What works for me is IPA, old microfibre cloth and an old toothbrush. Use the kitchen sink but place a large bin bag in there first to protect the sink and you from when the Mrs catches you!! Remove anything you do not want to strip if possible, then soak a corner of the cloth in the IPA and rub the soft touch in a figure of eight until you see it soften, use the brush to get into the grain and remove the softened coating. Be careful that you know the colour of the plastic under neath the soft coating, as some especially switch gear fascias are white. The surface is suitable for painting after a final wipe down with more IPA on a clean part of the cloth.
P.S. IPA is Isopropyl Alcohol or rubbing alcohol. In this day and age you may even find that the thicker antibac hand sanitisers will work just as well as they are usually IPA based.
You can recolour soul to platinum, I have done this myself, but it does take a few more coats of paint ( Volico ).