Bubble Love Review – A Sex Toy for the Bathtub

If you have a clitoris, chances are fairly decent you figured out years ago that your bathtub faucet is pretty awesome (lucky people had the detachable showerhead). The tub faucet never did anything for me, but the jet spray on the showerhead sure did ¹. The force of the water was a pretty decent substitution for me for powerful vibrations.  Last year while visiting someone with a bathtub with built-in jets, I was able to maneuver myself in front of a jet well enough to reach orgasm – but it was not comfortable and I think I pulled a groin muscle. I’m too old and fat for these antics. So in a situation where a detachable showerhead isn’t an option, Bubble Love could save you.

One of my first thoughts on the Bubble Love was “Why not just buy a detachable showerhead that has a jet spray option? You’ll save $140”. Well, valid point. A showerhead’s jet spray can’t be adjusted in terms of “intensity” unless you get a super fancy one with more than 3 settings and the jet spray on a shower head doesn’t feel like the faucet you may know and love.  BUT if you fill up your bathtub and the hose on the showerhead is long enough, you could use the jet spray under water much like using the Bubble Love and adjust “intensity” by positioning it farther from your vulva. The Bubble Love can be adjusted too, by either using the dial on top or moving the unit so that it is closer to you or farther away. Bubble Love does say in their marketing that a mere hose-driven showerhead will not be nearly as pleasurable as the Bubble Love but I’d have to disagree a bit.

I’m finding myself really torn on the Bubble Love and a lot of it comes down to price – because when a sex toy costs over $60 many people have trouble justifying it. When it costs $150, most people have trouble justifying it. It has to be awesome, it has to really be worth the price tag. So that’s the big question for me – is Bubble Love good enough to plonk down $149? I would say yes IF you can say yes to most of these:

1. You only have a bathtub with no chance for a shower head. This is self-explanatory. I kinda feel like the showerhead (be it alone or put under the water with you) is just about as good, for a fraction of the cost.

2. You’ve tried some vibrators and just don’t like how they feel compared to being under the running water of your bathtub’s faucet. I’ve had more than one person come to me, asking for a sex toy that feels more like their bathtub faucet and I thought that this could be something special that I could recommend.  And Bubble Love is pretty powerful if you have it close enough to you (but then, so is the jet spray on a shower head). But when vibrators like the Tango, the Rosa, Je Joue Uma, and now even the beloved-by-most-except-for-me Lelo Mona 2 are waterproof and submersible AND cost less (well, except for the Rosa but goddamn is that thing worth the price tag, both versions) AND can be used in or out of the water? You have a lot of bathtime options.

3. You take frequent baths and keep your tub immaculately clean. Of course, being a frequent bath-taker means you’re getting your money’s worth. But also, your bathtub needs to be super clean. No lingering chemicals, no ring around tub. In fact if you’re taking a bath to get clean, I might even go so far as to say that you should leave Bubble Love until you’re taking a bath just to soak and relax. It might seem obvious but Bubble Love is taking the water in your tub and shooting it at your vulva at a fairly high pressure. If the water isn’t clean this could lead to infections or itching. 

4. You don’t have reach issues or disabilities that would make holding it in place difficult (similarly, you are not a plus-sized person with a teeny tub). I had thought that the Bubble Love could be hands-free once positioned properly, great for people with disabilities or reach issue but it’s not. It is certainly advertised as being hands-free. Sure there’s a peg with a suction cup but that suction cup doesn’t work  – by their nature if you pull on the suction cup at an angle you can break the seal. The back end of the Bubble Love is heavy enough that it leans back and despite the suction cup peg being on a ball joint, it still releases the suction. So despite being advertised that way, it was never hands-free for me. Maybe I’m being unrealistic but for the infrequent times I take a bath, I’m trying to relax. The buoyancy of the water makes my joints feel better, the warm water makes me sleepy, etc. I want a lazy masturbation experience, too. I don’t want to hold the damn thing.  Also? I’m a larger person. The average older tub is not big enough for me to have much space between my knees let alone allow me to spread my legs easily and due to the way I’m built, this is kinda necessary for a session with the Bubble Love. In order to even use this for review I had to wait until I was staying somewhere with a larger-than-average tub. Even then, disaster ensued (you can see why in the video, and read more in the Dilly section).

5. You don’t need utter discretion. It’s a little noisy. The sound of the motor running isn’t Magic Wand noisy but people will wonder what you’re doing in there. Bathrooms notoriously amplify sound, anyways. In addition to the sound of the motor itself, there’s the port where the Bubble Love sucks in air (I call it the blowhole because the whole thing looks like the Twitter Fail Whale) with a schlurping loud sound if you get water in that port during use ². Many of the better vibrators will be quite a bit less noisy.  Noise aside, there’s the unit. It doesn’t look like a sex toy, that’s for sure. But you will need to drain the water from it and leave it out to dry, and then find a place to store it. It’s larger than your average vibrator.  I’m not about to leave it sitting out all the time. I don’t have a space for it.

I wanted to love the Bubble Love.  But out of the 5 points listed above I only have #5 going for me and that’s not enough to justify it for myself. I can recommend and appreciate a great sex toy even if it’s not my cup of tea so it’s not a matter of being too subjective in this case.  The stream of water definitely is powerful, so it has that going for it, which is something. You won’t find a $40 tub attachment with this powerful of a jet stream, but you can with a showerhead. If the Bubble Love were priced a lot lower – closer to $100? – I might be less critical overall.  But since it IS powerful and it is rechargeable, I don’t doubt that it is priced where it needs to be. It is a quality machine and a product that works mostly as advertised (…except for that hands-free bit which I was never able to replicate).  My problem with the Bubble Love isn’t really with the Bubble Love itself, it’s simply the fact that it’s really only going to be compatible for a small margin of people. Since I wasn’t one of those people, it did color my view BUT I am notoriously a very picky sex toy reviewer who finds, notices and cares about certain faults where most others do not. I really don’t want to crap on the company and I definitely don’t feel that this sex toy should be passed up by everyone – but it will take a certain alignment of stars for the Bubble Love to be the match for you.

I also can’t ignore this wording on their site: “Every woman who has used Bubble Love achieved orgasms and did it faster than with the typical vibrator.” Did I achieve orgasm? Yes. Faster than my Tango or Rosa Rouge? No. Would I continually choose the Bubble Love over my favorite vibrators? Absolutely not. Between the assertions that the Bubble Love is hands-free and the promises that it is better than a vibrator and that “all women” loved it, I’m actually feeling like a failure here for having issues with it and NOT loving it.

Optional “Dilly” Attachment

Dilly. No. Just, no. First, it’s an extra $40. Second, it is attached like a really loose tooth via ball joint. Remember that? When you had a loose tooth and it was hanging on by a thread, you could waggle it and turn it and still it stayed there? That’s what the Dilly was like for me, except that it came loose far more easily than a tooth. I had the coordination  of a drunk baby trying to insert it into my vagina while holding the Bubble Love’s handle AND the Dilly AND keeping myself from slipping down the tub and etc – it was almost comical and almost a tragic accident. Picture this: I’m in a tub that, when sitting, my feet don’t touch the other end. This means my ass slips down a bit until my toes can touch. So I’ve got one leg partially resting on the tub edge leaving me with one foot to keep myself above water. I’m trying to get the Dilly inserted and it’s not working. Suddenly, the Dilly detaches from the Bubble Love and clunks loudly on the tub bottom. I lose my grasp on the Bubble Love’s handle. Like a deflating balloon, the Bubble Love is now scooting around the tub haphazardly by itself at an alarming rate (just like in the video below). I get sprayed in the face. There’s water everywhere. My foot slips from the tub and I start to slide down into the water all because I’m trying to sit up and reach forward for the manic Bubble Love twirling around and shut it off. At this point I’m pissed and most certainly NOT relaxed and I fling the Dilly across the bathroom.

UPDATE: I don’t know how I didn’t see this yesterday. I’d noticed a few black scuff marks on the Bubble Love, and I don’t know how they got there. But today as I was putting it away I notice faint yellow discolorations. I don’t know how it’s happened, but I can only caution you to store it inside a white storage bag and be very careful with it. During the filming of the video below something also happened and I noticed that the two halves of the plastic had separated a bit. I was able to snap them back together, but I still need to caution care when handling and storing. 

Anyways. Since it was that difficult to get the Dilly inserted once, I cannot imagine thrusting with it. If you really want the feeling of fullness, then get yourself a Tantus Ryder Grab Bag for something more hands-free, or just use your favorite dildo. Having the dildo attached to the Bubble Love was not a bonus for me. It was simply more trouble than it was worth. 

I do want to thank Bubble Love for sending me one to check out. If you think this could be the thing you’re looking for, I recommend buying it from SheVibe.