Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax Eats Pad?

I was sorting out and cleaning up some of my junk and happened to stumble upon some old Meguiar's hand applicator pads. Remember the time when I did a sealants comparison? I used a different applicator pad for each product. After used, I washed them with dish detergent, dried, and kept them.

See what I found below. Okay, just ignore my wrong hand writing. It should be Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax.
The pad just crumbled when I held it.

The rear side that did not come into direct contact with the Ultimate Paste Wax seems to fare better.

The other pads that were kept in the same box are still in good condition.

The pad for Finish Kare has some discolouration but still feels good and soft.

The Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection applicator pad has the least discolouration and the pad for Fusso is still in good condition.

All the pads were brand new when they were used for the test to ensure an unbiased result. After the test, I chucked them away and forgot about them. Too much junk, haha.
I am not sure if this is pure coincidence or are the chemicals in Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax a little harsh to applicator pads.

If you have any experience regarding this, please share them.

That's it for this post.
Happy detailing.

The New Turle Wax Wheel Cleaner Review

After I did a comparison on various wheel cleaners a while back (see here), the Turtle Wax F21 wheel cleaner has been my go-to wheel cleaner for a long time. However it is almost impossible to find nowadays. I recently found a supposedly newer version of my favourite wheel cleaner.

It is just named as Turtle Wax Wheel & Tire Cleaner. There is a label on it that states "New! Power Foam". I was very excited to test this out to see if it lives up to the previous F21 performance.

This is the back label of the bottle. The new bottle has a shade of florescent green rather than a lighter green compared to F21. Super bright!

As usual, before I start I would normally check the pH of the cleaner as I did with all other cleaners.

Disappointingly, the pH shot up all the way the way to pH14. That is extremely basic (high alkalinity). F21 only has a pH9.

I guess they wanted to up the cleaning power but if I remember correctly the cleaning power of F21 was rather good. I would caution the use of this new wheel cleaner. Anything on the extreme sides on the pH scale is not very good. I would recommend testing on small inconspicuous area before going all the way.

This is how it looks after spraying on. I must say that it is very foamy and cleaning ability seems very good. I could see the brake dust lifting off from the wheel even before brushing.

I gave the wheel a good brush and sprayed it with clean water. Based on my observation, I had to run the water longer to get rid of all traces of "soapy water" as compared to F21. I guess that is one of the side effects of having extreme alkalinity. The wheel did look very clean afterwards. No picture here though.

So, let's sum this up. The performance of this new wheel cleaner is very good, maybe even better than F21. In terms of performance, it is indeed an improvement over F21. However, in my opinion the high alkalinity makes it more harmful - to health, environment, and maybe your car. Would I recommend this? Maybe no unless you are pretty sure you will take all precautionary measures.

That's it for this post.
Happy detailing.