Yes, sandblasting does embed particles into the surface of soft materials because it cleans by impact.
Vapor blasting cleans by flow, not by impact so it is ideal for soft materials, even very thin soft materials as it will not heat up the material being blasted.
In fact, vapor blasting was developed during WW2 for the aircraft industry just for this purpose.
The nearest company to me that has a vapor blaster is a helicopter company and they use it for cleaning aluminum, brass, bronze, magnesium ect.
I will be doing some experiments to prove or disprove it's effectiveness when I get mine installed and operational in a few weeks.