Leukotape is the undisputed champion of blister prevention tapes. Unfortunately its zinc oxide-based adhesive leaves a sticky residue on the inside of your socks. Over hundreds of miles this residue builds up and eventually your socks look like this:
I just want to be clear about how much residue there is here: the arc on the heel (as well as the two lighter dots above it), the white stripe just behind the arch (as well as all of the light-colored area around it), the white patch where the balls of the feet go, the white near the red lettering on the toes, the diagonal beige stripe below that, and the big white chunk at the bottom right of the toes with the white fiber sticking out of it: that’s all tape residue. In fact, the crease above the balls of the feet isn’t a normal crease: there’s so much residue in the fabric that the sock is sticking to itself.
Before a few days ago I would have said that this sock needed replacing. However, I now know that it can be restored to pristine condition.
Ingredients
- Mueller Tape & Tuffner Remover
- A toothbrush
- Liquid hand soap
- Warm water
Directions
- Spray the tape remover directly on the residue.
- Wet the toothbrush and vigorously scrub the sock with it. The residue should dislodge/dissolve without too much effort.
- Apply liquid hand soap to wherever you sprayed the tape remover and continue scrubbing with the toothbrush.
- Rinse the sock with warm water.
Results
Discussion
The primary ingredient in the tape remover is “natural oils” which causes the sock to feel slippery wherever it’s applied. Since soap bonds with oil, applying hand soap allows the remover (and the tape residue) to be rinsed away, restoring the original feel of the material.
It’s worth noting that BSN Medical (the manufacturer of Leukotape) sells an official Leukotape adhesive remover. However, there isn’t even a product page for it at Amazon and it’s sold out at Vivomed which leaves me to believe that it isn’t readily available to consumers.
I did not try Goo Gone Bandage & Adhesive Remover if only because the Mueller product was plenty effective.
What Didn’t Work
In the course of solving this problem I also tried the following approaches:
- Scrubbing with soap and hot water (obviously if this worked then just throwing the socks in the laundry would do the trick)
- Soaking in denatured alcohol
- Scrubbing with Fast Orange
- Scrubbing with safflower oil (since the remover is oil-based this seemed worth a shot)