Koetsu Rosewood - Best/safest way to clean stylus

MillerCarbon, love the Woody Allen reference. Lot of truth there.

Mulveling, you are gutsy the way you use ME. Yes I use only the white one.

So many people use the liquid but quite a few warn against it. The warnings usually seem to be theoretical though, with very few actual stories of damage it seems. The manufacturers must have a clear position on liquid, I would think. Maybe I will email the Koetsu distributor.

No experience with Koetsu but here's my take. I use to read, years ago about stylus fluid wicking up the cantilever. My response to that is don't play a record after cleaning for a minute or so. I have used the ME and while I haven't attributed any problems to it, it does sometimes "catch" which is an uneasy feeling. I switched from the ME to blue tak, (like Peter Lederman). I still use a Zerodust, a brush, and LYRA STP.

Montaldo. Fill up a little glass jar with 3/4 91% Isopropyl alcohol, 1/4 distilled water. Get a small soft artist's brush, dip it in your solution and brush the stylus and cantilever clean. Go no further than 1/2 way up the cantilever. You can brush the stylus in any direction without fear of hurting it. I'll do this once a week or so. Between records I use a standard stiff stylus brush wiping back to front only.
I have news for you Last folks. Last is just Freon, Freon with various labels on it. Freon is a great solvent for non polar molecules like oil. It will to some extent clean your stylus and records. It leaves absolutely nothing behind to protect anything. I took a microscope slide and started dripping one drop of Last record preservative at a time on the slide allowing it to dry between each drop. After 50 drops I looked at the slide high and dry. Nothing. Not a darn thing. Everything had evaporated. There is nothing in Last besides Freon. Brilliant rip off. 

I've used two liquid cleaners--LAST and Lyra--for many years and have never experienced any problems.  They are solvent based, so it does make sense to follow Lyra's instruction of not playing a record immediately (Lyra says wait 10 seconds) in order to allow any softened adhesive to re-harden.  

With any liquid cleaner, it makes sense to be careful with application and not slather it all over the place.  Capillary action can, at least in theory, cause a liquid to migrate up the cantilever, regardless of whether it is a hollow rod or something solid, and that is what one is trying to avoid.  This is a concern that was raised with the LAST stylus preserver more so than their cleaner because the cleaner is volatile and will evaporate before it can reach very far.  The stylus preserver does not evaporate and it is sticky in consistency.  The concern is with this sticky stuff gumming up the suspension of the cartridge if it gets that far up the cantilever.  Again careful and judicious application is in order.

I would be a bit cautious with the sticky cleaners, like the Zero Dust, that one is suppose to dip the stylus. Because the cartridge suspension was never meant to be pulled in the opposite direction of playing a record, I would take care to very slowly lift the needle out of the goo.  I know someone who pulled the cantilever out of his cartridge using one of those things.