I think the ugly dark residue is what you cleaned off your frets.
I bought that kit to try but decided I liked the Gorgomyte cloth better, it also leaves some ‘flaky’ dark residue from cleaning, but like you say, is taken care of by the F-One or other cleaner. I think this is just how it is.
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I am thinking I will put masking tape on the underside of the fret guards vs. moving the tape up/down.
Can’t hurt.
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Why are you folks using these fret guards for just cleaning your frets? Usually those are for filing or sanding, right?
I’ve always just gone at them with a 3M-style pad. Works fine, no chance of harming the fretboard.
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Oh man what a great idea, which made realize I should just apply an electrical strip of tape to the bottom of the fretguard and then cut a hole in the ahem slit to protect my fretboard.
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Normally I just clean them with a cloth but these were really dirty. The rubber and fretguard method took me 3 minutes to clean it. Was a piece of cake.
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Can you please post a picture of the 3M pad/packaging you are referring to?
Thank you.
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Yep, except bought the cheap way 
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I’ve mostly used Fender custom shop fingerboard remedy and it seems to work well. Planet Waves hydrate and food grade mineral oil are all good too. I live in a really dry area and i don’t worry too much about my guitars that have rosewood or laurel fingerboards but i do take a bit more care with the one with ebony. I clean/oil the finger boards once or twice a year.
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I just read in interesting write up from a guy that claimed to be a lab tech. He decided to test all the major fretboard oils to see what they had in them.
He tested products labeled as lemon oil and products from Dunlop, D’Addario, Dr. Duck, Music Nomad, and various other cleaners, conditioners, and string glides. What he found was they all used white mineral oil. Specifically, they all used CAS# 8042-47-5 which is a very specific compound of white mineral oil.
He went on to say the only differences were dyes and scents except with fast fret/ fret glide products which included less than 1% dimethicone (silicone oil).
$2 for 500ml of Johnson’s baby oil
versus
$5-10 for 50-100ml music brand oil
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I’ve read you should not use baby oil, but rather use plain mineral oil sold as a laxitive.
I use F-one oil. Yeah it’s overpriced but will last me years.
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Yeah, the Johnson’s baby oil he was referencing is a plain white mineral oil with nothing else mixed in. I wouldn’t use most baby oils either.
LoL! Yep. I’ve already got some overpriced Dr. Duck’s that will probably last the rest of my life. Smells good, though.
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It smells nice too. 
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I have some of that and also D’Addario Hydrate; I haven’t tried them yet but they’re both rated pretty highly. I’ve been using Fender custom shop fingerboard remedy for about 5 years, it seems to work well enough,
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Reading through here I realized that a) I’ve never oiled my fretboard in the 24 years I’ve had my bass and b) the strings on it currently were … very old. So! I got some of the Dunlop fingerboard cleaner and oil and pulled out the 2nd set of SuperSlinkys I got way back then and have been just not using and it was bass spa day!
Unstrung and kind of sad looking rosewood
Cleaned and oiled
Then I forgot to manually set my tuner to open E and overwound and broke it. After calling a few local independent music shops without luck, I stopped by The Damn Chain and got an new set to steal the E out of.
All strung up and tuned and dang does it sound brighter now
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Looks good!
I once oiled a 20 year old Warwick fretboard, that was so satisfying 
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Yeah! I was really impressed with how much more alive the fingerboard looks after the oiling. Also it reminds me it’s time to mineral oil up our wooden cutting boards and kitchen utensils!
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I used lemon oil back in the day. Worked nice. Also, an old trick, I used to clean the fretboard with soft babycloths. Just make sure to wipe off all excess oil if you put any on the fretboard
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