silicone vibrator

Review: Lelo Gigi

Kate Sloan

Many times over the years, I’ve accompanied various friends to sex shops to help them pick out a vibrator. And many times, I’ve fawned over the Lelo Gigi, explaining the wonders of its rechargeability, G-spot curve, and elegant appearance. As a result, several of my friends have a Gigi of their own now – but I didn’t get one until just recently. (And yes, I did call up my friends and say, “We’re twins!”)

The Gigi is from Lelo’s first line of toys, and they’ve come a long way since then. The now-antiquated Gigi feels weak and buzzy compared to some of my other Lelo treasures, like the Siri and Mona. If you’re looking for power, this toy will disappoint you.

But it does have some redeeming qualities. For one thing, it’s incredibly beautiful. I don’t know if Lelo has gone in a less glamorous direction in recent years or if I just glamorize their original collection in my mind, but the Gigi is a stunner. It oozes femininity, feels amazingly smooth to the touch, and fits in my hand perfectly.

The G-spotting aspect is pretty good too, though I feel Mona does a better job of that. Gigi is shaped much like the Ella, Lelo’s G-spot dildo, which – although I like it – can’t provide the pressure that I need, because of its slightly bendy neck. The Gigi doesn’t have this problem, since it’s completely firm from tip to tail. However, it’s short – only about 4 ½” insertable – so it’ll only work for you if you have a fairly shallow G-spot (and, ideally, small hands so you can grip that little handle).

I can get off with the Gigi if I use its flat head on my clit, but it’s never anything spectacular. The vibrations are so surface-level that they start to desensitize me after just a few minutes, and they’re not even very strong – the highest speed always feels like not quite enough for me.

If you don’t mind a weak-ish, buzzy vibe as long as it’s beautiful, then you’ll be happy with the Gigi. But otherwise, I’d advise waiting around til Lelo inevitably releases a second version of this toy, with a stronger, rumblier motor.

Review: Fun Factory G4 Patchy Paul

Kate Sloan

Vibrators don’t really excite me that much anymore. I’ve tried so many, and sometimes it feels like they’re all the same. Y’know?

But the Patchy Paul definitely excited me. After it spent months languishing in my wishlist, I finally decided to snap it up… and it delivered.

Fun Factory, particularly their line of G4 vibrators, is known for reeeeally intense and rumbly vibrations. This is not your mama’s vibrator (well, maybe it should be, because she would probably like it too!). This is a badass creation filled with pleasure potential.

Sometimes people ask me, “What can I get that has the power of a Hitachi without the dependence on an electrical outlet?” That’s a very tall order, and I’m not convinced that anything really fits the bill, but probably the closest is either a large Smart Wand or a G4 vibe. If your favorite masturbation accoutrements are slightly reminiscent of a jackhammer, you’ll love the motor in any G4 toy.

But why specifically the Patchy Paul? I chose it because I like texture, but not an insane amount of texture, and I also appreciate some G-spot lovin’. The Paul looks like a caterpillar, with a body that strokes your vaginal walls and a head that nuzzles your G-spot. It even has a little face – perfect for all you caterpillar fetishists out there. (Kidding. Those people aren’t reading this; they’re off looking at a nature blog somewhere. Duh.)

The Patchy Paul is rechargeable, 100% waterproof, and made of body-safe plastic and silicone. The only thing I don’t dig about it is that the vibrations are focused toward the middle of the shaft, not the tip of the toy where they ought to be… but they’re so strong that it doesn’t really affect my experience. I can use this toy vaginally or clitorally and either way, it rocks my ladyparts’ world.

The Patchy Paul has now officially become my favorite G-spot vibrator, right up there with the Lelo Mona. If you can get past its creepy caterpillar face, the two of you might end up being very happy together.

Review: Jimmyjane Form 2

Kate Sloan

Before I was a sex toy reviewer, I lusted passionately after everything Jimmyjane. I was especially curious about the Form 2, and my desire was inflamed even more when I saw that Gala Darling called the Form 2 “the best, best, best sex toy [she has] ever encountered.”

The Form 2 is a waterproof, rechargeable clitoral vibrator shaped like a pair of bunny ears or an extracted tooth. It comes in your choice of hot pink or “slate,” a dark grey color. It charges magnetically via a little dock that you can sit it on when it’s not in use. It’s covered in high-quality silicone and the bottom is stainless steel. In other words: ka-ching! This toy is luxe as hell. If it is your dream to feel like Donald Trump every time you masturbate, then you’ve arrived.

The magic of the Form 2 is in its dual motors. See, each ear has its own motor, so when you lay the toy vertically on your clit, each side gets its own dose of stimulation. I found this difficult to adjust to; normally I get off by having the top of my clit stimulated, through the hood, so stimulation of the sides felt a bit foreign. I remedied this by nestling my clit so the hood touches the valley in between the ears, which feels awesome and gets me off every single time.

But back to those dual motors… The Form 2 has some run-of-the-mill patterns, including constant vibration and short pulsations, but the winner, by a mile, is the oscillation mode. In this mode, the vibrations shift back and forth rhythmically between the two ears, and – as others have noted – it feels kind of like oral sex. Actually, I think it feels closer to oral than toys which try to feel like oral. Ever since I discovered this mode, I haven’t used the others at all, because it’s perfect.

The vibrations of the Form 2 are surprisingly strong and rumbly for how small it is. In fact, sometimes the lowest speed feels like too much when I first start using it – but then I just warm myself up by running the ears lightly over my labia and vaginal opening, and it all works out in the end.

It would be unethical of me to write a review of the Form 2 without mentioning what Epiphora calls its “fatal flaw”. Look around at almost any review of this toy and you’ll see mention of it: apparently sometimes the toy becomes very loud and the vibrations shift into the base, making it unusable. I’ve used my Form 2 many times and I’ve never encountered this glitch, but lots of people have reported it, so I feel it’s important to mention. This toy is expensive as hell and there’s no guarantee that it won’t act up (though it does come with a nice three-year warranty).

The Form 2 has become, easily, one of my very favorite clitoral vibes. It’s stronger and more pinpointed than the Lelo Siri and has better modes than the We-Vibe Tango – but it’s also more expensive and potentially less reliable than either of those toys, so take that into consideration.

Review: Lelo Lyla 2

Kate Sloan

I had no intention of checking out Lelo’s newly updated Insignia SenseMotion toys, because my experience with the original Tiani had been so mediocre. But then I was offered the Lyla 2 to review, and, well… I just can’t turn down free Lelo.

It worked out pretty well, in the end, because the updates Lelo has made to the SenseMotion toys are actually useful, not just for show.

The Lyla is a remote-controlled egg vibrator. It has a sturdy retrieval cord, so you can insert it vaginally with no concerns. As with the other SenseMotion toys, the accompanying remote is a small disk which is very chic-looking but comes with a host of inconveniences. For instance: it requires batteries, which sort of defeats the purpose of the Lyla being rechargeable, and in order to get the batteries in there, you have to use this annoying-ass “key” to get the chamber open.

Plus, the remote vibrates right along with the egg, which I’m sure Lelo thinks is an innovative and useful feature, but which actually just irritates me in almost every situation I’d ever use this toy. You can turn off the remote’s vibrations… in most of the toy’s modes. Not all.

As you can see, most of my gripes are about the toy’s remote rather than the toy itself – and that’s because the egg is pretty great. Its shape reminds me a lot of Lelo’s brilliant Siri vibe; rather than being entirely rounded, it’s got a soft “point” on the underside which sort of helps it to dig into my clit. This results in the vibrations feeling like they penetrate deeper into my clit, rather than just dancing on the surface.

One of the “new and improved” features of these updated SenseMotion toys is that the vibrations are supposed to be stronger. I would damn well hope so, considering how laughably weak my original Tiani was. And indeed, my Lyla 2 is stronger. It’s still weaker than I’d prefer – I find myself wishing there were maybe two or three more settings at the high end – but it can still get me off, so whateva. (Power queens beware: look elsewhere. Though, you probably knew that already. After all, it is Lelo.)

The other major update to this toy is that it supposedly has better wireless strength. This does seem to be true, but there’s still pretty significant delays sometimes: my boyfriend may change the remote’s setting from across the room and it can take several seconds for that change to be reflected in the egg. I’d say Lyla is leaps and bounds better than the other wireless remote-controlled vibes on the market, but it still isn’t perfect. Maybe it just isn’t reasonable to expect a company to ever get the technology right on this one.

I actually prefer the Lyla as a solo clit toy. True, you can’t use a dildo with it, because one hand has to hold the egg while the other holds the remote, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make sometimes. The SenseMotion mode, wherein tilting the remote to different angles produces gradually increasing vibration strengths, is easier and more intuitive than manually pressing a vibrator’s buttons – so when I want a simple and quick clitoral orgasm, I like using the Lyla. It’s also completely waterproof, and is fun for bathtime hijinks.

I don’t know how I feel about recommending the Lelo Lyla 2 to folks. It costs $139, which is expensive even for Lelo, and it’s not a perfect or versatile toy. But if you really, really want a remote-controlled vibe of the highest caliber, Lyla’s the one you’re looking for.

Review: PicoBong Kaya

Kate Sloan

Lelo is one of my very favorite sex toy companies. They make beautiful, rechargeable vibrators that could satisfy any luxury-loving vibration fan. In their efforts to expand, they released a cheaper, lower-end line of toys, marketed toward younger people with less money to spend on “luxury erotic lifestyle objects” – people like me, I suppose. The line is called PicoBong and it’s been effectively torn apart by the sex toy reviewers of the world.

Judging by the awful-to-middling descriptions of PicoBong’s toys, which cite flaws ranging from insufficient vibrations to badly-placed seams, I wasn’t expecting much when I received my bright turquoise Kaya in the mail. But I soon learned that Kaya is from PicoBong’s newer line of products, and is therefore a significant improvement on the items reviewers were rightfully complaining about. Still, though, it’s far from perfect.

If I could design my ideal rabbit, it would look similar to the Kaya – slim-to-average shaft, flexible curved clitoral arm, body-safe silicone, simple controls (up, down, change mode) – but my rabbit would have a twirling shaft, not a vibrating one. Why? Because most G-spots, including mine, respond better to stroking and pressure than they do to vibration. I think a vibrating rabbit shaft is something of a cop-out: an easy way to design a toy, but not the most effective design for the majority of users, at least from what I can tell.

Kaya’s power is far better than I was expecting, given how many people lamented the pitiful vibration strength of the previous PicoBong products. Turned all the way up, it’s comparable to the upper speeds of my Lelo Mona – strong enough to get off the average user, but not enough for a power queen. The clitoral arm thrums impressively, and as ambivalent as I feel about the internal motor, it’s not bad, either.

Kaya is waterproof. I successfully used it in the bath without any problems. It’s not the quietest of toys, but it’s certainly not the loudest – a bedmate would hear you using it, but someone down the hall probably wouldn’t.

The Kaya really shines when you start cycling through its vibration modes. Most of them just switch back and forth between the two motors, but they do so in varied and creative ways. There’s one pattern in particular that I really like, where the clitoral arm hums steadily while the internal motor goes up and down in a roller-coaster-like way, feeling almost like it’s stroking my G-spot. Sadly, this mode is useless to me when I want to reach orgasm, because the up-and-down buttons control the internal motor in this mode, while the external motor stays at the same medium level no matter what I do. If I want to get off with this mode, I have to press the outer arm into my clit or rub it up and down – and that sort of defeats the purpose of using a sex toy, doesn’t it?

The Kaya’s shape is good, its vibrations are adequate, and it’s easy to use. However, I can’t give it my seal of approval, because it costs $89.95. For a battery-powered vibe that will only work for some users, that’s way too much money. I’d be willing to say this toy was worth the price if it was rechargeable, or if the shaft rotated, or if each motor could be controlled independently, but that’s not the case.

Get Kaya if you really, really want a cute-looking, battery-powered, waterproof, dual-stimulation vibrator with cool modes and a medium amount of power. But if that doesn’t sound like exactly what you’re looking for, I’d recommend that you spend a few extra dollars and spring for a toy from Lelo proper, or get a cheaper rabbit vibe from a different brand instead (as long as it’s made of a nonporous material). The Kaya is good, but not nearly good enough to warrant its high price tag.