My brother is a chemist along with being a car guy so as you can imagine he has looked into this subject a little. He broke it down to me like this, you have two main types of waxes natural and synthetic based. Most "natural" waxes are Carnauba based. Carnauba gives an incredible shine and the wet look that everyone looks for but the problem is that Carnauba in it's pure form is incredibly hard. So any wax that claims that it is 100% Carnauba is actually not. The portion of the product that is actually wax may be 100% Carnauba, the rest are lubricants and other additives that put it into a usable form. Here's where it gets tricky, there are different grades of Carnauba the most common being #1 yellow in the auto polish industry. Most high quality waxes fall into the 25-35% carnauba content range. The problem with these waxes is that carnauba is very sensitive to washing and detergents so it is not very durable.
On the flip side you have synthetic based waxes that provide great durability but in my opinion do not provide quite the shine of a carnauba based wax. There are tons of synthetic polymer based products on the market today some of which are excellent and will provide a very durable long lasting shine.
I guess the bottom line when it comes to waxes is that durability and shine are at the opposite ends of the wax spectrum. You have to determine the application that you are wanting to use it for and experiment and find the product that works the best for you.
Hopefully this clears some things up, I know I'm a wax nerd
