wand vibrator

Reviews: We-Vibe Tango X, Satisfyer Curvy 3+, & Lelo Smart Wand 2

Kate Sloan

I was sent these three toys recently while researching some pieces for the Insider about the best sex toys for couples and long-distance play. Here’s what I thought of each!

We-Vibe Tango X

I’ve long been loud about how much I love the original We-Vibe Tango. It has most of the qualities I’d ever want in a clitoral vibe: small, rumbly, powerful, firm, versatile, quiet, and waterproof. But it was missing a few key features – namely, it lacked a travel lock, had only one button you had to use to scroll through all 8 modes, and had a notoriously bad battery that was finicky as hell to charge and would tend to die completely after 1-3 years of use. Hence me owning several Tangos in my time.

The new Tango X has fixed all of those issues: We-Vibe added buttons for navigating between settings, provided a travel-lock option, and equipped the toy with a better battery that charges more easily. They also added an ergonomic silicone finger grip, something I hadn’t known I wanted but that makes the toy a lot easier for me to use on bad hand pain days.

The vibe is just as rumbly and strong as it ever was, albeit with more steady vibration settings to choose from so the jumps between settings don’t feel as abrupt as they used to. The addition of extra buttons, in particular, makes this toy much less annoying to use during partnered sex, because I don’t have to scroll through aaaaall the settings to get back to my fave, thus interrupting the action with some ill-timed vibration patterns. I’ve used the Tango X with my partner several times now and it is even more intuitive and well-suited to partnered-sex applications than it used to be, plus it remains a trusted choice for masturbation, whether I’m pairing it with a dildo or using the Tango X on its own.

I find it impressive that We-Vibe managed to keep the Tango X relatively affordable – $75 at time of writing – despite all these upgrades. (Canadians, that’s about $99 for us.) It remains an absolute staple in my toy collection, and because it has such rumbly and variable vibrations, I think it’d make a great gift for any vulva-possessing person in your life who has expressed wanting a clitoral vibrator but doesn’t quite know what to look for. Bravo, We-Vibe – bravo!

Satisfyer Curvy 3+

This ultra-sleek pressure-wave toy looks to me like something a grown-up Regina George might use. It’s cool, modern, and ergonomic as hell.

I was interested in the Curvy 3+ because Satisfyer gave me its predecessor, the Curvy 2+, back at ANME, and I loved it more than I expected to. The softly rounded edges of the “mouth” made it more comfortable around my clit than a lot of its pointier-edged counterparts, it had a broad range of settings and patterns, and its shape and matte silicone made it easy to hold onto, even when lube got involved. The “handle” end also vibrates and is insertable, incase you want to switch back and forth between clit stimulation and G-spot vibration – great if you’re travelling and don’t have access to other toys, I guess – but I didn’t end up using that feature much because, well, I own many, many dildos that feel better than the Curvy 2+’s handle.

That said, after trying the updated 3+ version, I actually prefer the earlier one! The 3+ has a flatter design that feels less sexy and more clinical in my hand somehow, and consequently its insertable end is also slimmer and less satisfying; it pokes my G-spot rather than filling me up. Most crucially, the “mouth” of the 3+ is smaller, shallower, and has less rounded-off edges, whereas the 2+ has a mouth that’s a good 0.1″ wider and 0.2″ deeper – which may not sound like much, but can make a big difference for a clitoral pressure-wave toy. I can fit a significant amount of my hooded clit into the Curvy 2+, but pretty much only the tip will comfortably fit into the 3+ and generally I have to pull back my hood a bit (yowch!) to even accomplish that much. The 2+’s mouth also has those gently rounded edges that make it much comfier to use, even when I’m pressing the toy firmly against my body.

Satisfyer’s app functionality is worth mentioning here, because it’s really fucking good. Like Lovense toys, Satisfyer toys connect quickly to their corresponding app and are super responsive when you’re controlling them that way. My partner and I have found my Satisfyer Curvy 2+ useful when we’re 500 miles apart but they want to “go down on me”; short of hiring a cunnilingually gifted sex worker and whispering instructions into their ear via audio call, the Satisfyer app is the closest my partner can get to performing oral on me when they can’t actually put their mouth on me.

While I’m sure some people will appreciate the aesthetic updates and functional differences of the Satisfyer Curvy 3+ versus its predecessors in the Curvy line, it’s the Curvy 2+ that has captured my heart (and my clit’s heart, if it had one), and that’s the one I’ll be reaching for more often in the future.

Lelo Smart Wand 2

Obligatory caveats about Lelo: ethically, they are… not great. They hired a domestic abuser as their spokesperson despite abuse survivors’ outcries against this, produced condoms that seem like a health hazard, sued We-Vibe in a vindictive act of patent-trolling, and released a sex toy excusively for male bankers (????), among other things.

While I do think their products have had a sharp decline in quality over the past decade or so, their Smart Wand line is a rare diamond in the rough, IMO – albeit with some problems of its own. I loved my original Smart Wand, although later it betrayed me by dying after only a year. No matter what I did to try to recharge and revive it, it was simply dead, dead, dead. I was just outside of Lelo’s 1-year warranty period so the best they would’ve done for me is provide me with a 50% discount code to buy another one, which – given how quickly the first one had perished – seemed risky and futile.

When I was at ANME in early 2020, I saw a new version of the Smart Wand on display which was bright turquoise (or “aqua,” according to Lelo). This exact shade is one of my favorite colors ever – in fact, I’m currently typing on a computer whose hard-shell case and keyboard cover are both the same color as my Smart Wand 2 – so I ached for it on those grounds alone. Later I asked Lelo for one, and it is just as glorious a hue as I remembered.

I’m not actually sure what’s different about the Smart Wand 2 versus the original Smart Wand; it’s been too long for me to remember and Lelo’s product copy is annoyingly unclear on this point. I do know that a lot of people reported mechanical issues with the original Smart Wand, most notably that sometimes the vibrations would jump around erratically, suddenly ramping up to a high setting or dropping to a low setting without users’ consent. This glitch was mostly reported as happening on the toy’s highest settings – and unfortunately, some reviewers say the Smart Wand 2 has the same issue.

I personally haven’t experienced this glitch, and didn’t experience it with the original Smart Wand, which suggests to me that maybe I use this vibe differently than the folks who noticed this problem. Pressure is often a culprit when vibes glitch out, but I’ve experimented with various amounts of pressure while using the Smart Wand 2 and still haven’t encountered that particular glitch (though I do notice that the vibe tends to get a bit weaker when you press it into your body, as often happens with vibrators). 🤷🏻‍♀️ Your mileage may vary, and purchase at your own risk!

I actually kind of love the Smart Wand 2, I’m somewhat ashamed to say. It’s gorgeous, smooth, and glamorous. Its handle has an ergonomic curved shape that I find useful when I massage my neck and shoulders with it. It’s reasonably quiet for a wand vibe, especially on the lower end of its intensity levels, and gets very strong and rumbly when you want it to. It’s also 100% waterproof, something that used to not matter as much to me in wand vibes but that matters enormously to me now that I live with chronic pain and thus do some of my best relaxin’ and wankin’ in the tub.

But despite all its glamour and strength, the Smart Wand 2 does have some problems. The buttons annoy me at least once every time I use it; Lelo has a bad habit of designing toys with buttons that somehow seem both oversensitive and undersensitive, sometimes requiring multiple presses to go to the next setting and sometimes skipping a few settings with just one press. I also find that the “+,” “–,” and “pattern” buttons are pretty indiscernible from one another when you’ve got your eyes closed or are using the toy in the dark, so I’ve accidentally started a vibration pattern many times when I meant to hit the “+” button instead, potentially ruining or losing my impending orgasm.

I’m also not especially fond of the rounded head. It works well for muscle massage, but one of the reasons I love my Magic Wand Rechargeable is that it has a more squarish shape so I can use its head’s edges/”corners” to produce a more focused, pinpointed sensation on my clit than the broad roundness the Smart Wand 2 allows for. However, if you like all-over vulva vibration, that won’t be an issue for you.

The Lelo Smart Wand 2 costs a whopping $199, and as stunning and seductive as it is, I don’t think it’s really worth that amount of money, especially when you can get a more dependable Magic Wand Rechargeable for just $130, or We-Vibe’s Wand (which is fully waterproof like the Smart Wand) for $170. The Smart Wand 2 reminds me of a beautiful but erratic socialite – and while that kind of person is fun to spend a night with once in a while, generally I’d rather come home to a reliable sweetheart like my Magic Wand.

 

Thanks to We-Vibe, Satisfyer, and Lelo for sending me these toys to try! Have you used any of these? What did you think?

Review: Magic Wand Plus

Kate Sloan

When I interviewed Shay Martin – co-owner of Vibratex, the company that legendarily saved the Magic Wand from extinction when Hitachi wanted to pull the plug on it – for a story I was writing in 2015, she said something that sex toy makers never say. She said that in updating and modernizing the toy, she was doing her best to keep everything the same, with the exception of the problems the redesign was trying to fix (mostly, the porous foam head and the overworked motor). She said she knew she was going to receive phone calls from Magic Wand purists regardless, claiming the new toy felt different or sounded different or just was different in ways that mattered to them – so it made sense to change only what absolutely was not working – a head all too easily stained by menstrual blood or cum, a motor known to occasionally burst into flames – and leave almost everything else the exact same.

This is rare in the sex toy biz. The We-Vibe Nova 2 is a recent example of a sex toy re-release that kept the best and tossed the rest – but in general, sex toy updates tend to add bells and whistles nobody asked for (*cough* Lelo) without making the improvements that would actually excite customers (*cough* also Lelo). So, needless to say, I’ve been wanting to try the Magic Wand Plus ever since it was announced – and thanks to my pals at TheVibed.com, I finally got to!

For context, there are already two major Magic Wands to be aware of (not counting the literally hundreds, if not thousands, of knockoffs and wannabes out there): the Magic Wand Original, a plug-in 2-speed behemoth essentially identical to the original Hitachi Magic Wand except for the minor motor updates as outlined above, and the Magic Wand Rechargeable, a contemporized version that no longer chains you to an outlet and that boasts 2 extra speeds and some vibration patterns. The MWR is the better choice for the vast majority of users, because its added 2 speeds are on the lower end of the intensity spectrum, bringing it down from “HOLY FUCK” territory into something more approachable, even for a vibrator novice – but, notably, the MWR is more than twice the price of the MWO. So it’s no surprise so many horny hopefuls on a budget would go for the MWO; it was the best option that existed for them – until the Magic Wand Plus.

The MWP is the best of both worlds: it has the MWR’s nonporous silicone head and wider variety of speeds, but is only a little pricier than the MWO: $65 versus $55 on TheVibed. The trade-off is that it’s plug-in rather than rechargeable, and it doesn’t have vibration patterns. That’s it.

The more that I think about it – and the more that I use the MWP instead of my well-worn old MWR – the more I realize that those trade-offs are no big deal for me at all. I almost never use vibration patterns, and I almost never use wand vibrators anywhere that doesn’t have electrical outlet access (especially in, y’know, pandemic times). Sure, it’s great to have a travel-friendly vibe I could whip out in a bar bathroom or back alley if need be, but generally I need those vibes to be small. I can literally only think of one time that I used a wand in a situation that lacked nearby outlets, and that was during a porn shoot at a sex club – not exactly a normal set of circumstances for most people.

The combination of laziness, depression, and chronic pain also renders me chronically reticent to plug in my vibes when they run out of juice – so, despite the modernity and convenience of wireless toys, my most-used vibrators these days are ones that plug into the wall. I am just not organized or on-top-of-things enough to habitually remember to charge vibes before I need them, so electric ones are, oddly enough, often the best choice for me. (That said, though, the MWR has a brilliant feature a lot of other rechargeable toys lack: you can use it while it’s charging. The more you know…)

So, that being the case, I cannot think of a single thing I love about the Magic Wand Rechargeable that the Magic Wand Plus doesn’t also have. And it’s about half the price, which is a pretty fucking big benefit, especially right now when many people’s sex toy budget is – to say the least – constricted.

The lack of vibration patterns on the MWP freed up some space in the control panel, so Vibratex added a “minus” button. This means that you can quickly move back to the previous speed if you so desire, instead of needing to cycle through all 4 like you do on the MWR. This is a pretty small difference, unless you like to move up and down the intensity scale a lot during sessions like I do, in which case it might actually be super convenient.

I do not have Princess & the Pea-level genital discernment skills, so in discussing the more minute differences between these toys, I will defer to my friend Epiphora, who does. She says the MWP is slightly buzzier and stronger than the MWR – possibly owing to differences in motor weight – and when I really strain to pay attention, I can detect this too. But, as she also notes, the difference is most notable between the 2nd and 3rd speed, so if (like me) you tend to hang out on the lower 2 speeds, this won’t be an issue for you. (For reference, I always max out when using smaller vibes like the Tango, but the lowest 2 speeds of the MWR/MWP are more than rumbly and strong enough to get me off.)

Perhaps as a result of the minor differences in buzziness/strength, I also notice that the MWP is louder and rattlier than the MWR. But both quiet down significantly when pressed against skin and flesh, where (presumably) they will spend most of their time.

I sort of wish the MWP’s wire was a bit longer – it stretches 6 feet – but I also know that the 12-foot length of my beloved Eroscillator‘s cord gets tangled more than I would prefer, and can be more of a hindrance than a convenience at times. If your preferred sexytimes zone is more than a couple feet away from an outlet, I would suggest throwing an extension cord into your cart alongside the MWP if possible, but it’s not a huge deal. The wire also gets in my way occasionally when I’m holding the toy, but I just rotate it around until the wire juts out away from me and the annoyance is neutralized.

So what’s my verdict? The Magic Wand Plus is a genius invention. Vibratex found a way to make a blessedly more affordable version of their absolutely magnificent Magic Wand Rechargeable, without compromising on any functions that matter to me. If you care a lot about portability or patterns, then disregard this – but if all you want is beautifully strong vibrations at a decent price, I think the Magic Wand Plus is absolutely the best bang for your buck.

 

Thanks so much to TheVibed for sending me this toy to try! This review was sponsored, which means I was paid to write an honest and fair review of this toy. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

10 Ways Vibrators Can Be Therapeutic (+ a Giveaway!)

Kate Sloan
Photo via Bellesa

It would be easy to think, comparing my work to that of my journalism-school colleagues now reporting on business and politics, that what I do is comparatively frivolous. Sex writing is, after all, largely about fun and pleasure – or at least, that’s how it’s often perceived from the outside. In reality, many people writing about sex today delve into hugely important sub-topics of that realm, like health justice, trauma, education policy, and gender inequality. Sex is no small thing, and it never has been.

That’s why today I wanted to highlight for you 10 ways that people use vibrators therapeutically. As with all medical suggestions you read online, you should run these by your doctor and/or therapist before trying them – and if you do, I hope you find them helpful!

Toning the pelvic floor

Pelvic muscle contractions, the likes of which are experienced during orgasm and high levels of arousal, strengthen the muscles they employ. These muscles’ fitness is responsible for longer and stronger orgasms, yes, but also for preventing pelvic health issues like urinary incontinence.

Healing from trauma

My friend Sarah Brynn Holliday has written about how sex toys can be instrumental in rediscovering pleasure after sexual trauma. A sex toy you know well is controllable in a way that human partners are not, so when you need or want to control your sexual experience to avoid triggering or re-traumatizing yourself as best as you can, sex toys can be helpful.

Alleviating menopause symptoms

For some people, menopause causes the onset of “vulvovaginal atrophy,” wherein decreased estrogen levels in vaginal tissue cause the vagina to become dry, irritated, and sore. The vaginal walls may become thinner, leading to painful sex, especially sans lube. Gynecology professor Dr. Mary Jane Minkin told the Huffington Post in 2013 that vibrators stimulate increased pelvic blood flow, potentially alleviating these symptoms. Some of the menopausal women in my life have also found it psychologically helpful to masturbate more as they age, since our culture tends to harmfully frame older women as unsexual and unsexy (boooo!).

Managing depression

This is a big one for me. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes administering an orgasm through the use of a vibrator can kickstart the production of some happy neurotransmitters and thereby lift my mood. This is especially helpful given that, in the throes of a depressive episode, I often find my own genitals unsettling to touch – so it’s a godsend to be able to hold a vibrator against my pajama pants and get off without grossing myself out or upsetting myself further.

Massaging muscles

We all know about this one – especially since the famous Magic Wand Original (née Hitachi Magic Wand) was developed for sore muscles. This way of using vibrators has become particularly important to me since I developed chronic pain, and I’m so glad it’s an available option.

Increasing desire

There seems to be a “horniness begets horniness” effect at work in many people’s sex lives. It’s what sex researcher Emily Nagoski refers to as “responsive desire,” which she affirms is a normal way of experiencing your sexual appetite, despite the medical community’s historical insistence on misdiagnosing this as “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” or straight-up “frigidity.” In any case, if your sex drive is lower than you would like it to be, regular usage of vibrators is recommended by some doctors to boost your libido. Worth a shot!

Pleasure after injury

Several studies, for example, have noted vibrators’ ability to provoke sexual response even in people who have sustained spinal cord injuries that otherwise inhibit their sensitivity and functioning. This seems to be discussed most often in the context of obtaining semen from disabled men so they can father children, rather than in the context of pleasure or satisfaction, but its implications are encouraging nonetheless.

Combating vaginismus

Vaginismus is a vaginal pain condition in which involuntary pelvic muscle spasms make penetrative sex extremely painful or outright impossible. Vaginal dilators of steadily increasing size are one oft-recommended intervention for vaginismus, and these pair well with vibrators, both because vibration helps muscles relax and because pleasure can gradually overwrite the patient’s mental associations between sex and pain.

Mending relationships

Granted, a vibrator alone is not going to solve your relationship problems – interpersonal connections have too many complex layers for “quick fixes” to do any good. But if, for example, one partner has trouble relaxing into pleasurable sex due to stress in their life, or someone’s inability to orgasm has become a point of friction in the relationship, or your sexual connection has simply grown stale and rote, the addition of a vibrator could help. There will be other mental/psychological/interpersonal work to do, too, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. (Just please don’t buy a vibrator out of the blue for a partner who has never expressed any interest in owning one. This is coercive, presumptuous, and weird!)

Post-breakup self-care

For me, the saddest part of a breakup is always the idea that not only have I lost the love/companionship/pleasure I achieved with my ex, but also that I might never find those things again with anyone else. This is obviously bullshit, but it’s a very persuasive idea to a grieving brain. Vibrators have always helped me at this time: I know that even if my latest paramour has fucked off, I can still make myself come, and that’s powerful. It’s sometimes the first step toward rediscovering my own strength, resilience, and potential.

If, after reading all that, you’re thinking, “I’ve gotta get me a vibrator,” you’re in luck – the fine folks at Bellesa are offering up a Nirvana wand vibrator for one lucky reader in North America! Bellesa focuses on making sex toys for women, but of course, anyone of any gender and body type can use a vibrator, especially one as versatile as the Nirvana. It’s a rechargeable, waterproof, silicone wand vibe, and you can use it on any external erogenous zone that enjoys vibration. Yay!

Here’s how to enter: 1) follow @BellesaCo on Instagram, 2) follow me (@Girly_Juice) on Instagram, and 3) leave a comment on this Instagram post of mine answering the question “What’s one way you think vibrators can be therapeutic?” and tagging a friend. The giveaway will run for a week, and then I’ll pick a random winner. Please note that you must be over 18 and must live in North America to win. Good luck!

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Review: Bodywand Midnight Plug-In Massager

Kate Sloan

Astute readers will recall that the quest for a rumbly, reliable, petite wand vibrator has occupied a lot of my sex toy testing time over the past year. Seeking a travel-friendly wand capable of getting me off in hotel rooms, I’ve tried colorful contenders, sleek silver selections, and rose-gold gadgets. But all of them have come up short: most often, they’re too buzzy or weak; sometimes they have mechanical problems that make them short out at crucial moments; sometimes they just don’t feel sexy enough to slot into a fantasy-like hotel tryst.

But I’m elated to announce that I’ve finally found the compact wand of my dreams: the Bodywand Midnight plug-in massager.

Sometimes I feel like Bodywand is a secret I’m keeping from the sex toy world. They just don’t seem that widely known about; they’re almost never recommended in the same breath as the Magic Wand and the Doxy. I’ve had an original plug-in Bodywand for years and it remains a staple of my collection, a failsafe for times when many other vibrators just aren’t up to snuff, because its vibrations are strong enough, rumbly enough, and it has a DIAL.

Let me tell you about the dial, because it’s a big fucking deal. The vast majority of wand vibrators – and indeed, vibrators in general – have buttons (or sometimes, infuriatingly, just one button) which you use to navigate through the various speeds and settings. This system probably works fine for most people, but my clit is easily numbed and easily overstimulated, so sometimes a too-big jump between speeds can desensitize or overload my bits before I even realize what’s happened. I almost always wish I had more granular control over vibration strength. With Bodywand, I finally fucking do.

Both this smaller Midnight edition and my older, bulkier Bodywand have a dial, and it’s a fucking godsend. I can edge up their power just the tiniest bit at a time, and slide it back down again when I need to. I can control my entire experience, second by second, with the smallest flicks of my thumb. It makes me feel empowered where a lot of vibrators leave me frustrated and defeated.

The quality of the vibrations, too, impresses me. I find them deliciously rumbly – but I should note that they’re only really rumbly for the bottom one-third to one-half of the vibration range. Friends who need more power have described these vibes as buzzy, but I tend to stay on the lower side of this vibrator’s capabilities so I only ever encounter rumbliness for the most part. Sometimes I nudge up into buzzy-land toward the end of a long session, but at that point it’s the type of buzziness that pushes me over the edge, rather than numbing me out.

This vibrator’s flexible neck works fine for me because I don’t put a lot of pressure on my clit when I use vibes, but if you do like pressure, you’ll probably find this vibrator unworkable. While we’re talking about the neck, I should also mention that the head is apparently made of thermoplastic rubber – a bummer, for sure. It would have been so easy to make it silicone and it would have improved this product substantially. Since TPR is porous, I’ll have to stick a condom on this wand if I ever want to share it with a partner I’m not fluid-bonded with, use it anally (which I wouldn’t recommend, but hey), or use it while menstruating or while getting over a vaginal infection. It’s not the biggest deal but it is annoying.

But for the most part, I’m over the moon for this vibrator. At 10″ long, it’s a reasonable size for my carry-on luggage, and also doesn’t take up much room on my nightstand when I’m using it at home. The dial makes a satisfying clicking noise when it kicks on, and gives me sublime control over my experience. The vibe being electric might inconvenience some people, but for me, it just means I don’t have to worry about batteries and charging. The head thrums faithfully against my body and gives me easy, consistent orgasms, which I appreciate all the more because so many other vibrators have utterly failed at this task.

The Bodywand Midnight massager is the best new vibe I’ve tried in a long time, and I’m sure that it and my suitcase are about to get closely acquainted.

 

Thanks so much to Bodywand for sending me this product to try!

It’s a Wand Vibe Throwdown!

Kate Sloan

Recently SuporAdultProduct.com reached out asking me to review some toys for them, and I noticed that they had a super robust wand vibrators section. I haven’t seen this many wands in one place since the last Harry Potter movie! Here are some mini-reviews of the 3 rechargeable wands they sent me…

“The Original Rechargeable Magic Wand Vibrator“ (a.k.a. “the pink one”)

Pros:

  • Most importantly: the vibrations are pretty good. Strong, relatively rumbly, everything I want.
  • It has 6 steady speeds – more than most wands of this size. Well, it actually has 3 different steady-speed modes, each of which has both a high and a low setting. (Sound complicated? Yeah, I’ll get to that when I list the cons…)
  • It’s a truly electric, Pepto Bismol shade of pink. Delightful.
  • It has a bendy neck, which I’m told some people care about.
  • At $28.99, it’s much cheaper than I would generally expect for a vibe this big and strong.

Cons:

  • As you can probably infer, it’s an obvious knockoff of the official, Japanese-made Magic Wands we know and love.
  • As such, it feels light and insubstantial – not at all the hefty luxury item that a real Magic Wand Rechargeable feels like to me. The ABS plastic casing feels like it could fall apart at any moment.
  • While the website claims the toy’s head is made of silicone, to me it looks, feels, and smells more like whatever cheap foamy substance made up the heads of original Magic Wands (read: probably porous).
  • The controls aren’t exactly intuitive. There’s a power button, a speed-change button, and a button for cycling through several patterns. Some of the patterns’ speeds can be changed, some can’t.
  • This wand is as loud as the original Magic Wand, which is to say, loud.

“Bodywand Plug In Multi Function Massager Black“ (a.k.a. “the black one”)

Pros:

  • The vibrations of this one, too, are strong and rumbly – though they do get slightly buzzier as you increase the speed.
  • It has a stellar eight speeds, and several patterns.
  • I like how its ABS plastic body feels in my hand: substantial and smooth, sort of like the original Doxy.
  • Also like the Doxy, it has a subtly curved/tapered body which makes it comfortable to hold, and feels sexy to the touch.

Cons:

  • Once again, I’ve gotta say, this appears to be a knockoff. I doubt Bodywand made this.
  • The head – which may or may not be made of silicone – picks up lint, dirt, and hair constantly, so I need to carefully rinse it off a lot.
  • The seam on said head is slim and thus tough to clean.
  • The shape of the head is too broad and round to suit my tastes; I prefer something with an angular edge I can use to focus the vibrations onto my clit in a more pinpoint way.
  • Most annoyingly: this wand, for no apparent reason, starts at its highest speed when you first turn it on. You have to press the speed button seven times to get down to the lowest setting if that’s where you want to start, and then it starts building back up again.

“Pipedream USB-Rechargeable Silicone Mini Body Massager“ (a.k.a. “the purple one”)

Pros:

  • Most amazingly, you can use EITHER END of this toy. It has one button which controls the motor in the head, and one which controls the motor in the shaft/handle. (You can’t have both on at once, but you wouldn’t really ever need to.)
  • Both motors are impressively strong and rumbly (though the head’s motor is rumblier).
  • Each end has 3 steady speeds and a bunch of patterns.
  • The toy appears to be covered in a body-safe silicone casing.
  • I love the petite size of this wand.
  • It’s got a fair amount of flexibility and squishiness to it, especially in the shaft/handle, setting it apart from most traditional wands.

Cons:

  • I’m sensing a theme: this is definitely a knockoff. Pipedream did not make this.
  • The controls aren’t intuitive. Several times, when I thought I was turning the vibrator off, its buttons just lit up in inscrutable rainbow colors and didn’t shut off until I pressed more buttons.
  • The toy feels somewhat poorly constructed: I can feel mechanical pieces sliding around a little underneath the silicone outer casing, and some of the buttons on the casing don’t quite line up with the places you actually need to press to get the toy to do anything.
  • The vibe occasionally overheats during use, to a worrying degree.
  • The floral texture all over the toy would be a bitch to clean.

Overall: the purple one is my fave. It’s somehow the rumbliest of the bunch, despite being the smallest, and I love the dual motors. I was surprised by how much I liked these vibes, given that they’re all under $40 and somewhat sketchy!

 

Thanks to SuporAdultProduct.com for sending me these toys and sponsoring this post. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.