String cleaner is used by many guitar players and guitar shop techs use for their a strings. Oils and sweat from your fingers, dust from a guitar pick, and other foreign materials that come in contact with the instrument strings will cause it to lose that bright gold colour and turn into a dark brown colour. To go with this, many feel that tone is also lost in this process.
So, string cleaner is your help!
Most come with a self applying cotton tip in the bottle, such as the Dunlop Ultraglide 65, so no other products are needed to apply the string cleaner other than the actual bottle itself.
Using string cleaner for your guitar will do a few things for your playing. As already mentioned it will help keep your strings clean and shiny, and allow you to get more life out of them by keeping the tone in the strings for longer. As well as this, it also reduced the discouloring of the strings, and possibly most interestingly it reduces the screech of the strings that you sometimes hear when your hand goes up and down the fretboard.
A few of the known products out there I will outline below:
- Dunlop Ultraglide 65 String Cleaner & Conditioner (pictured below)- Shields strings against tarnish and corrosion, extending their playing life. Delivers conditioning to string surfaces, which reduces finger squeaks.
- Planet Waves String Cleaner (pictured above) – Cleans and lubricates strings to remove dirt and grease which causes corrosion and tone loss.
- Kyser String Lubricant & Cleaner – Prolongs string life by protecting against skin acids and other wear, as well as makes it easier for fingering. Safe for wood finish.
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