Read more: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/is-neverwet-really-the-ultimate-liquid-repelling-spray-1.1462129

A new spray product has hit the market that claims to protect just about any surface from just about any kind of liquid. But does it really work?

The promotional video for NeverWet shows chocolate sauce, ketchup and a soft drink sliding off a treated T-shirt.

Consumer reporter Lynda Steele decided to put the Rust-Oleum product to the test. She wore a treated white T-shirt and then asked people walking down Robson Street to spray messy condiments on the shirt.

While mustard and ketchup did stick to the shirt, most of it fell off and when the shirt was sprayed with grape juice it beaded off and did not stain the shirt.

Rust-Oleum claims NeverWet causes water to form nearly perfect spheres which roll off the surface, keeping items dry and clean.

Steele sprayed two identical toilet brushes with the product and found the untreated brush was dripping with water, but the treated brush was completely dry.

In the promotional video for NeverWet, the inside of an empty cardboard box is sprayed, which is then filled with ice. The ice melted, but the container did not get soggy or wet.

The creators of the product have also tested NeverWet on an iPhone 4 dunked in six inches of water. Despite the video which showed the device still worked, the fine print on the NeverWet can says “not intended to be applied to electronic devices”.

Rust-Oleum claims items treated with NeverWet can stay submerged in seawater for over a year and emerge completely dry.

But online consumer critics claim NeverWet rubs off easily and when Steele sprayed it on a pair of black shoes, it left an opaque, white residue.

Steele on Your Side gives the product three stars out of five.

Home Depot in Canada sells the product in store and online.

Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee

I donned my Never Wet-suit for this one!

We made a mess out of a bunch of stuff to test Rust-Oleum’s Never Wet. The $20 2-can treatment claims to make fabrics, household plastics, tools, almost anything hydrophobic — repelling liquids and some solids to keep them from sticking to nearly any surface.

Online demo videos of Never Wet span from the practical (water-proofing toilet-scrubbers) to the outrageous (covering the company’s CEO with chocolate syrup, mustard, soda and sauces).

That caught the attention of Joe Pickler, CEO of Zounds Hearing Aids franchise centers in Olive Branch, MS, and Germantown, TN.

“Most of the times, when I’m eating, I wear what I’m eating,” Pickler chuckled. “I think it would be something that would be very good — and for household use.”

Never Wet‘s instructions say it works best when it is allowed to cure for 12 hours. I spent an evening treating several items, spraying the 2-part treatment as directed and curing as recommended.

Pickler and I dunked two toilet-scrubbers in water — one untreated, the other treated with Never Wet. The untreated scrubber gushed water from its bristles. The Never Wet-treated scrubber was bone dry, except for a few bristles that I apparently didn’t quite treat thoroughly.

I stabbed an untreated garden shovel into a mud pit. The surface tension of the grime just stuck to the blade. But the grime either would not stick or just slid right off a Never Wet-treated shovel.

Chocolate syrup and red wine vinegar either slid right off a Never Wet-treated canvas shoe or beaded up like rain on a waxed car. Mustard did not fare as well — until we rinsed it in a sink. Never Wet repelled the mustard AND the running water: no mustard stain, bone dry!

Then it was time for the Never Wet-suit: a white undershirt and white scrubs, treated with the product.

Pickler dumped a barrage of stuff on me: cola, red wine vinegar, chocolate syrup, mustard and home-style gravy. The Never Wet only failed to repel the gravy and mustard from the clothes.

Pickler had seen all he needed to see. “I’d buy it. I think it works!”

Never Wet is sold at The Home Depot. Its instructions say it is not permanent. It will have to be reapplied after a length of time.

It also works better on plastics, concrete and other surfaces than on fabrics.

Copyright 2013 WMC-TV. All rights reserved.

https://www.actionnews5.com/story/23517623/andy-will-it-work-rust-o-leums-never-wet/

If you haven’t heard tales of wonder about Rust-Oleum NeverWet yet, it’s a spray-on coating that repels liquids and can be applied to nearly any surface, and apparently it really works. So now artist Nathan Sharratt has used it to create a delightful sidewalk rain drawing, that can only be seen when the sidewalk has been rained on, with which he won the “Innovative NeverWet use” contest sponsored by Home Depot.

https://makezine.com/2013/09/30/how-to-rust-oleum-neverwet-sidewalk-art/

https://laughingsquid.com/rust-oleum-neverwet-sidewalk-art-that-can-only-be-seen-when-it-rains/

Chocolate Syrup on NeverWet-Coated Shoes LancasterOnline.com on YouTube

It’s definitely weird to watch the NeverWet chemists pump chocolate syrup onto a pair of white canvas shoes and to see the syrup roll off in ribbons. Or how about when the researchers dunk an iPhone into a beaker of water and then pull out the phone and use it?

NeverWet is a set of two ultra-hydrophobic sprays, including a base coat and top coat, that you can use to treat paper, fabric, metal and other materials. When local news site Lancaster Online first posted a video about NeverWet—invented by chemists based near Lancaster, Pennsylvania—the video garnered almost 1.4 million views. Now, two years later, it’ll finally be available commercially. NeverWet will sell for $19.97 at Home Depot, Lancaster Online reports in an updated story.

Rust-Oleum, a manufacturing company that’s licensed to sell NeverWet, has a video describing how to use it. Rust-Oleum advertises the spray for building materials and shoes:

Meanwhile, NeverWet’s Lancaster creators are less conservative about their invention. In video interviews with Lancaster Online, they sprayed a cardboard box to turn it into a makeshift cooler and even demonstrated how to waterproof an iPhone. We haven’t tried it here, so we can’t say for sure if it’s a good idea to spray NeverWet onto your phone, nor does it seem Rust-Oleum officially endorses protecting electronics with the product.

We also can’t say if you’ll be able to pick it up immediately when it comes out. Rust-Oleum wouldn’t tell Lancaster Online how much NeverWet will be made and which Home Depots will carry it. It will start appearing on store shelves in a few weeks, the news site reported. The spray set does seem to be for sale on Home Depot’s website. (Thanks, ComputerDan!)

NeverWet scientists first stumbled upon the stuff while trying to make a coating to protect steel from corrosion. They ended up with a spray that forms a very high angle of contact for any water that touches it, Lancaster Online explained. A material with a contact angle of zero will make a drop of water lie flat. Human skin has a contact angle of 75 to 90 degrees. Car wax has a contact angle of 95 degrees. NeverWet creates a contact angle of 165 degrees. If the contact angle were 180 degrees, any water touching it would form a perfect sphere.

June 20: I updated this post with some more information from Rust-Oleum. I also added that you can find NeverWet on the Home Depot website.

Waterproof and water-resistant products have nothing on NeverWet. The superhydrophobic coating, now available in stores, repels liquids like you’ve never seen before.

Imagine being able to take your camera/phone/e-reader to the beach, or use it out in the rain, and never worry about getting it wet. Imagine further that you could do this with your existing gadgets, just by spraying them with a magic waterproof coating.

That’s the promise of NeverWet, a “superhydrophobic” coating that will repel just about anything. Water rolls off NeverWet-coated surfaces like glass beads on a windowpane. Syrups and other sticky, viscous fluids slide off like water. Here’s a video of the stuff in action:

The sales pitch is that objects coated in NeverWet can “never get wet.” The claims seem to be truthful: a small panel was left in a bucket of seawater at the NeverWet offices for a year. One side was coated in NeverWet. When the panel was removed, this side came out dry, and still water repellent.

Apart from the obvious waterproofing applications, NeverWet could also be used an antibacterial coating, an icing repellent and a corrosion protection. Imagine painting a bike in this stuff and never having to clean it again.

Like any superhero, NeverWet has its Kryptonite, in this case alcohol and soap. Both of these will cause NeverWet to get wet, but a quick rinse with water will restore its magical properties. Given that my number one use-case for a waterproof coating is to protect my gadgets from spilled wine, beer and cocktails, this might turn into an important limitation.

NeverWet is still undergoing research, but could be available commercially next year. I’m looking forward to NeverWet clothing. I’ll never have to undress again.

The transition from laboratory wonder to consumer product was made possible by a licensing agreement with Rust-Oleum.

NeverWet agreed to let Rust-Oleum manufacture and distribute the product in North America in return for a royalty payment for every can sold.

The amount of payment was not disclosed.

At Home Depot, Rust-Oleum NeverWet includes two spray cans — a base coat and a top coat — that can cover 10 to 15 square feet.

Retailing for $19.97, Rust-Oleum NeverWet will begin appearing over the next few weeks at stores other than Home Depot here and nationwide.

“This is a game changer,” said Jim Stinner, vice president of marketing for Rust-Oleum. “Everyone is going to want to try it out.”

Stinner declined to say where Rust-Oleum NeverWet is being made or how much is being produced.

The launch of Rust-Oleum NeverWet will include newspaper, magazine and television advertising, he said.

“This is certainly going to be one of the biggest products we’ve ever had,” predicted Stinner.

Stinner said the product launch has generated more buzz than any new product he’s seen in his 18 years with Rust-Oleum.

“The interest it is garnering is second-to-none,” he said.

The interest is the result of Rust-Oleum NeverWet’s remarkable performance. Here’s how it works.

When water hits the coating’s superhydrophobic barrier, it forms a nearly circular bead that either causes the liquid to shoot off the surface or never cling there in the first place.

Among other things, it can be used on metal, wood, masonry and aluminum as well as fabric, leather and canvas.

But the possible uses for Rust-Oleum NeverWet seem limited only by the imagination of the customer.

For instance, NeverWet officials showed a reporter this past week how it can be sprayed on the inside of a cardboard case of beer to make an impromptu ice chest.

The wow factor of NeverWet’s product has never been the problem.

But until the agreement was reached with Rust-Oleum, the know-how to make NeverWet on a large scale and get it to a lot of consumers had been a sticking point.

“It is a huge deal,” Daniel Hobson, NeverWet’s chief executive officer, said of the licensing agreement.

Hobson said Rust-Oleum’s marketing reach and manufacturing potential allows NeverWet to focus on developing and refining products without getting lost in the issues related to manufacturing and selling them.

“We look at ourselves as an innovation company, not as a manufacturer,” Hobson said.

The Conestoga Valley Industrial Park company’s first innovation began as its then-parent’s solution to a basic, industrial problem.

About five years ago, Ross Technology Corp. needed a better way to reduce corrosion on the steel products it makes here.

When they couldn’t find one, they decided to make something on their own.

But soon, the small group of scientists working on the anti-corrosive coating saw a lot of new possibilities for the nano-particle coating that kept things clean, dry and free of bacteria and ice.

The group became Ross Nanotechnology, a subsidiary of Ross Technology Corp.

Now, NeverWet, which has 15 employees, is an independent company in which Ross Technology Corp. has a minority ownership stake.

Though declining to disclose NeverWet’s sales figures, Andrew Jones, the company’s president, said “We’re growing dramatically.”

Originally, the company had expected to release a consumer product in early 2012, an event watched with great interest by people who had seen the early viral video.

While the long-awaited spray cans weren’t fast in appearing, the company got its name on some store shelves in spring 2012 through NeverWet Clean and Dry toilet plungers, which were made for Rubbermaid.

Ross Technology continues to make the toilet plungers in a factory line that has about 20 employees.

In August 2012, NeverWet said it was considering selling it on their website, just to get it into consumer’s hands.

However, Hobson said setting up the manufacturing for the toilet plungers reinforced the belief that the company was at its best when it was coming up with ideas, not manufacturing products or handling sales.

“When we thought about putting it out ourselves, we thought, ‘This will drown us,’ ” Hobson said. “What we want to do is sell the juice — sell the magic juice.”

Ultimately, a limited release was put on hold as the company waited for a nationwide debut through a new suitor: Rust-Oleum.

Hobson said NeverWet continues to pitch the product to a variety of industrial manufacturers as something they can use during their process, while also working to get the product on shelves around the world.

“We’re not just sitting back and saying, ‘We got Rust-Oleum,’ ” Hobson said.

He said the firm also is focused on making the product better.

While the current Rust-Oleum NeverWet leaves a frosty haze, Hobson said a transparent application will “absolutely” be among the future versions of a product he expects to become a staple in household garages everywhere.

“Ultimately we’re licensing it so that we can be the WD-40 for the next 100 years,” he said.