Reinvigorating your PlayStation & Xbox controllers w. Lizard Skins

Lizard Skins produce a range of anti-slip textured grips for game controllers. We were sent a pack for the PlayStation 4 DualShock and an Xbox One Controller to test.

I’ve got kids. I usually find out that they’ve been on the PS4 or Xbox One when I pick up the sweaty controllers. Both controllers are a bit slippery anyway, without having had the greasy fingers on pre-teens mauling them.

Enter Lizard Skins and their rubbery Durasoft Polymer Controller Grips. Each pack contains four pieces, shaped to fit around the controllers’ grips. The rubberised shapes peal of the backing sheet to reveal the adhesive for sticking them on the controllers. The result is a non-slip makeover for your gaming controllers.

The instructions clearly show where to start applying the skins (lining them up along the controllers’ seams) and where to start flattening them down. Applying the Lizard Skins is a task the gets my OCD twitching, as they are nigh-on impossible to get 100% right. A bit of perseverance, though and the final results were not far off.

Applying the Lizard Skin to the Xbox One Controller was a lot easier than the PS4 DualShock. The Xbox One Controller isn’t quite as round as the PS4 controller. If you are not careful, it is easy to crease the grip and then over-stretch it as you try to smooth it out. A few times I had to peel the grip back quite a bit to properly reposition it.

Once in place, the Xbox Controller felt very firm in the hand, the Lizard Skin grip completely covering the part of my hand in contact with the controller’s body. The black and white camo pattern also looks very nice. The positioning of the grip also stops the Xbox One Controller from slipping off a table, but this is not the case with the PS4 grip.
The PS4 grip was trickier to position, and it doesn’t quite line up with the way I hold the controller, unlike with the Xbox One version. That’s probably not a fault of the grip design. It comes down to the ergonomics of the DualShock itself. With the Xbox controller, hand position stays fairly similar regardless of size, but the DualShock sits differently in bigger hands. My grubby kids’ hands fit nicely within the covered area. Of the two, the orange colour on the PS4 Lizard Skins grip looked more striking, though it would probably pop even more on a white controller.

Not only do the Lizard Skins give the controllers a non-slip feel they also set them apart from the crowd, offering a nice bit of personalisation to otherwise dull stock devices. And, if you grow tired of the Lizard Skins, they are easy to remove (but likely not reusable).

These stylish, relatively easy-to-apply, gaming grips could easily be dismissed as a gimmick, but I actually found them pretty cool. Definitely worth checking out. Lizard Skins are available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and Switch controllers in a variety of different patterns and colours.