Lizard Skins are made of a polymer blend and is only 0.5mm thick, which doesn't add much more bulk or weight to the stick than standard tape will. Aesthetically speaking, the Lizard Skins are available in several different colors including flat colors and various camo colors , so they match with pretty much any color design you want on your stick. For my review, I installed my neon green Lizard Skins wrap on my limited edition neon green STX Alliance shaft, which the color matched well.
Installation
Lizard Skins come with instructions which are pretty easy and the installation only took me about 5-10 minutes and came out perfectly on the first try.
Materials needed:
- Lizard Skins wrap
- shaft
- electrical tape
- scissors
Step 1: Make sure the butt end is on the shaft and the shaft is completely clean and dry. Take off any old tape on the shaft that. I added a bit of electrical tape over the butt end to keep it in place and prevent it from sliding, but this is optional.
Step 2: Take the Lizard Skin out of the packaging, set the small finishing tape segment to the side and take off the plastic covering on it.
Step 3: Start taking off the paper backing and begin wrapping one of the pre-cut ends, tight to the base of the butt end onto the shaft. Keep a bit of tension on it (just like tape) to keep it tight, but don't pull too tight for it to get wrinkled or ripped.
Step 4: Slowly start wrapping the skin around the shaft, overlapping the last layer you put on a tiny bit (I just covered the Lizard Skins logo on the top part of the skin and that spaced it perfectly. Still, keep the right amount of tension on the skin, and move your way up the shaft.
Step 5: Once you're getting to the end of the wrap, make the pre-cut end wrap around so the skin makes a clean circle at the top. This doesn't need to be perfect.
Step 6: Cut a small piece of electrical tape and wrap it around the shaft over the top of the wrap to keep it tight.
Step 7: Wrap the included finishing tape around the electrical tape to clean up the look and finish applying the Lizard Skin.
Performance
The Lizard Skin has a soft feel while still being tacky enough to give a nice grip. I'd best compare the feel of this to the grip on a brand new tennis racket, but thinner. The "lizard skin" pattern on it gives you a nice grip which helps your hand stay tight on the shaft, as well as helps keep your hand in place in any weather conditions, unlike tape, which your glove will just slide right across when wet. The feel and grip of the Lizard Skin is very nice both with gloves on or off. Also, unlike tape, it won't leave residue on your gloves as it gets worn it, making the palms on your gloves last longer. It is also washable so you can keep your stick looking fresh, even when the skin's been on there for a while.
Your hand won't really be able to slide on this, so it will give you a tighter grip for better cradling and more accuracy and control when you're shooting and passing. Since you can't really slide your hand on it, I'd only really recommend putting these on the butt end of your stick, where your hand shouldn't be moving. I could also see face off guys putting these at the top of their shafts to give them more grip when clamping the ball, although I personally wouldn't since I usually stay on the field after my face offs instead of just going off after the draw (Editors note: Anthony is what you call a ball hog).
I really like the Lizard Skins and plan on switching to using one of these on my game stick. At the end of your stick, not only does this give you all the benefits to tape, but it improves on many of the issues that typical tape has as well as having its own benefits. I would recommend Lizard Skins to anyone looking for an upgrade to the standard tape that we've been using for years on our lacrosse sticks.