Yep, the web site says 'less agressive form' now. It didn't back on 10/14. My comments were a cut-and-paste from the website.
Well, I received my order on Monday 10/30. It was ordered back on 10/14.
First impression...this foam feels almost exactly like my Tempur-Pedic memory foam pillow. Altough not quite as dense, but it surely feels like a viscoelastic foam. It is soft and very conforming. It also reminded me of back in college when one summer I worked for a fire restoration contractor and we would rub down painted walls with a special sponge to remove the smoke stains. That special sponge had the same feel and rubbery grab when rubbed on a dry surface.
So I had to try it out. I hadn't washed my car in about 3.5 weeks. I normally do not go more than 2 weeks, weather permitting, but I had been trying to wait until after I received the Peerless sponge. We had some rainy weather here in Raleigh, NC recently and the leaves are falling so the car was pretty dirty. So I decided to first wash my car with my usual sheepskin mitt and Z-7 using a seperate wash & rinse buckets. It was the usual clean I expect from washing with Z-7. I use the first light wash to remove bigger dirt & debris. I normally wash the car a 2nd time with the sheepskin mitt with a little more elbow grease this time to get the car really clean.
But this time I used the Peerless sponge to do the second wash. I compressed the sponge and put it in my wash bucket. It took about 20-30 seconds for the sponge to draw in water and regain its shape. I went to take it out of the bucket and holy cow was it heavy. They claim the sponge retains 2000% of it's weight in water and I think I believe them. In fact as I grabbed and lifted the sponge out and realized how heavy it had become so I gripped it harder (the soap made it slippery too) and poked the end of 3 of my finger tips into the foam causing cut-like slits in the foam. I was more careful from there on but I did end up with about 7-8 fingertip punctures in the sponge by the time I was done. Be very careful when trying to squeeze out all the water & soap when you're done.
The sponge definately holds a lot of water/soap. The drop in water level in the bucket confirmed this. The sponge did not release the water easily unless I gave it a good squeeze so I had to keep rewetting/lubricating the paint as I scrubbed. The sponge glided very smoothly over the paint and conformed easily to the contours of the panel. It reminded me of cleaning something with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser except that the sponge does not fall apart and retains its shape. With a little effort I was able to remove
water marks. It was easy to clean is nook and crannies because it conformed so easily.
I tried to tell if I could get the same sensation when using a claybar, being able to tell that the claybar glides easier and easier with each pass but the sponge was too big to get that tactile a feeling.
How did it clean? I think it definately cleaned better than a second wash with the sheepskin mitt. It removed stains left from falling leaves easily. When I rinsed the car I was able to get a very nice sheeting effect on the hood and top of the car. The water pulled itself off the car in a big sheet. I guess the cleaner and smoother surface allowed the sheet to remain intact. Maybe due to less obstacles on the surface for the water to adhere to. The hood and top sheeted so well that there was hardly anything to wipe dry with my WW MF.
I couldn't really tell how clean though until I dried the car. Then I noticed how smooth and slippery the paint was. The paint felt like I had already wiped down the car with Z-6. I didn't notice any marring that I could blame on the sponge. When I did the Z-6 wipe down I noticed that my MF towell did not pick up as much dirt as usual which I'm assuming means that the surface was cleaner.
Now this is just my first impressions but I do believe the company's claim about its cleaning abilities. I would only use the sponge on a relatively clean car. I would be scared to get particles trapped under the sponge and dragging them arond the surface so I will continue to do a prewash with the sheepskin mitt (foam gun would be good too). I sprayed the sponge with the hose after each panel to remove surface dirt and then squeezed it out in the rinse bucket. So the sponge stayed pretty clean.
CONS
- easy to puncture the foam with fingertips
- takes a while for the sponge to absorb water/soap
- hard to entirely squeeze excess water/soap out of the sponge. The soap really stays in
the sponge which made a pain to clean the sponge after I was done.
- fully saturated sponge is quite heavy and slippery
I'm going to keep using it. I do not think that the sponge will last too long based on the number of times I poked my finger into it making cut marks in the foam. Maybe somewhere around 10-15 washes if I'm careful. But that's okay. It's only a few dollars more than a sheepskin mitt and I go through 2 of those a year.
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