Last month, a carwashing industry insider with over forty years of experience shared an amazing opinion about the Tru Pearl® product line.
“Tony, three things come to my mind as game changers in the last few decades of carwashing – triple coats, Rain-X® online protectant and Tru Pearl®.”
Game changer is quite a compliment and 100% accurate. How did the Tru Pearl product line become a new way to wash cars?
In 2017 some of our customers began asking about ‘ceramic-infused’ products. These queries were in response to the recent introduction of ceramic coatings in the car detailing industry. Customers would ask, “Do you sell ceramics for on-line application?” We listened to customer requests and started investigating the feasibility of on-line ceramic products. In a nutshell, the process of applying a ceramic coating on a vehicle requires thorough cleaning and application of a polymer that chemically bonds with the vehicle’s factory paint. Application and cure time measures in hours. The problem we faced was to develop a product that could be applied in a wet environment and shorten cure time to minutes.
Ver-tech Labs’ chemists are always engaged in research and development of current and new products. Our chemists believe there is always room for improvement, even in our best products. Based on our research, we focused on finding a way to achieve ceramic-like results with newer formulations of typical carwashing products. Here’s an analogy of our formulation process. If you have ten ingredients for a cake recipe, you can bake a lot of different cakes. Some will be good, and some will be massive fails. We reviewed and tested numerous raw materials and formulations to determine the best way to develop a car wash product with ceramic-like performance. From that hard work and research, we developed a R&D product with unusual and remarkable properties. This R&D product was the precursor for Tru Pearl Clean.
Many formulations work well in the laboratory and fail in the field. In 2017, we asked Todd Christopher, Classic Auto Wash, Allen Park, Michigan to test our R&D product. Todd is an industry innovator. He is unrivaled as a car wash owner operator. Our guidance to Todd was to try the product throughout the wash to determine where the greatest performance improvement occurred. In short order, the R&D product dispensed at the front end of the wash resulted in phenomenally clean, shiny and dry cars.
We began to develop two complementary products – a protectant and a drying agent. Throughout 2018, we continued to test the trio of products and noticed an interesting phenomenon. All cars exiting the wash displayed spectacular finish. However, the cars on the monthly pass program exhibited better finish. More testing in the wash revealed that the monthly pass vehicles were easier to clean and developed increased hydrophobicity. The performance of the new product trio resembled layered protection.
The names Tru Pearl Clean, Tru Pearl Shield and Tru Pearl Dry reflect the layered development of a pearl in nature – layers of nacre produce an iridescent gem, the lustrous pearl. In the car wash, Tru Pearl Clean’s advanced cleaning formulation penetrates surface pores and imperfections to remove deep seated road grime, dirt and soils. Tru Pearl Clean leaves a pristine surface to optimize the performance of Tru Pearl Shield and Tru Pearl Dry. Tru Pearl Clean is the foundation product for the Tru Pearl cleaning process. Tru Pearl Shield is an all surface protectant with advanced smoothing capabilities. Vehicle shine and surface reflection improves. Tru Pearl Dry creates an extremely water repellant layer and essentially seals the car. This added protection makes it difficult for post wash road grime and dirt to penetrate the surface.
Are Tru Pearl® products game changers? We think so. Tru Pearl products are a different way to clean. It’s not ceramic. It’s better.
Tony Vertin | tvertin@ver-techlabs.com | 612.819.4355