Some Sole Clarification!
1. Use Sea Glow NOT IG Pink, since IG Pink is NOT fluorescent, and is NOT designed to soak into the plastic like Sea Glow is.
2. Glad to see Sea Glow working on the mesh - I sort of expected this since it works on all white plastics, but here in Hawaii we have been hampered by NO SUN!!! Just rain and floods!
3. Using what sun that was available, we confirmed that Sea Glow worked really well on the center part of the clear soles where it could penetrate deeply, but on the old shoes sent to us by one of you, the thick/patterned heel area only shows partial penetration.
4. With the permission of the shoe owner I tried the idea of using a hyperdermic syringe to inject Sea Glow slowly while drawing the needle back. The yellowing only went away in the syringe track area. Because these are not my shoes, I was afraid to try the soaking method that Plaguey used which obviously makes a lot of sense. I will try to find out what type of glue nike used or (and I do have a really old pair of non-clear soled nikes) do a test with a week or so of soaking, just to see if the glue will hold up.
5. The customer who sent us his old shoes also sent us a pair of children's shoes with clear soles that were slightly yellowed, but apparently not oxidized. These shoes showed return of the blueish tinge by just placing in sunlight, but effects were far faster by using Sea Glow. This means that (as I said once before) the new rubber would dhave contained a fluorescing agent and possibly some blue dye when it was orginally manufatured, but the effect had partially worn off, and could not work in the absence of daylight.
6. As expected, the Sea Glow will work much better on white rubber because it only has to penetrate a few thousandths of an inch. You can see this on our website
www.islandgirlproducts.com and click on the movie links. Sea Glow will work on white, blue, red, and clear plastics.
7. Use of a tanning bed or "dark light" bulb is useful to more clearly see the fluorescence as it penetrates into the rubber. However, sunlight is far more powerful than a tanning bed light. For instance, here in Hawaii, at noon time one could be badly burned by the UV by sunbathing at miday. No tanning bed company would dare have that much UV and there are also different wavelenghts of UV and that of natural sunlight is far more powerful in activating the fluorescing conditioner in the Sea Glow.
8. We have noticed some people buying our CLEAR HORIZONS product together with Sea Glow and presumably they are going to use it on the surface of the soles to seal them. Be aware, however, that this product could make the soles SLIPPERY when walking on a smooth, wet surface. Although just using the shoes for a few minutes on normal pavement would "knock off" this coating on the parts contacting the underfoot surface. CLEAR HORIZONS does however, work great on computer screens and iPods to remove/prevent fingermarks and minor surface scratching!
9. We will continue to update the instructions based upon what you guys are telling us works. For detailed application instructions go to the following link:
www.islandgirlproducts.com/shoes.html
Anthony Willis, Ph.D.
Island Girl Products, President
