What’s the main difference between the two and why choose one over the other? I’ve tried researching this and can’t find anything. I know I could pull up SDS sheets and see what chemicals differ, but that doesn’t explain why you would choose one over the other.
The citrus smells nice.
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I can’t tell you the exact different between the two, but I advise you to be very careful with citrus degreaser.
It can strip paint and finishes, It can even etch glass. Both degreasers are good, but you need to near to use them.
From what I’ve read, the purple is better for grease and oil. You’re saying the citrus can be dangerous. So why would anyone buy the citrus besides the smell? Does it work better on some things, and if so, what?
I am not trying to be an asterisk, but there are a lot of different purple degreasers on the market and they are not all the same. Any monkey can throw multiple chemicals on a surface and hope for the best. I’m not saying you aren’t savvy, I’m just saying everything isn’t the same in purple cleaners, and everything isn’t the same with citrus cleaners. It is all about the SDS. Or, you can lit er up and git er done.
What is in all these purple degreasers? Let’s look at one.
1.1 Product Identifier
Trade Name: PURPLE POWER
Product Type: High foaming alkaline detergent
1.2 Recommended Use: Commercial cleaning tasks
Composition/Information on Ingredients
3.1 Substances
butoxyethanol
Water
Sodium Metasilicate
Tetra Sodium
Mixture of the above ingredients to form a single uniform solution.
Citrus Cleaners all have citrus in their name, but what is “citrus”? Let’s look at ZEP, it is a well known brand and sold at a big box store.
ZEP HVY-DTY CITRUS CLEANER CON-CA
Alcohols, C9-11, ethoxylated
Oxirane, methyl-, polymer with oxirane, mono(2-ethylhexyl) ether
The exact percentages of disclosed substances are withheld as trade secrets.
So what does all of that mean? More reading. You can do some searches on here for Mary’s many replies to chem questions. I haven’t seen here summoned here in some time. I think that @Innocentbystander has a direct line. if he is so inclined and if she is willing to lecture us again. I am always up to learn something new, or refresh my memory. Besides, I am on here because we got an ice and freezing rain storm last night and I am delaying that back breaking scraping and picking because I’m old fat and lazy.
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Clearly I’m not talking about one suppliers product vs. another. For example, Zep purple vs. Zep Citrus. Sure, I can look and see what is chemically different. But what does that mean? Why choose one over the other? I don’t want some crazy long explanation of what the different chemicals are for, just a simple answer.
I prefer to use citrus degreasers on ____ because____
I prefer to use purple degreaser on _____ because ____
That’s it, I took enough chemistry classes in college, I don’t want to learn any more.
@CaCO3Girl you have been paged. I have no direct line, just a winsome smile. I can think of no reason why anyone would need degreaser anyway. I haven’t bought any in 20 some years except to clean car parts, and brake cleaner is usually easier to use for that.
I have a 55gallon barrel of some unnamed degreaser in the warehouse someone here bought once…at least I think it’s still under that dust pile 
