Something that I’ve had since childhood is sweaty hands all year-round. Not sure what the cause is, but Gamer Goo is advertised as being able to prevent sweaty hands for a better grip on a controller, allowing a better gameplay session.

Gamer Goo comes in a tiny, 50 mL bottle (1.7 oz), but the price tag it carries certainly isn’t tiny. It’s $15 per bottle (at least on Amazon; on the website directly it’s $13 a piece) and comes in a variety of scents:

• Beach Breeze
• Peppermint
• Orange
• Cherry Blossom
• Teakwood
• Vanilla Sugar

Gamer Goo also sells Sport Goo that’s designed for athletes, allowing better grip on, say, a tennis racket or a barbell. Of course, there’s also competing products, such as Gamer Grip, but I can’t directly compare since I don’t have it.

I had picked Cherry Blossom as my weapon of choice for scent. After just putting some on my hands, it does offer a pleasant scent, though I can’t say it smells like cherries…I can’t put my tongue on what exactly it smells like, but nonetheless it smells good. Ingredients primarily consist of water, isopropyl alchohol, and xanthan gum (probably to thicken the texture). There’s nothing in the ingredients list that seems harmful to the skin.

The instructions are as follows: wash your hands, dry them up, apply a pea-sized amount of the goo to your hand, and rub for about 10-20 seconds. It’s similar in color and texture to…yeah I’m not going to go there, you get the idea from the picture. At first, the texture feels wet as you rub it in between your hands, like you’re applying liquid hand sanitizer, but after 10 seconds or so, the texture thickens and dries out, leaving your hands feeling like they would after applying baby powder; dry and powder-like. Except with Gamer Goo, no residue is left behind. Not on your hands, not on your controller.

The washing and drying of your hands (and drying off your controller) are very important. I’ve found that if I don’t wash my hands and they’re already sweating, the sweat will just penetrate right through the goo and will effectively be useless. So make sure your hands are thouroughly washed and dried before you apply any goo.

But does it actually help after applying all the directions? Yes, sometimes no. During the times where it does help, I definitely had a better grip on the controller (which, in most cases I’m using the DualSense). With the better grip comes the reduced chance of accidentally slipping the controller in my hands as I’m aggressively pressing the buttons, meaning it’s easier to chain a combo and focus on the action. The bottle is advertised as lasting as long as four hours. I think the reality is it lasts one or two hours at best. Maybe for some people it will last longer because their hands might not sweat as much as mine.

Sometimes, however, even when making sure that my hands have been washed and dried, as well as wiping the sweat off the controller with a paper towel, it’s just not very effective. I’m not sure why I’m getting mixed results here.

For $13-$15 a bottle? A little too expensive for my tastes. I’ve had it for months though, and I only need to apply a small amount each time I put it on. But if you find your hands are sweating too much and getting in the way of your gameplay sessions, and want to have a nice scent to compliment them, you might want to give Gamer Goo a try.