Detergents explained.

Story of a misguided carpet cleaner.

"Oh, I don't use detergent to clean the carpet", said Mr. Carpet Cleaner.

"Do you use shampoo to wash your hair?", I asked.

"Yes" said the carpet cleaner.

"Do you use detergent to wash your clothes, dish soap to wash your dished and soap to wash your face?", I asked again.

"Yes", said the carpet cleaner.

"Well, why don't you use detergent to clean your carpets then?", I asked.

I just got a blank stare.

We can go on and on, the misconception started with some old wives tale that simply isn't true.

I was a victim of this tale until I went to college and studied chemistry, learned how to use a microscope and actually washed my car without detergent to see if it would come clean.

Detergent is the muscle behind the cleaning. No real cleaning occurs until you introduce a little bit of "soap"

So what makes a detergent work?

The driving force behind a detergent is called a surfactant. Surfactant is the octane for your detergent. The more octane in gasoline, the better a car performs?

There are basically three types of surfactants. Anionic, Non-ionic and Cationic.

Anionic surfactants
Anionic surfactants have a negative charge in their hydrophilic (loves water) end. This helps them work on both the surface being cleaned and the dirt on the surface.
Typically, they make a lot of foam when agitated. Also, they tend to be flaky or powdery when dry.
Because of this, anionic surfactants are the most commonly used.

Nonionic surfactants
Nonionic surfactants are also found in many cleaning products, including carpet products. Nonionics have no charge on their hydrophilic end, which helps them to remove oily stains better. Nonionics are thick liquids or syrups that are sticky or “slimy”. When left in the surface, nonionic surfactants are the primary contributors to rapid resoiling.
Regardless of this fact, their importance as cleaners outweighs this negative, and the cleaner must take care to remove as much of the detergent residue as possible from the surface in order to get the full cleaning benefit.

Cationic surfactants
Cationic surfactants aren't used much for cleaning surfaces that need to stay clean after they have been cleaned..
Cationics have positively charged ends, which makes them ideal in antistatic formulas like fabric softeners and car wax.
Cationic surfactants have antimicrobial characteristics, and they are found in disinfectants and sanitizers.
Cationic surfactants have been shown to damage the mill-applied protectants on carpet, and are therefore not used by reputable chemists, manufacturers and suppliers.
There are other less used surfactants that are only used to enhance the existing formulas.

"I don't believe anything until I see it with my eyes", said the carpet cleaner.

"Ok, let's take some dirt and put it in water and see what happens", I said.

See what happens to dirt when a little bit of detergent is added to it. As soon as the detergent touches the water containing the dirt, it combines the dirt together into micelles and prepares them for removal.

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