I'm shocked... on the forums it looks as if it's been years since anyone posted about good waxes and sealants. And the years have made most of our favorites unable to keep up with the new players.

I've never seen a thread that packs all the new and the noteworthy old into a concise users' list. Can we try to make one?
If I try to pack together all the really good explanations I've read from other forums (non-Jag forums too), it's really long, but worth the read for newcomers or for veteran owners who want to upgrade their coatings. This thread introduction is solely on PAINT SEALANTS, because lab technology is allowing Sealants to imitate that honeybee warm car wax our dads loved, to the point that maybe we ought to be buying shares on sealant wall street. But perhaps someone should do a thread on Paint Waxes too. If you're new to sealant shopping, read on---but if you're a veteran to waxes and sealants, skip this long intro and just jump to the list that develops--and add your own contributions.
Sorry for the length, but so much of what I gathered up was too good not to post here:


If this was about Hockey, our tons of opinions would break out into arguments by now. The "7 best blah-blah" test reviews we see splattered online somehow always point us toward stuff that will leave us only half-satisfied with, half justified that we dropped $$ on.
Can't the world of "how to find the best car sealant" be broken into a simple Part-A / Part-B philosophy? An A+B methodology of basics?
Part-A
You want your money's worth out of the bottle. No matter if you're wealthy with your sixth cabriolet, or you've just replaced your budget electric hatchback. "Money's worth" always means "I want to be rewarded for paying the cost of this juice" or "I want to be rewarded for the amount of sore elbow I just put into cleaning up my car's skin". And the reward is always "how much the juice shows off my car's finish for the amount of time that's going to pass before have to do this rub-n-wipe chore all over again". And it's not just how much the finish impresses ME, it's how much I can get some attention and kudos from passing strangers.

Part-B
Nearly everything else is a personal POV, a subjective child fascination issue, so statements like "it beads really well" or "the shine and reflection is amazing and deep", or "I was disappointed", or "it will be your go-to sealant from now on"... embarrassed to say, don't much help confused newcomers make the best choices, because they don't present at least some universal yardstick we can have in our minds as a reference point. To someone who doesn't know and is asking, what really the heck does beads "better" mean? Right?


To guarantee (guarantee?) Part-A, you have to PREP the car until its paint is as near to its original tax -n-delivery clean as possible. Wax or Sealants (or cleaner-sealants) can't do their job to 100% of the bottle's worth if that stuck-on pollen film, the re-washed grit that sticks like microscopic barnacles, and the brake-dust fallout that other peoples cars spewing in front of you on the road for 4 months, is completely removed. All of it is too small for you to "see", so you tell yourself "the paint looks nice and clean--I've washed it with slippery foaming suds",... but it's all the kind of stuff that CAN'T be removed with soaps, and it has had four months to slowly change the way your paint shines. Putting a wax or sealant over that will "give it some shiny going on", but is wasting about 70% of whatever money you paid for that wax or sealant. ...You've GOT TO get that off.

Repeat-Washes, some kind of clay bar, and some sort of no-residue polish.... is the only way to find the paint color you saw when you first bought the car. It's a 2-stage chore, but some good news is that, after that 3-stage labor, once you cover it with sealant (or somewhat the same when you wax), you've locked in the clean color, and you may not have to do the polishing part again for a couple of years.
Unfortunate but true, it's this prepping that makes the sealant last much nearer to advertized, and withstand all your regular washes, and gets the sealant to KEEP doing what was advertized. If your shampooing erases some of the properties of the sealant within a month, it's not the sealant necessarily eroding---it's often just your shampoo interfering with the way the sealant was designed to respond to rain-n-mudsplash-n-etc.
Lots of brand cleaners will do that--they are trying too hard to wash AND gloss AND sheet off rain.... Someone ought to tell them, they need to leave our expensive sealant to do the shine and repel job---that's what we've picked out the sealant to do in the first place. Please back off, Mr Shampoo, and just give us truly thorough dirt-removal, that's all!

To decipher Part-B is challenging. To satisfy those personal fascinations we have with the final effect on the car, you need to push away the subjective stuff, and just start with some facts.

Fact: Each of us lives and drives in an environment that contains at least ONE atmospheric element that will shorten your wax/sealant's lifespan. One of us lives in Arizona or New Mexico sun. Somebody else has got pure North Dakota corrosive beet-juice on the streets all winter long. The bug vomit and guts in Pennsylvania come straight from Ripley's Alien movie. Each of us has ONE thing that's the enemy of whatever product you're going to buy. And by "enemy", I mean if you do everything the manufacturer says to do in application with his 6-12 month sealant, that element you drive in is going to jump on that sealant and try to practically rape it to death in just under 6 months. It doesn't mean the manufacturer suckered you, or that you applied the darn thing wrong, It just means no lab research testing can duplicate Mother Nature's interesting recipes, so don't 'hate on' the sealant you tried just because it couldn't reach the life span it advertized.

Fact: Your car's paint had its own "coldness" or "warmth" when you bought it. Sometimes its due entirely to the paint finish, like an erotic metallic speckle effect that some cars have, or a blinding triple-white that BMW used to be famous for, or swampland camo two-tone that Dodge or Tesla experiment with, or Riviera-maroon that the Chrysler Pacifica and Chevy family sedans look magnificent in. No matter which carnuba or sealant "look" you may PERSANALLY be crazy, it'll be generally more successful to apply the "carnuba look" to a car whose paint already had a warm or inviting nature to it from the factory---and more successful to apply a "sealant look" on a machine that by default had a future-tech "cool-blooded" or sharp cornered feeling to it, or has illustration-art on the paint work like the Dukes of Hazard car. Yes, you can insist on altering the emphasis of your paint (tone down the metal flake effect, or make a super-black paint appear less shiny so people's eyes can capture the car's body lines better)...but you're asking the wax or sealant to counteract what the manufacturer cleverly designed that paint color to do. And that's not an easy thing to ask from that little $40 bottle of goop.

Fact--YES, there is something called a "carnuba look" and something called the "sealant look". It's not an opinion, it's been real ever since a product called NuFinish became popular. Wax most often tries to capture a slightly yellow cast that comes from associations with the yellow carnuba natural wax of Brazilian trees. That slight yellow cast makes people imagine warmth and honey when they look at the waxed surface. It's great for making tiny scuffs and cuts harder to see, it makes your car look like the clear top-coat just got 3 and 5 times thicker (what folks refer to as "deep"). Deep and glossy with a warm glow reminds folks of liquid, watery pools, etc. It's often a confusion to use the words shine or sparkle with the "carnuba look", because there really isn't any. There's high REFLECTIVENESS in this look, like objects clearly reflecting in the skin of your car. But the edges or seams in your body panels don't twinkle or shine in the "carnuba look".

That "honeybee-warm and wet carnuba" idea is so beloved for so long, that even today s many Sealant companies use their technology to experiment with making SOME sealants reproduce the (let's call it just "warm") gloss of carnuba wax. But most companies just focus on what a Sealant does by default, give the "Sealant look". It's nearly everything opposite to carnuba wax. It's like a thin shiny plastic has been tightly stretched over the entire car, super-thin and no watery pools of depth. Think of Terminator-2 Judgment Day, the liquid metal man, "coldly futuristic", not "warm". Very see-through and color-accurate, no yellow hints, no color shift at all----true, slick plastic shine. Folks relate it to words like "modern", edgy and sparkling, "futuristic". Shine and twinkle are words for this kind of look, and it's often difficult to see "reflections" of surrounding objects in your car's skin, because the color and pattern of the paint are what's are so clearly emphasized on your car.
You can imagine cutting yourself on a "sealant-look" car, and you can imagine dipping your finger in and drowning in the bottomless "carnuba look" on someone's car.
An ultimate "sealant look" looks like the car is covered in thin spotless glass instead of plastic, with the paint color easily visible immediately under the glass. Meanwhile, an ultimate "carnuba look" makes it unclear what color your car is anymore, because the paint color "appears" to be buried so "deep" below the wet coating that the car becomes a sexy shapely blob of liquid sitting parked at the curb.

Fact: "Beading" effects from rain or dew differ in many ways posters seldom go into detail about. And it should be talked about WAY more, because beading (or sheeting) is the other behavior that attracts passerby to your car sitting parked in wet weather. You're attracted to it too! It's not much help to us when we read the pro-reviewers say "it beads like crazy" or "the beading goes away after just four weeks of washes". Remember NuFinish? That product is OLD (meaning, the company never put much interest in updating or improving the formula it to keep competing with the auto-sealant technology over the years). But I used it in the 80's and it is STILL my reference for "reflectiveness" "gleam" and "beading". Half the beads on fresh NuFinish were as large as the fingernail on you pinky. That's big enough that a person could see them as jewels from across the street. THAT's what I will always consider the right size beads. Small enough to avoid forming sloppy blobs on the surface. Yet the moment you start the car and move, beads that large blop together and roll right off the paint leaving nearly zero water on your car after five minutes of driving.
Jescar has been around a while too (though they update their technology unlike NuFinish). By comparison have you ever seen Jescar's "beading"? It's a billion tiny grains of water, nearly all about the size of a little drop of Krazy Glue. It's unique and fascinating to see from nine-inches away, but arguably that's so small that from across the street it only looks like your your car look like it's wearing white animal fuzz, not wearing delicious beads.
Yet we will call both of these simply as "beading", even though I bet only ONE of them is going to get that traditional visual reaction that we're hoping to snag from pedestrians....

Where does all this help the newcomer, though?
Try not to ask yourself "do I like warm and deep" or do I like "cold and razor-defined". Better to ask yourself "does my car have a yummy color like plum red, , " or "does the paint show off every edge and point of its body shape". Decide to get the wax/sealant that goes in the direction your car's paint goes. It's the reason you selected that paint color at the dealer.
Example--my car has a weird medium green with metallic fine-flake, and the flake CHANGES the tone of the green more times per week than my high school girlfriend used to change her mood. I've seen this car in black and in white, and darker colors definitely "define" the outer shape of the car better than lighter colors. (So a wax, or a sealant that tries to capture the warm tint that wax gives, would be the better "look" for this car than a "sealant look"). I'm one of the in-between owners who can benefit from EITHER look, and enjoy what happens to the car. My personal preference may be the "sealant look", but I throw my preference in the trash can---as long as the sealant is very reflective and glistens in the sunlight, "carnuba look" or "sealant look" is are equally glorious on that eerie paint. If possible, put your personal images aside, and let the car's paint choose what's best. Is your car gloss black and sporty---"carnuba look" compliments that car better to the public's eye.
Is your car full of angular lines and pointed silver plastic lenses wrapped across the tailend of the car (like Acuras and today's Lexus)---the "sealant look" allows edges and linework to be far more visible than "carnuba look" sealants.
Is your paint a mid-2000's metallic, or a very-recently trendy playful-toy blue or brown or yellow that reminds people of the matchbox and RC-cars we used to have as kids----the "sealant look" gives that extra hint of 'a plastic toy', and it makes passerby smile (at their memories or something, I guess).
Do you have one of the super-new ceramic-lke colors (not the real ceramic composition paint, but just the same look) color----the clarity of the "sealant look" allows that unique modern color to show through without any color shift.

And for anyone who wants to post their product on this thread, when you post a sealant, try to relate it to us in the four or five simple ways a newcomer can really grasp:
REFLECTANCE: literally how clearly do you keep noticing the mirror image of nearby objects in the skin of your paint?
DEPTH: how much does it look like someone coated your paint in a 1/2 inch thick clear resin, with all the scratches and paint color now submerged 1/2 and inch below your fingertouch?
GLOSS: how much does the surface look like it's literally WET, and look like it shouldn't be touched cuz it hasn't dried yet?
SHINE/SPARKLE/TWINKLE: how much do the edges and folds in your body panels stand out or twinkle under the lights or the sun?
WARM or COLD: how much is this sealant adding a honey tint to your paint color, as a tribute or imitation towards "carnuba"?

 

NuFINISH Car Polish

See these shots? The is the ancient goop, NuFinish Car "Polish" on a hand-prepped paint surface.
No matter what the maker marketed it as, NuFinish was a sealant with a very slight abrasion-cleaner in it (you could tell from the trace amount of the dirt left behind on your applicator).
This slight polishing/cleaning ability, plus its really cheap price ($8 - $10 on a bottle that takes three years to completely use up) made it ideal for casual owners and daily-grind commuters.

Applied 72 hours before this rain, it definitely produces my kinda pinky-nail size "beads", cuz my girlfriend's camera can see them from 10 feet away.
I've always liked the "sealant look" this old stuff brings to the metallic paints of my last two cars, but is IS a classic sealant-look, so the reflection of surroundings are never as sharp as looking in a mirror. Sealants typically bring your attention to paint color and design lines more than giving lots of reflectivity.
At 16 inches away, it's as though you don't see the NuFinish at all, just a raw unlayered view of that spooky BRG paint scheme (owners of the 2016-18 BRG Jaguars know what I mean by "spooky").
With the XE, the designers believed in MINIMAL lines in the body paneling, just critically across the bonnet, less critically over the rear shoulders. The NuFinish dramatizes those lines at any distance, like a good sealant should. Yes, it does have a reliable plastic-like shine that pedestrians notice in any sort of weather---but exceptional sparkle or GLASS-like shine that you get from modern products, is one of the few areas where NuFinish just can't keep up.
I Will always have respect for this stuff though.


Reflectance? It has only average reflectance (like many true-sealants).
Depth? It has almost zero depth (the paint always looks like it's practically sitting right at surface-level for you to touch).
Gloss? It has very low Gloss (again a classic ole'-style sealant, no real "wet" look at all--more a clean, dry, plastic-like)
Shine? It makes the panel lines and design folds of your car pop for attention, so it's Shine is very good, especially on truly cleaned and prepped paintwork. But keep in mind that a "very good" shine looks like a thin clean plastic is stretched over your car,... while the more modern products can give you a "great" shine that looks like thin clear GLASS instead of plastic.
Warm or Cold appearance? NuFinish is always a reliable clean COLD effect, perfectly neutral on whatever color paint you have underneath, with zero interference or tinting whatsoever.










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This one has been around a few years, but it's the first time my trying it.

It's been a tough year without taking much car of my car's paint, and when I prepped the paint and applied this Wolfgang SiO2 Sealant, I let Mother Nature DUMP on the car for 20 cold dry, grit blowing days without a garage, no wash, no rain--my finger could rub a porthole in the layer of dirt that was on the car.

Yet you can feel the dried crusts packed ON TOP of the sealant coat--it wasn't really stuck tight or eating into the coating.

Right after it finally rained on TOP of those 20 days of dirt, I took photos.
Granted, I think with some maniacal prepping, and careful buffing, you can make ANY wax or sealant bead water beautifully. I can get NuFinish to bead up water insanely until the car looks like it's encrusted with thousands of identical size jewels (see earlier NuFinish photos).
Wolfgang SiO2 will NOT bead up quite the same way. The thousands of beads sit on the car in eight wildly different sizes, like an outbreak of toad warts. The car looks like a British Racing Green Gila Monster. And the effect LASTS after multiple hand washes. Even after two different brands of shampoo, if just a drop of water lands on the dry hood (bonnet) it breaks into four different size beads standing high up off the paint,... and for a moment you can't tell from the driver's seat if you've been hit by Water or bird poop. Since I respect "grotesque", I'm impressed by the water effect. Not as fascinating as walking up to a car covered in traditional jewelry beads, but a different kind of eye-grabbing.

A couple of small negatives to using the Wolfgang SiO2. It truly is a cold, hard-looking coating. No soothing glow to cover up imperfections and nicks in your paint----all the truths on your car paint stands right out for all to see. So you'll need to do a really maniacal prep job on your paint first, to get rid of every nick or mark.
After the wipe-off, your wiping/buffing cloths will be left kinda "gummy". Products like NuFinish washe out of your cloths no problem by hand or overnight soak. But with this SiO2 a residue stays STUCK in the cloth, and I had to give up trying to to wash it out completely. Any favorite terry applicators or pricey microfiber towels you have, keep them away from this stuff---just get a reasonably good quality applicator and microfiber wipes, that you don't mind trashing afterward.

Some big pluses to using SiO2 is big. This stuff comes out the bottle like green puke, wipes on like something between hair grease and lube oil (no kidding, I recommend only those airy FOAM applicator pads for a product this oily, don't try cloth) which results in less wiping on, and faster wiping off than NuFinish. It also wipes off with no powdery dust that you sometimes get during the NuFinish removal.
If you leave it on a spot for a few days longer accidentally, the Wolfgang is easy in the "buffing" stage too, (what I call the stuff you do the NEXT day, when you walk around the car looking for dried sealant that you missed the first time).

Clearly the SiO2 gives up some of the classic water-beading dazzle, and trades it for way higher slip and shine. On any dry day, the hard glassy sparkle from this sealant seems to jump out at the public more than anything else. This stuff starts to show the difference between a "clear glassy" sealant finish and Nufinish's admirable "clean plastic" finish. Everything it does on the painted metal, it also does on color-key plastic bumpers and trim, and on the "chromed" accents, badges and chromed lettering as well.
The best praise I can give to the SiO2 is that I was driving out of my girlfriend's mom's driveway on Sunday, and she said "your car was shining all over the place when you turned onto the street this morning". ...Mothers usually think a human being is just STOOPID if he spends any time pampering a car, so coming from her that's a shocking thumbs up from her.
If you have one of those spooky, mood-changing factory-metallic colors like mine, or your panels have have artwork or racing decals on them that you want to make stand out, this product's clear-glassy is the direction you want to go in.








Reflectance?
The dial is turned WAY HIGH on the reflecting objects in this sealant.. I don't usually see a SEALANT do this, but Wolfgang SiO2 mirrors details on objects four and ten feet away--you can count flower petals and marble stones in the side panels! I took photos after 24 hours of dust was exposed on a polished sunroof, next 24 hours of dust on the SiO2 coated paint. Which surface is which?
Depth?
I've read on other forums some users say this has a lot of depth, but I don't really agree. As I said, it has very high reflect and shine, so on black or really DARK car paint, it might be mistaken for a "deep down" effect. But on a light or flake paint, you can really tell every effect that's going on with Wolfgang SiO2 is happening right on the top surface for your finger to tough. It has almost no sexy "liquid" look to make you think your finger's about to dip into something wet.
Gloss?
It has a sturdy but only moderate gloss. Waxes easily give a higher gloss and depth than sealants---even Wolfgang's Deep Gloss Sealant which tries to imitate wax, has better gloss than this SiO2 Sealant. My reference product Nufinish has nearly zero gloss, it produces a reliably "clean plastic" finish that even a few of today's sealants are famous for. But this SiO2 takes a few steps towards looking nearer to "clean GLASS" instead of plastic. With the Nufinish sealant, you can see the flecks of metal in the mood-changing Jaguar BRG paint, but with the Wolfgang sealant you can actually see how some of those flecks are actually different shapes and colors. Glass coating is clearer to see through than plastic coating.
Shine?
This sealant has the MOST sparkle I've seen on a sealant so far. MUCH shinier than Nufinish, it's catches light at every change of angle, makes every chassis and body line stand out at you, no matter how long you've had the car and think you know all the lines by now.
Warm or Cold appearance?
Cold as a glass mirror. There's no color shift I can see at all, though some owners have reported a slight "grey" tint when you put it on light color paint--I can't be sure of that. It may be that my BRG is just too dark let you see it.