvent based tire dressing made RUBBER HARD! It has a tendency to dry out the rubber and cause it to lose its pliability. From that point on, I decided to never use any solvent based tire dressing on any on my cars or my customers’ cars. The “non-hexane” version was safer to use, but dried out the rubber and had the annoying “wheel-sling” characteristic that is despised by every car guy on the planet. (solvent based product sling onto car's paint is bad as well!)

So guys, when it comes to buying tire dressings for your car, make sure it is a water based dressing. It will provide you the shine that you want while at the same time, elimnating all the dangerous elements that are commonly found in solvent based dressings.

Hope you found it helpful!

I started using Poorboy's water based tire shine a while ago. The best thing is that the tires don't get all slimey/greasy like they do with regular tire shine. And yeah, it's probably better for the tires' rubber.

But come on, arguing the "carcinogenic effects" of the hexane in regular tire shine? Give me a break, are you smearing that shit all over your body or something? If you're that worried, put it on with gloves.

I always thought tire dressing was made with some sort of petroleum distilled because it smells like the valve oil i used in my trumpet. :lol

But isn't hexane in gasoline too? I think we get much more hexane exposure from filling up gas then doing tireshine every 2 weeks in summer.

Haha, You've definitely got a point!

But, if it does have that bad quality, why not use something that's perfectly safe right?

Hexane is pretty much outlawed, so we don't really have to worry about that anymore, which is a good thing!

All we have to think about nowadays is just solvent based vs water based dressing.
Solvent based-super shinny, tire sling, bad for tires
Water based-deep rich shine, no sling, good for tires

Yes, hexane can be found in gasoline that's for sure.

Again, hexane tire dressings are pretty much all gone now so it's all good, just make sure you don't inhale too much gas vapors =)