We decided to buy these after both myself and my husband fell on our stairs. We have wood laminate stairs that were very slippery with socks on. We applied the clear strips so the finish would show through. It looked exactly as described and no one has slipped since. As a matter of fact no one hardly notices the strips. We did gouge a piece out of a strip while moving furniture one day so I had some replacement strips to use. The easiest way we found to remove the adhesive was with acetone which took it off fairly easily with a little rubbing. The adhesive is very thick. We cleaned the area with alcohol and reapplied another strip. I found that you could use a regular rolling pin to apply the strips also. I really like this product.