Who first coined the phrase "Film Former"?

Jim Pemberton

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It seems to me that "film former" was a perjorative term used by those who promote a "crystal product" over other technology.

Tom Forsythe and Rick Gelinas would be the best sources for credible information on this matter.
 

Jimmy L

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The word is over used when even water encapsulates.

BS marketing term that only stupids buy into.

Film formers are old technology anyway

And one of the so called "experts" mentioned puts his own label on someone else's product line. Meaning he doesn't ..............make........it
 

encapman

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The "Film Former" description is a way to try to explain away the fact that a product doesn't contain sufficient encap polymer to crystalize properly.

Without a substantial encap polymer package there's no way for soil to be captured, held in suspension, and later be extracted through post-vacuuming.

I've always imagined, ever since the term came into existence, that soil would somehow magically float up from the carpet and hover a couple of inches above the surface. LOL
 
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Tom Forsythe

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I am not sure how I missed this post. I think it comes from the petri dish test where people would pour in the concentrate and let it dry. One product would readily fracture and the other bonded to the petri dish. Wrong conclusions resulted from this test which I think resulted in the terms crystal and film former. My own tests concluded that one surfactant added to the supposed "film former" made it fracture like a crystal. After that test, I concluded that the difference was used for marketing purposes and was not a characteristic of the polymer but of the formula with the appropriate surfactant. Personally i have never seen any performance advantages or differences in re-soil. Both types can create good products, and should be evaluated on the solids in the formula. In short, this is much ado about no real differences, except for marketing.
 

Tom Forsythe

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One other thought, if we had discovered that there were performance differences, do you think we would hesitate in adding another formula to our active 175 formula arsenal. We have only had 15 years and we make 8 polymer based encapsulant and protectors as of today. It is not that hard to do if it had any merit if we wanted to cover all bases. However, Mikey would be opposed as this word game with out distinctions has probably created over 50 posts over the years. Frankly, this is a discussion that does not come up except on the forums.
 

Cleanworks

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I am not sure how I missed this post. I think it comes from the petri dish test where people would pour in the concentrate and let it dry. One product would readily fracture and the other bonded to the petri dish. Wrong conclusions resulted from this test which I think resulted in the terms crystal and film former. My own tests concluded that one surfactant added to the supposed "film former" made it fracture like a crystal. After that test, I concluded that the difference was used for marketing purposes and was not a characteristic of the polymer but of the formula with the appropriate surfactant. Personally i have never seen any performance advantages or differences in re-soil. Both types can create good products, and should be evaluated on the solids in the formula. In short, this is much ado about no real differences, except for marketing.
I can already see the film forming in Jimmy's eyes.
 

encapman

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This discussion brings up a good question: Why do many of the encapsulation products on the market not dry down and fracture, and thereby fall into the "film former" category?

I can't speak for how other manufacturer's formulate their products. But our goal from the start with Releasit was that I wouldn't settle for a product that wouldn't dry down brittle. It's something that I am fairly passionate about. I've always felt that if our products lacked a good polymer package, they'd fail to capture soil and the encap process would not perform properly.

So as our chemist would run through test batch after test batch I would reject the samples that lacked sufficient polymer density. We turned down a pile of test products before we'd nail down a formulation. And to that end, our products have become heavily weighted on the polymer side of their formulation. It's a more costly way to formulate an encap product - since encap-specific polymer components cost a lot more than the surfactants that go into the product. But we feel the results are worth the investment. Adding a fluoro-chemical componemet is another ingredient that might be considered unnecessary, but there again we feel it brings benefits to the overall cleaning.

Not saying we're right and the others are wrong. I just feel very strongly about the reasons why we formulated the Releasit products the way that we did. And I think the success of the Releasit line confirms that our recipes are performing well. :cool:
 
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Tom Forsythe

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Not saying we're right and the others are wrong. I just feel very strongly about the reasons why we formulated the Releasit products the way that we did. And I think the success of the Releasit line confirms that our recipes are performing well. :cool:
We are getting closer to you saying that both film former and crystalizing formulas can be both good products, which I have been saying for years. In the early days I did scores of lab and side by side cleaning tests with your product and our product. I never saw any real difference between cleaning and soil resistance. The only difference was the vivid memories of spraying your product and running away immediately because of the obnoxious odor of tea tree oil. I believe and hope you have moved away from tea tree oil. As I write this my olfactory memory is bringing this egregious odor back to the front of my mind. Time to end the post and forget the memories.
 
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Tom Forsythe

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We are getting closer to you saying that both film former and crystalizing formulas can be both good products, which I have been saying for years. In the early days I did scores of lab and side by side cleaning tests with your product and our product. I never saw any real difference between cleaning and soil resistance. The only difference was the vivid memories of spraying your product and running away immediately because of the obnoxious odor of tea tree oil. I believe and hope you have moved away from tea tree oil. As I write this my olfactory memory is bringing this egregious odor back to the front of my mind. Time to end the post and forget the memories.
 

Tom Forsythe

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The benefit of short posts is that you can answer before I can edit out a grammar issue. You responded in under 30 seconds.
 

Mikey P

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We are getting closer to you saying that both film former and crystalizing formulas can be both good products, which I have been saying for years. In the early days I did scores of lab and side by side cleaning tests with your product and our product. I never saw any real difference between cleaning and soil resistance. The only difference was the vivid memories of spraying your product and running away immediately because of the obnoxious odor of tea tree oil. I believe and hope you have moved away from tea tree oil. As I write this my olfactory memory is bringing this egregious odor back to the front of my mind. Time to end the post and forget the memories.

I love that smell.
 

Mikey P

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I have my Navy Federal job late today out in Fallon.


I OP it on behalf of the fine folks at Milliken/ Capture.


$1345 in 1.7 hours

800 ft of cgd and 20 clean chairs.

The all you can eat sushi joint nearby makes it worth it.

Is wasabi a film former?
 
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Dolly Llama

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I concluded that the difference was used for marketing purposes and was not a characteristic of the polymer but of the formula with the appropriate surfactant.


Imagine that..... 🤣


The only difference was the vivid memories of spraying your product and running away immediately because of the obnoxious odor of tea tree oil


LOL!!

It made me hack, cough and gave me a headache.
I'll note it was used with elect sprayers and not shower feed system.
But it bothered the hell out of me.

and that from a guy that's smoked 2 packs a day since a kid and uses butyl as aftershave...




..L.T.A.
 

Desk Jockey

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Using larger jets and as long as you kept it low and not so aerosolized it wasn't a problem.

But yes, never a great sign when your clients are coughing. 🥴
 

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