Sweat and Oil...

I never clean my rubbers with sweat and the accompanying oil. I think I've made the right call. I lent my paddle to a buddy today. Man, I don't know what the hell he was sweating, but there are some serious permanent blemishes on the rubbers. After just 30 minutes of use, he also somehow managed to leave a new index finger mark on the BH side rubber.

Fact is that some people discharge dangerous excretions.

Especially if you wash your hands and face regularly

I'd rather leave the mark...just clean it as you normally would. If it stays, let it stay...besides, what's the point in cleaning it if your finger will always be there again anyway? My blade also has this at the BH side, far nearer to the center since I'm penhold..

Oiling the hand or pointerfinger and thumb before playing would actually make a better chance for avoiding these spots I think.
It,s more likely from softeners in the rubber absorbing into the hand.  Same principal as used for medicin blisters.

Rubber, particularly new soft-elastic rubber as used for topsheets, has a relatively large amount of softeners same as soft plastics.  
Maybe it has some hand to rubber exchange of sweat and minerals contributing to it as well but washing hands won,t help for sweating.
If the rubber is not dried underneath the finger first from an oil dry skin, sweat can,t contact the rubber as easy.

Or sweating alcohol maybe ?

Edited by mercuur - 03/25/2013 at 6:53pm

racquetsforsale wrote: Haha. A reptile sweating hand lotion maybe. I accidentally got hand lotion onto a sheet once and it left similar marks. Then again, I've also left my paddle unprotected on the couch, and that caused blemishes as well, but not in 30 minutes.

your buddy'sweat migh have interesting pharmaceutical properties like tetrodotoxin i know that rubber can withstand sulfuric acid and that sweat is more powerful than that then you buddy might be a walking chemical weapon.