Review: Tantus Echo

When I first discovered Tantus, I quickly scampered onto their website and flicked through their pages upon pages of sex toys. Only a few items really jumped out at me as something I desperately wanted, and one of those items was the Echo. With those corkscrew-like ridges and bulbous head, it is a thing of beauty. So naturally, I snapped one up when I saw they were on sale.

Now, before I review the toy, a word of warning: I ordered my Echo direct from Tantus, and the one I ordered was white. However, they sent me a purple one. Color isn’t that important to me, especially if the toy is good, but this experience does make me mildly wary about ordering through Tantus’ website in future. I love you, Tantus, but other sex toy shops always get my order totally correct!

Truly, though, that’s one of the only bad things I can say about this toy… and of course, the color mix-up isn’t the toy’s fault!

As usual, Tantus has knocked it out of the park in terms of material quality. Their silicone is easy to clean and care for, and has lovely little swirls of lighter and darker colors, almost like wood’s grain. The only negative aspect of Tantus’ silicone formulation is that it collects way more lint than any of my other toys; I feel the need to rinse off the Echo before every single use, which is not always convenient.

While I’ve appreciated the craftsmanship and beauty of my other Tantus dildos, they weren’t always a great fit with my anatomy. I found the Flurry O2 too ridgy in the head, and too straight and boring in the shaft, plus it ate lube. I love my Adam O2, but it’s too girthy for me to use on a regular basis; I need to be warmed up and extremely relaxed before my pussy will allow it to enter.

The Echo, however, works much, much better for me. Part of it is that the silicone is very squishy, way more pliable than I was expecting – I can easily bend the toy into a 90-degree angle. This squishiness isn’t always a good thing – I’ll discuss that more later – but in terms of vaginal comfort, it’s definitely a plus for me. The Echo’s design is also fantastic in that the head is the widest part of it, at 1 ½”, and the shaft gets skinnier – so while I sometimes experience mild discomfort when initially inserting the Echo, it quickly goes away as my vagina takes in more of the toy.

The Echo has a flat, circular base which would seem to indicate that it can be used in a harness or for anal play, but I wouldn’t recommend it for either. As I said before, the silicone is very pliable – to the point that the base and lower shaft feel almost flimsy. This is especially true because of the cavity in the bottom that’s made to hold a bullet vibe. I wouldn’t trust the Echo to stand up straight in a harness or to avoid being sucked up into a butt… or even to be easy to thrust quickly, which it isn’t. Despite the fact that its base looks big, it’s just not up to the task.

As for the bullet vibe – I dunno. It’s okay. When it arrived, its watch batteries were already loaded into it, which made me wonder if it’s safe to do that (don’t they tell you to always remove vibrator batteries between uses, to avoid corrosion?). The bullet slides easily into the hole at the bottom of the Echo when lubed a little, and while it’s strong for a bullet, I don’t find that the vibrations add anything to my experience. (The bullet’s presence does, however, make the Echo’s base slightly more substantial-feeling and thus easier to hold onto.)

The Echo’s ridges are perfect. I’m normally not a fan of ridges, particularly ones that are packed close together and intense, but the ones on the Echo are fairly spread out and feel similar to the coronal ridge on a penis – i.e. not overstimulating, just nice. I used to classify myself as someone who just doesn’t enjoy ridges on dildos, but I think I have to give up that label now, because the Echo feels just grand in my pussy. And only one side of the Echo is ridged, so if I’m ever having a particularly texture-sensitive day, I know I can just turn it the other way for a smoother surface.

Also: its head is magical. Maybe it’s because it’s so big and rounded, or maybe it’s the soft silicone, or maybe it’s both, but the Echo’s head never hurts my sensitive cervix – instead, it strokes it, creating that divine anterior fornix stimulation that I thought only my boyfriend’s penis could adequately achieve. I can thrust the Echo deeper than I can insert any other dildo I own, and my pleasure-starved cervix and fornices enthusiastically thank Tantus for that.

Overall, I’m very, very pleased with my purchase. The Tantus Echo has some design issues that detract slightly from its perfection, but it hits all the right spots, feels comfortable in my smaller-than-average pussy, and is of the high quality I’ve come to expect from Tantus. If this dildo was a person, I’d buy it a bouquet of daisies, stare at its ripply muscles, and start to fall in love.

Review: Tantus Flurry O2

When PinkCherry asked me to send them a list of toys I’d be interested in reviewing, I took my time with it. I combed through their site and noted down all sorts of items, from Pipedream to Lelo. But when I sat back and looked at the completed list, I noticed, to my surprise, an overwhelming amount of Tantus. It seemed strange to me because I already own the two Tantus toys I’d coveted the most, the Adam O2 and the Ryder – but I guess Tantus is just more covetable than a lot of other companies for me. Their toys are made of 100% platinum silicone (yay, sanitizability!), are always intelligently designed, come in a variety of colors, and are just overall fantastic.

So I was pretty excited when PinkCherry.ca sent me a Flurry O2 dildo. It’s from Tantus’s O2 line, which consists of all dual-density dildos – they have a core of firm silicone, and an outer layer of softer, squishier silicone, giving them a very real penis-like feeling. Oddly enough, my boyfriend and I both agreed that the Flurry is closer in feeling to his actual penis than the more realistic-looking Adam is – it feels a bit squishier, and the finish seems less sticky.

I was sent the Flurry in the color “twilight,” which is a beautiful pale lavender. The core layer is dark purple, while the soft outer layer is white; this gives the toy a lovely gradient throughout its body, an elegant touch I haven’t seen from anyone but Tantus.

I think of the Flurry as being like the cock of a vampire, or an alien. It’s not made to look realistic, with its two stacked heads and completely smooth shaft. It’s from the more martian-like branch of Tantus’s O2 line, so it doesn’t have veins, balls, a frenulum, or anything else that would make it similar to a penis – except for its obviously phallic shape and that doubled head.

This is the girthiest dildo I’ve ever used, at 1 ½” in circumference (though, admittedly, I am just starting out in the world of reviewing dildos – I’ve been more of a vibrator girl up til now). It takes plenty of warm-up and plenty of lube before I’m ready to let this thing impale me. But when I do, it is deliciously filling in the same way that my boyfriend’s dick is – comforting me with its width, rather than stretching me.

There are two major things to know about potential discomfort with the Flurry. The first is that it is silicone, so it eats lube, and has a bit of drag to it, more than something made of glass or steel would – and therefore, you may need more lube with it than you’d think.

The second thing is, of course, the bulbous ridges, designed to stimulate the G-spot. They do their job, but they are very intense. If you’re texture-sensitive, I wouldn’t recommend this one. Even drizzled in lube, I find these ridges somewhat uncomfortable on entry – though, that discomfort changes to pleasure pretty shortly.

The design of this dildo is a little odd in that it has no texture after the two ridges – so if you want that G-spot stimulation, you have to thrust the toy pretty shallowly. I’m okay with that, especially since I can’t even fit the toy’s whole 7″ inside me (I can get up to about 5 ½” before nudging my cervix), but it makes it a questionable choice for your partner to use on you during oral sex, since it might get in the way if thrusted that shallowly. Its girth does make it fabulous for clenching down on during orgasm, however.

Speaking of nudging my cervix… The Flurry is much softer and squishier at the tip than it is in the shaft, so if it does make contact with my cervix, it’s not a big deal, the way it is with glass. It doesn’t give me that “oh please god no” kind of pain that my cervix usually shoots out when clinked against pyrex. And that is definitely a blessing, especially with a toy as long as this one.

The wide, round base of the Flurry makes it harness-compatible and safe for anal (I didn’t tackle that challenge, because I am a total novice in the world of anal play). There’s a little raised “Tantus” logo at the base of the toy, parallel with the G-spot ridges, which I really appreciated because I have an issue with losing track of how dildos are oriented inside me.

I’d recommend this toy to someone who wants a stellar-quality, non-representational dildo with a bit of girth to it. You might not like it if you like intense G-spot stimulation and deep penetration at the same time, but if you like only one of those at once, the Flurry has got you covered.

Thanks so much, PinkCherry.ca, for bringing a bit of vampire dick into my life (and my vagina)! Check out their sex toy blog and enter their contest to win $100 in sex toys!