I’m someone who values quality over quantity, which is a trait you’ll notice many of my favourite sex toy manufacturers share. Yet even I have been starting to get a little impatient waiting for the next Hot Octopuss release. I’ve tried every single one of their vaginal toys (as well as a few of their masturbators) since they started making them back in 2017, although while that sounds impressive there have actually only been four, with one of those since being discontinued. It has to be one of the smallest collections of any award-winning adult brand, but whatever they’re doing it’s working, with all three of the currently available products being absolutely top notch and some of the best toys I own. Yet it’s now been almost four years since the last release, so where’s my new obsession? Well, it turns out we have to first go back to that discontinued toy.
Review: Velvet Thruster Prime
2023 is the year of the thruster. I, perhaps prematurely, called it back in June after reviewing just three, yet since then I’ve gone on to double that number, turning a style of product I rarely review into one of my most talked about toys of the year. So today’s post feels almost like a culmination of this trend, because at long last I’m bringing you my review of the Velvet Thruster Prime. One of my most requested sex toys this year, I first started teasing this collaboration with Velvet Brands back in May, and figured I couldn’t let the year end without finally sharing my thoughts on one of the most elaborate thrusters, if not sex toys in general, that I’ve ever received. Because I’m not just reviewing one version of the modular Prime today, but all six of its insertable heads, as well as two of the optional accessories.
Review: ZALO Mose
I’ve tested hundreds of sex toys at this point, so unless a product is truly innovative, like the Snail Vibe or the first suction toys, chances are I’ve already got one or more hidden away somewhere. Because of this, it’s usually the small things that catch my interest when I’m looking at products to review, rather than the toy itself. Exciting new features, such as WOW Tech’s Smart Silence and advanced phone app functions, are easier to come by than someone literally inventing an original sex toy, and one such feature that I’ve been dying to see on a vibrator for awhile now is a proper LED screen. From phones to air fryers, it feels like everything has some form of electronic display screen these days… except for sex toys. But if anyone was going to do it, it was ZALO.
Review: Share Satisfaction Sutra
If we’re talking about sex toys that have managed to break through into the mainstream in recent years, it’s inevitable that names like the Rose Vibe and Satisfyer Pro 2 are going to come up. But another common answer, that I haven’t yet reviewed, has to be the AirVibe. Like the Rose, this white-label productA generic, mass-produced product that is regularly rebranded and sold to different companies, allowing them to all claim it as their own. is known by many names, but it was forever put on the map when ethical porn website Bellesa and the internet’s favourite time-waster Buzzfeed teamed up to release it together in 2020, and have since given away hundreds of copies for free, including a promotion that featured Cardi B. From that point on, I’ve been eager to get my hands on this toy to see what all the fuss was about, and so you can imagine my excitement when I found out New Zealand brand Share Satisfaction had acquired the toy as their very own Sutra.
Review: Womanizer Marilyn Monroe
Of the five core products in Womanizer’s current portfolio, there is only one I have yet to try. The Classic 2, which offers a step up from the Womanizer Liberty while not being quite as powerful as the Premium, has managed to elude my grasp so far. In fact, I had a similar experience with its predecessor, and when I finally did get one, it was sadly discontinued before I could review it. So when I recently heard Womanizer were bringing out a limited edition version of the Classic 2, and Lovehoney asked if I’d like to try it out, I was more than a little excited, not wanting history to repeat. However, the Womanizer Marilyn Monroe Special Edition has since proven to be quite the controversial release, with some fans of the late actress and model praising the German brand for honouring her legacy of empowerment, whilst others have condemned it, noting that her inability to consent to the use of her name runs parallel to the objectification she suffered during her lifetime.
Review: Dame Fin
I love seeing sex toys being talked about in the mainstream media, and if there is one company that is superb at getting attention from media that would usually see sex toys as taboo, it is Dame Products. It’s no surprise, their branding is that of a minimalist and trendy gadget start-up for millennials rather than a sex toy, and quite frankly it is refreshing to see. Their second product Fin, that I am reviewing today, broke records as the first ever sex toy campaign on Kickstarter, and brought in almost $400,000 worth of pledges, despite only having a $50,000 goal. This immediately told me that this toy was going to be a big deal. Since I never tried their first product, Eva, which had a similar crowdfunding success, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. But I did remember hearing that it wasn’t all that great. The Fin’s Kickstarter video looked so good though that I truly believed it would finally cement Dame as a quality sex toy manufacturer. But, then I read this interview, where the product designer states their ‘research‘ of sex toys is based on their purchases from Amazon…. and it all went downhill from there.