Auto wassen met dreft, groene zeep of allesreiniger?

Wash your car with Dreft, green soap, all-purpose cleaner, Dasty or another detergent?

A question or comment that we often have to deal with is: Can you wash your car with Dreft or any other type of detergent? It doesn't matter whether it is Dreft, Dasty, green soap, an all-purpose cleaner, or whatever. We put it under the category "not car shampoo". So, can you wash your car with something other than a car shampoo?

Wash your car with Dreft

 pH Value of detergent.

Although we ourselves Custom Car Care Being not a chemist, we do have some understanding of chemicals and ingredients in the products we use on our cars. That is why we went to look at which ingredients are in the more well-known detergents such as Dreft and Dasty.

When you look at the MSDS or the Material Safety Data Sheet which contains certain (dangerous) ingredients and the data on the composition of the product, we can immediately confirm a few things. The detergents are (never) pH neutral, they are always alkaline with mainly a pH value of 9-12.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, there are also plenty of car shampoos that are alkaline with a pH value of 9-12. But it immediately means that when you have applied protection to your car such as wax, sealant or spray coating, you will (completely) remove this protection. This may not matter to you as you may not be applying any protection. However, the same also applies to dressings such as tire black, trim restorers, bumper black, and so on. These will significantly reduce their durability.

Convertible roofs also have problems with this. These are treated with a water-repellent coating that is not resistant to a high or low pH value.

We wrote another blog post about pH neutral car shampoo and alkaline shampoo, you can always read this if you want to learn more about it.

pH Detergent value

Solvents in dishwashing liquid

In addition to the pH value in detergent, the chemicals it contains are of course also important. What we see a lot in their components is citrus. Citrus is a fairly strong solvent based on natural solvents that is also used in the detailing world. So does this mean it is good to use as soap? No, detailers "never" use citrus as hand wash soap. Detailing brands with an established reputation do not make these as hand wash shampoos either. They are only made as a pre-wash shampoo for foam guns or as a concentrated product to loosen insects and other stubborn dirt and then clean them with a real car shampoo.

This is because we just mentioned that citrus is a solvent/solvent. It is a strong agent that also evaporates and may also leave traces. The most important thing with hand washing is lubricant. There are various pre wash shampoo that you can put in your foam gun, also citrus-based that can safely soak off all the dirt without leaving any traces. After this you can rinse your car with a high-pressure cleaner, after which it will be almost clean. This is because the pre wash shampoo is specially made for this to remain on the paint and to soak off the dirt without causing damage or leaving traces. They are not designed to be slippery, just to remove and soak off dirt.

In addition, the other chemicals in the detergent are formulated to clean kitchen items such as dishes, pans, cutlery, and so on. They mainly have to remove food residues. The car shampoo is a completely different formula that is specially made to remove the dirt from your car. This can be such as oil, insect remains, salt, brine, road grime, and so on. So when you put a good car shampoo next to a detergent and compare it with each other, you will notice that the car shampoo cleans better with less product than the detergent.

Car wash-with-detergent

Scratches from detergent?

Dish soap will also scratch your car. You will be using dish soap to wash your car by hand. However, the detergent cleans considerably less than a real car shampoo. As a result, you will have to rub the same dirt several times to get it clean, while with a real car shampoo you probably only have to go over this 1 or 2 times before it is clean. Every time you rub the paint you make scratches, this is impossible to avoid. However, we are not necessarily talking about deep scratches that you can see from afar. But small wax scratches that make the paint look dull and ugly.

In order to limit these scratches to a maximum, it is important that you have a shampoo that you can use wash glove slide well over the paint. Because the detergent is considerably less slippery than the car shampoo, you will also scratch the paint much more during the wash.

So if you like to have a clean car, but don't want to spend too much money on shampoo, but also want your car to shine, then you are guaranteed better off with a suitable car shampoo. Having your car re-polished because there are so many wax scratches after using detergent for a long time will immediately pay for the cost of a car shampoo! You can also buy these in larger quantities with which you can get by for years with a 5L can of professional car shampoo and invest only €50.

These are the 3 points that (all) detergents had. Namely a high pH value, bad lubricant and citrus solvents. These 3 points alone ensure that as a detailer we would never recommend detergent. But dishwashing detergents consist of even more chemicals. For example, it can also ensure that you use a soap that will cause your chrome to fade or get stains, plastic and rubber will fade, the acrylic windows in convertible roofs will no longer be transparent after a certain time, stitching from the convertible tops will wear out prematurely and break, remnants of the soap may burn into the car, and so on.

Scratch-after-car-wash-with-detergent

Chemicals in dishwashing liquid

 As mentioned before, many dishwashing detergents consist of different types of chemicals besides the citrus solvents. It is therefore perhaps important that we paint a picture of the reality of car paint. A healthy and new varnish car paint that comes straight from the factory is about 60 µ (Micron) thick. That is 0.05mm thick, thinner than a sheet of paper. In addition, due to strict legislation, the paint is also water-based and is also considerably softer and less durable than paint from the 2000s.

In general, many people think that car paint can do something, but this is certainly not the case. With a gloss repair polishing, the detailer removes an average of 4-5 µ. You can now say, then my car can be polished 14x. That's never going to happen, so I don't have to worry. However, this is not true. Every year the varnish of your paint gets thinner and thinner. This can be from the sun, scratches, washing, chemicals, and so on. A lot of factors play into why your varnish gets thinner and thinner. The varnish layer is also thinner on edges, so that the varnish burns through faster.

When a varnish starts to get too thin, it will start to peel, oxidize, change the color layer, and so on. This process cannot be reversed without having the paint repainted.

Why do we put dishwashing liquid in a stubbornly baked-on pan and let it soak in? So that the aggressive detergent dissolves the dirt so that you can easily clean it. Now imagine this stubborn detergent on your delicate paintwork. No, we'd rather not do that either. It is guaranteed to affect the paint, but this is not immediately apparent. It is mainly after prolonged use that you start having problems. Problems that can of course be avoided perfectly.

By the way, have you ever wondered why you have to rinse your dishes and the like so much after washing them with dish soap? This also gets worse when you use it on your car. This is due to the surfactants in the detergent. The amphiphilic organic compounds ensure that the detergent is both "water-loving" and "water-hating" and therefore repels water. This makes it difficult to rinse and often leaves streaks on the paint. This is an immediate confirmation for you that your paint is being damaged.

Dried detergent, however small the layer may be, will set in and damage the paint. When the sun is on it, it can even burn in extreme cases. In addition, it can also ensure that you get water spots, when these dry up and burn in, they can no longer be removed from the paint without sanding.

Scratches after car wash with detergent

Conclusion about washing up liquid as a car shampoo

As mentioned before, we are not producers of car shampoo or chemist. But we do have knowledge of car shampoo, detailing, basic knowledge of soap compositions and a lot of experience in the field of washing cars. So, what exactly is the conclusion about using dish soap as a soap to wash your car?

Do you want to use it quickly because you have run out of car shampoo and you have to wash your car? Then you can use it, at your own risk of course. However, for long-term use, it is anything but recommended. We assume that you will definitely wash your car every 2-3 weeks. This means about 18 washes per year. If we say that you would use about 50ml of car shampoo for every wash, then for example with a bottle of 5L Gtechniq GWash do 100 washes. In other words, 5 and a half years for just $64 at the time of writing this blog.

With this you have a professional, pH neutral, safe, well-functioning car shampoo that we constantly use as professional detailers. This will save you time, money, effort and worries by investing once in a can of specialized shampoo.

Dishwashing liquidCarsBlogdastydriftGreen soapCleaningBrushingWash

4 comments

Custom Car Care

Custom Car Care

Hi Peter,

Interesting comment! This was indeed unknown to me. In that case I would weigh up the chance that people will check which shampoo you use. Personally, I think the chances are small that the municipality / police will come and check with which shampoo you clean your car and would therefore prefer to wash my car with the correct detergent. Of course you can also just put the shampoo inside your bucket and then leave the shampoo inside. Who's to say what shampoo is in your bucket? Obviously this is my personal opinion, everyone is free to do what they want and in the end don't encourage anyone to "play around". Thank you for your comment!

TT

TT

There is another reason that people use Dreft for regular car washing and that is the fact that their municipal ordinance states that it is forbidden to wash a car on the street with car shampoo. Since Dreft is not a car shampoo, it is allowed.

Custom Car Care

Custom Car Care

Hi Lut,

It does indeed belong in the same category, no matter what we say: In fact, any general cleaner that is not specifically a car shampoo is not specifically made to wash your car and is guaranteed to have long-term effects. Green soap is based on citrus solvents called: D-Limonene. You can find these on the MSDS sheets of the products. I will of course not repeat the entire explanation I wrote in the blog post. But you are always free to use what you want, we only try to pass on our knowledge and experience and advise. We also regularly see cars that shine, even at car sales and dealers. But rest assured that all of these have paint defects. Gloss is something subjective to the untrained eye, as bizarre as it may sound. You are of course free to do your own thing, but not only our years of experience but also that of all other professionals in our industry teaches us that there is no alternative to car shampoo. :)

Best regards,

Brian
Custom Car Care

solder

solder

Strange that you put green soap with the detergents and all-purpose cleaners! I always wash my car with green or brown soap, that is a natural product and it still shines just like when you bought it 🤗

Leave a comment