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What is in car coating?

What is in car coating?  Is there ceramic, titanium, diamond or quartz?  What are hardeners, emulsifiers and VOCs?  What is Silica? Is glass coating and car coating the same?  Let's dig into the answers to these questions.

Chemists have made SiO2 for years and this is what is in ALL car coating, glass coating or ceramic coating.  It is what is put on your car under the umbrella car coating.

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First decision: organic or inorganic.

There are two types of SiO2, organic and inorganic.  From high school chemistry, you might remember that organic has carbon and hence interacts with our environment.  Inorganic has no carbon and therefore does not interact with the environment.  While we usually prefer organic for food (yeah, it's organic), for car coating we really want inorganic.  You can usually tell that organic SiO2 car coating will have a 1 to 3 year warranty.  Inorganic car coating will have longer.  5 to 10 years ago, most car coating was organic, now most car coating is inorganic.  But please ask  for inorganic!

Years ago when car coating was just beginning most coating was called glass coating.  It was called glass because the content of the coating has always been silica.  The chemical description of silica is SiO2. Silicon is the main component of sand and glass; hence, glass coating was the most common name.  

Then marketing and branding took over with large chemical manufacturers and started to jump into the market with their coating.  Diamond was a popular word years ago.  One manufacturer called his coating Titanium.  Yes, Titanium.  But the biggest manufacture decided that "ceramic" was a great word.  While there is no ceramic in their SiO2, they pushed this word.  Companies sprang up using this word, ceramic.  Now, ceramic is a key  word for car coating and many customers actually ask for ceramic coating even though this doesn't exist.  Oh! The power of advertising.

Many coating companies use a very watered-down version of their coating.  While they don't use water as this would not mix with SiO2, the dilute the coating with hardeners, emulsifiers and VOC (volatile organic compounds).  These are simply additives to fill out the liquid so they have "enough" to spread on top of the car. The best way to tell if the SiO2 has been diluted is by the smell.

Pure SiO2 actually smells good.  Therefore, if you open the bottle of car coating and take a sniff, you can learn alot.  If it smells like turpentine or gaseous...it has fillers and HAS BEEN diluted.  Simple.  If you see the workers wearing masks, you have diluted SiO2.  If it takes a long time to dry (several hours or a day), the SiO2 has really been diluted.  These are the best way to tell if you are buying real SiO2. If car coating company uses heat lamps, they are using diluted SiO2. 

Sierra Glow is famous for using the highest purity SiO2 in the market today.  No one comes close. We have a 98.5% pure.  We have no  fillers.  We do not dilute.  Because our coating is so pure, it dries in 10 minutes.  Visit our shop today and you will see no masks and you will be invited in as we have gaseous smells.  We don't use heat lamps to dry our SiO2 as our coating is pure.  

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