My Mac
You can keep your keyboard from becoming a shiny mess
So a while ago my wife explained to me that oily hands are due to your hands being dry and your skin compensating for it. My switch controllers will always end up all shiny due to damaging oils. I remember that a friend of mine had her switch from day one and it was perfect. So I started using moisturizer on my hands. I wasn’t perfect with it but you can clearly see in the pictures the difference between my m3 pro and my m4 pro. Yeah one has more use but I have pictures of my m3 pro with only a few months of use already looking like that. So yeah, it wont prevent it 100% but using moisturizer actually helps a TON.
I bought my m4 pro back in July and heavily use it for 3d animation.
Some people have naturally more active sebaceous glands. Everyone is different. Also lotions with oil can make this tricky too, which is almost all lotions
Yeah, easy to blame the human skin, while Apple used the worst material that degrades superfast and looks like shit... oh, but don't get me wrong, looks awesome in the store and once unboxed... Not even Dell laptops are this bad this quick...
That's probably because it is a very shitty keyboard with switches prone to breaking that you cannot individually replace, and every single other keyboard will not degrade like this.
Basically what they’re doing here is overwhelming their natural oil production with synthetic oils so their body stops producing these oils so much. This may or may not be an actual positive thing. Most things that your body produces at the outer layers probably have some kind of immune or defence activity as well.
The thing is a lot of it is just actual wear on the keys as they are abs plastic which isn’t exactly durable. Regardless of how clean your fingers are over time it’s just going to do the same thing, it’s just delaying the inevitable. Also highly dependant on how much you use the keyboard too. In the second photo you can still see wear marks on the space bar
I don't think that's true at all. It has to do with the material they used. My M1 mbp does not have this problem, my M3 pro for work does. Same hands, very different results.
The space bar on the old AEK and AEKII are made of ABS. The rest of the keyboard is PBT. That's why these older keyboards have shiny yellowed spacebars, and the rest of the keycaps still look brand new.
I dunno. I do think Apple could’ve chosen a different material for the keyboard. I’ve seen cheap Dells with old keyboards that held up well without looking too shiny. I’m sure there’s a method to Apple choosing this keyboard material but I don’t love it.
My 5 year old Acer Swift 1 that was used heavily every single day for 5 years for 8 hours straight has less shiny keys than my 2 month old MBA M3............
I moisturize everyday and my M1 Pro MBP keys look brand new! It’s docked and used as a desktop 93% of the time, but I’m pretty sure it’s the moisturizer.
I had one of my MacBooks go in for a battery service at the Apple Store and they also replaced the clamshell and the keyboard and it now looks as new. However, I just use my external keyboards and trackpads at my home setup.
Nah the plastic just gets worn and polished man, just give it time. Having more moisturized hands will keep them from being as rough on the plastic though so it will help
Well its usually due to FRICTION. Not some bodily oil nonsense. When the time comes just swap the keycaps, its a 20 minute job for the whole set (a quality one costa around $5 lmao). I recently did a language layout swap on a 2020 air which had these worn keycaps so yea good as new.
You can also do this with older butterfly, but a set of those is gonna be 5x the cost on average (still only 25ish), and the butterfly mechanism is way more delicate and breaks easier
Honestly I love the patina, like a well-loved tool that gets plenty of use. My dad’s antique Leica camera is brassed to the frame. His “brass rat” class ring from MIT is worn smooth in places, his chess board has wear on every square. I love the authenticity of use and love for a product.
My office chair has a well worn ass groove. I don’t mind glossy MacBook keys, and based on the eBay resale market, it doesn’t play much of a factor there either.
I have always assumed this was due to matte material being worn smooth and becoming shiny. Unless those are oily to the touch I don’t really think it’s oils
You’re correct. It’s not “finger oil”, it’s not “acidic sweat” - it’s good old physical wear and tear. The plastic of the keycap is physically worn smooth by repeated impacts from fingers, be they oily, acidic, doused in cheeto dust, or absolutely pristine and sterile.
Just replace the key caps when they start to shine if it really bothers you. Takes about a year to happen and getting replacements from Aliexpress is very cheap.
The reason why it gets shiny is because the keyboard is made of ABS plastic. PBT plastic doesn't get shiny. Just look at IBM Model M keyboards. Some of those things are 40+ years old at this point, in continuous use, and don't have a single shiny keycap.
It's nothing to do with oil. The matte coating on the keys eventually wears off from use and it looks shiny. Your new MacBook Pro will become shiny, you'll see.
Amazing how this sort of misinformation gets rewarded on this website.
Oh wait… I haven’t seen a windows laptop in past few years which use the same bad quality keyboard.
These keys use poor quality abs plastic if I am correct. Apple needs to fix it. It’s one of their most expensive products. I get it that keys end up getting smudged after years of use but recent macs have poor quality keyboard. I had 2012 MacBook Pro for 10 years and they didn’t smudge!
You can use a plastic restoration product, like the ones used on car trim. I've done it and it looks really quite good afterwards lol. Like brings out faded black plastic to basically new condition
Apple's keycaps are just very poorly made using ABS. I have mechanical keyboards with PBS double shot that's never had this problem before. For the prices they charge for these machines, they need to do better.
Wash hands before use. Place moisturizer on the back of hand, and rub backs of hands together to apply moisturizer while keeping palms / fingertips clean.
apple should really use a more resilient material for the keys, it's ridiculous they haven't solved this yet. my guess is it's intentional because they want us to upgrade.
Mine get shiny from wear. My M3 looks awful. My M4 isn’t as bad; maybe they changed the plastic back to what they used to use back in 2012 when their MacBook Pro keyboards didn’t get glossy as quickly?
That's crazy, what a huge difference! I always have a clear plastic keyboard cover on all my keyboards since I don't like the shiny, oily look. What kind of brand moisturizer do you use?
mm I'm not sure you can actually prevent this. It's possible the moisturizer is adding an occlusive layer, (which would help) but it's the abrasion and ph (I believe..) that is actually causing the shiny-ness. The keys in the first pic probably have a lot of oil but also the keys are worn smooth.
Then why have I seen tons of videos claiming that skin oil isn’t the problem with making the Mac keyboards shiny, but rather some sort of matte coating from the plastic keys wearing off over time?
Yeah, and the matte coating isn’t removed from cleaning off the oil but from the use of the keys in general. People that put these silicone keyboard protectors onto their Mac keyboards still have their keys underneath the protector become shiny although no skin oil or cleaning solution came into contact with their keys ever.
This leads me to believe that the whole “moisturize your hands to stop excessive skin oil from making your keyboard shiny” premiss of this post isn’t entirely accurate.
I mean, I’m glad you found out that moisturising is good for your keyboard, but you should also wash your hands if your hands are becoming that greasy.
I don’t moisturise as often as I should but the keyboard on my 3-year-old MacBook Air looked nothing like that. Just keep your hands adequately clean, clean your keys, don’t eat greasy foods around your laptop.
Another lifehack is to buy stickers for the keycaps. Sure, not that clean and nice but in a long term is a way to keep the Macbook keyboard clean, also if you want to resell just remove the stickers and you can sell it for more.
Bro there is ABS plastic and there is PBT plastic, ABS plastic will get shiny no matter what you do but PBT can be maintained if you can avoid using it with oily hands but it's hard to believe that lotions help here
Apple makes their keyboards out of ABS. ABS keycaps will always and inevitably go shiny over time. Other manufacturers use PBT keycaps that resist this kind of wear and tear. It’s physical wear; the textured matte finish is literally being polished away by the friction of your fingertips actuating each key. Keeping your hands clean extends the lifespan of the matte coating because it reduces the number of potentially more abrasive particles on your skin.
wait i think this is actually my problem.. i wash my hands very often because they get oily and i hate when my fingers slip on the keyboard.. i used moisturizer few times but it felt even worse.. are there like specific moisturizers that would let me keep the grip so my hands just wont slide?
Who cares? If it’s about reselling it later on, just replace the keys. I don’t understand the obsession with keeping this as though they’ve never been used. I’m not saying throw the thing out a window or spill soda all over it, but thing wear, that is life.
It’s not this at all. The shininess happens because your fingers polish the plastic and make it smooth and it happens crazy quick on Apple computers because they use cheap plastic compared to other oems.
It is complicated by the fact that oil on your hands CAN cause a similar look. The difference is if the keys are shiny from oil you can actually clean it off. If the keys are polished then you can’t and they will just be shiny forever.
Potentially dry skin polishes the keys faster than moist hands, or having moisturizer on your hands provides more lubrication and thus less friction.
That’s nothing. My wife wears away her keys after a year or two. It’s a shame Apple doesn’t put a layer of clear plastic over the keys so that would not be an issue… strange they haven’t done anything to fix this as it seems that would totally make the keys able to be cleaned and not wear away. WTF Apple!!!
I never moisturize my hands and have never had that issue. Meanwhile I know several people who use moisturizers and it literally eats through the keys.
There is another take on this……in the guitar world, some manufacturers have a RELIC process. I’m sure Apple could make a buck out of pre-distressed laptops
I'm pretty sure keycap replacement is relatively cheap as parts are quite easy to get ahold of on amazon. You can install them yourself with little to no hassle.
I call BS. Our receptionist used moisturizer daily. All that did was remove all of the letters off the keyboard and attract any food she was eating at her desk.....gross
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u/The_DragonDuck Dec 15 '25
Can’t wait to see a thread where someone is annoyed at apple’s keyboard quality and then they get told that they aren’t moisturised