Has this ever happened to you?  Your beloved wireless karaoke microphones, your car interior handles, your favourite multi-adaptor suddenly became sticky and impossible to hold. Their rubberized coatings have turned sticky  and no matter how much talcum powder you pour on them, they still remain sticky after the talcum powder wore off.

So why does rubber do this? Natural or synthetic rubber starts out as a very sticky substance. The rubber  can revert back to it’s original state under certain conditions. Once that happens you’re stuck with rubber that has become sticky and tacky.   (Ref: https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Clean-Sticky-Rubber/   )

A common method to cure this sticky rubber  is to use 90% isopropyl solution. But this involves actually removing the rubber coating down to the plastic/metal base. I discovered another method that doesn’t end up removing the rubber coating but merely removes the stickiness. 

It happened when my karaoke wireless microphones became impossible to hold because the rubberized handles had turned sticky. I used a handle wrap (those that we wrap around racquets to improve our grip) to wrap around the microphones’ handles and I thought nothing more about it.  Until one day, as the wrap unravelled itself, I discovered that the stickiness on the microphones’ handles had gone!

You can thank me if you find that it also works for you.