NB. I always put a business card under the C#. The G# is no more sticky than the rest of my sticky keys.
Having read more on waterproof and non-waterproof (e.g. Roo) pads, I've picked out the following as logical:
Waterproofing involves coating the leather with varnish of one kind or another. Using a solvent, e.g. lighter fluid, to clean the pads may react with
some of these coatings and may be the
cause of the stickiness, rather than being a remedy. Lighter fluid, on any type of pad, may also remove essential oils from the leather itself.
Non-waterproof pads allow moisture inside which gets into the inner felt. The content of saliva may cause the pad inner to harden more quickly than with waterproofed pads, meaning a re-pad is needed sooner.
So, we have one pad type which repels water but this may then "pool" on its surface and promote adhesion between pad and rim, and another pad type where adhesion is minimised as the moisture is soaked into the pad, evaporating back out after playing (although leaving non-evaporants inside).
Colin's silicon idea may work, but is silicon as slippery as PTFE/Teflon as in JBT's remedy? See below.
A powder will generally promote the collection of debris as it sits atop the pad surface and creates a "mini mountain range" of extra jagged surface area.
@jbtsax seems to have a proven remedy, as others have attested to in various threads. That is to first clean the pads, although I'm not sure how far inside the pad structure the Doctor's Pad Cleaner can reach?
Then, rather than coating the pad surface with a random and perhaps coarse powder which will both form a paste and sit proud of the pads surface, use PTFE or Teflon powder to fill the pores of the leather and so "smooth off" the surface by filling the irregularities to which moisture would otherwise more easily adhere.
PTFE is one of the slippery substances known to man and this combination of extremely fine pore filling powder and extreme slipperiness should keep the pad from adhering to the rim, albeit there still being present a "pool" of water.
Here's the top stack pads, showing seat depth, and a curious whiteness to the B bis key (the worst offender). Perhaps
@jbtsax or
@griff136 can tell what it is?...
Here's the bottom stack. They look and feel "as new" to me...