Soap vs. Glass Gleam

I keep hearing people say that glass gleam leaves a window perfectly clear, but soap, oh soap, leaves a residue on the window. I don’t see this at all. I mean zero. I’ve used just a ton of soap, too. Dawn and Palmolive. Nothing I can see when I’m done squeegeeing. Am I missing something or are these guys just trying to sell products?

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I think they are referring to residue left along the edge of frames that good window cleaners often hand detail with a scrim to get a flawless finish.
Some commercial frames the rubber doesn’t ride up the edge and no detailing is required if you have good technique. However, with frames that have a beveled rubber edge the squeegee will usually ride up it and a 2-5mm strip of detergent will be left along the edge. This will not dry clear with any dish soap to my knowledge?
I guess GlassGleam is saying that their product dries clear reducing edge detailing!

Dawn and Joy are detergents. Glass is porous and the detergent sticks to the glass and can attract dust and dirt quicker. If you clean a window with dish soap at certain angles you will see a rainbow of colors, that the detergent on the windows. Think about it, when you wash your dishes in the sink with dish soap do you rinse them? Most people do. Do you rinse your window with water after the soap, most don’t. I could see using soap in route work as you go back often to clean them again but residential I wouldn’t. We only use glass gleam, that’s just us though. It’s your preference, I like the product since day one for many reasons.

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@SimplyCleanKentucky, what are the reasons? I’ve heard it has virtually zero slip, like you’re just using water to clean windows. What do you think about other soaps, such as Palmolive?

We like it doesn’t leave any detergent on the windows, we do 95% residential so we feel it does help the windows cleaner longer. The customers even say that, they usually want to know what we’re using, so we give them info on the product. We use glass gleam 4, and I use close to double of the amount that it says. That takes care of the slip issue, I’ve noticed that over the years. It works well in the wind, less evaporating on the glass. Also, less bleeding too. It’s not real sudsy at all, so that was different with us from using Dawn or Joy. But like I said I put a little more than the instructions say and it works great for us. We just like the product, doesn’t dry out my hands either. Like with all equipment and chemicals, comes down to preference for most. We have been using glass gleam for over 10 years. It does cost a lot more than your standard soap, that’s for sure.

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