Lill’Bits: A Sex Toy Update, a Sex Toy Test, a Sex Toy Store

Things That Happen When a Small Pack of Sex Toy Reviewers Descend Upon a Sex Toy Store

If you have a nice store that carries only body-safe products, like Sexploratorium in Philadelphia, then we slowly walk around as we point at the things we own and love, pet the things we don’t own but want, and talk with more authority than any regular customer would ever display. We get extraordinarily excited by a clear silicone dildo infused with a billion ruby red sparkles and wish our wallets could afford it. We purchase an item and if you seem like you might “get it”, we admit that we’re only buying it to burn it later For Science. Your customer overhears us in our excited babbling about vibrators and asks our opinion on deciding between a set of Palmpower attachments and at least one of us (ahem) Has Feelings and strongly advises for & against. We stand at your lube station and discuss ingredients and our various sensitivities. We are happy to see our favorite brands on your shelves, and are so over A Certain Brand that we don’t even notice its absence on your shelves until days later. We turn things on, not hiding our reactions. We confirm that a vibrator is shit and confirm that we might really need to review others.

We are not your average customer.  Hopefully we’re fun?

We also might walk into Condom Kingdom and do a very good Grumpy Cat impression at the entire section of Basix (toxic) dildos, which are slightly offset by silicone brands on the other side of the row. But we’ll still feel the need to escape quickly and leave the kitsch behind.

I wish we could have made it to other cool sex toy shops but by 4:30 I was in extreme pain from the walking and the standing. My body did not cooperate and just simply failed me, and failed me hard. It took days to recuperate – but honestly it was worth it to have 24 hours with some blogger pals – Sarah, Sugarcunt, Caitlin and Rose, as well as the amazing Sarah from Smitten Kitten. You can see more tweets here about our weekend, if you wish.

Satisfyer Pro 2 Update

True to their word, the company behind the Satisfyer did revamp their Pro 2. This new model has the word Satisfyer in script on the handle, has a few levels of much more subtle-feeling “pulsations”, and is indeed a lot more quiet on those lower levels. But they stated that the new Pro 2 would be “90% more quiet” – sure, on the lower few levels. Once you’re up in the upper levels (5-11) which match the original Pro 2, the noise level is identical. So overall the Satisfyer Pro 2 is still noisy, because you still cannot simply avoid those super-intense upper levels due to their lack of up and down buttons (unless you never go past the first few levels and never need to back off the intensity during use, or, if you do, you turn it off completely and start over). They kinda pulled a fast one on us with that “90% more quiet” claim, because it’s really only partially true.

Many has asked me how they will know if they’re buying the new or old model of the Pro 2: unless the retailer you buy from has updated the photos recently and notes in their information copy that it is the new version, you’ll have to ask. I can tell you that if you buy it from Shevibe (and you should), you’ll definitely get the updated Pro 2.

I will admit though that their lower levels of intensity now feel a lot more like the Womanizer, and are much more comfortable to start out with.  I’ve had a lot of requests for information on the new Womanizer Pro40 and I hope to review that in the coming weeks. Do I like the Satisfyer Pro 2 more now that it has those more-subtle less-intense levels added in? I do. And the price is hard to beat, at $59.99. I still have extreme Feelings about how they yoinked the air-pulsation technology from Womanizer but until now the Womanizer has been a full $100 more. Even with the lower-priced Pro40, at $99, Womanizer is more expensive.

Perfect Fit Silaskin

So yes, when I was in Philly last weekend I bought the Buck Off to burn. Now, I don’t want y’all to think I’m picking on the Buck Off – it just happened to be there and be the only Perfect Fit item the store carried. If they’d carried something else from that brand, I’d have picked it. But here we are, and I think I’d like to see if we can raise funds for silicone testing.  The first lab I used (same lab that BadVibes.org used) has refused to respond to me the last few times, so I’ve found another lab. But testing is expensive. Just an FTIR test is $475 (other, more in-depth options are thousands of dollars and well out of our range).  You may be wondering why I care – it’s in part because they list “Silicone” first when they talk about their proprietary blend on the packaging, and for some online stores this might mean that lazy employees will pick one material or the other when they have to check off attributes to load an item onto their website store and they’ll pick the first thing listed: silicone. This blend might give unsuspecting consumers a false sense of security and safety. The company doesn’t get into the details of porosity when they talk about their material. I also just simply have deep reservations that a TPR and silicone blend can be done. With this Silaskin getting attention because of the Buck Off, I had a renewed curiosity and again reached out to trusted industry contacts. A manufacturer (who makes both TPR and silicone products) asked around their R&D department for me and found that the vast majority of their material engineers said that TPR and silicone couldn’t be blended; a couple conceded that maybe a company could add a little silicone powder, but that that would take a lot of pricey research & development, and to what end?

Perfect Fit has responded to one direct request for information with a response that tries to minimize porosity, insinuate that silicone is over-rated, and more. 

If you’re interested in getting a lab analysis of this “Silaskin” and can contribute to the funds, get in touch with me via email, my contact form, or social media. If I can raise enough funds then I will get it done, but I can’t afford to even pay half at this point.