Better Sex Essentials Liquid Lubricant

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When I first started outlining this review, I thought I was a pretty easy going person, lube wise. I don’t need a lot a frills, vegan ingredients or fancy, fruity flavoring – just a good quality product that keeps things going. But as I listed my pros and cons of the Better Sex Essentials Liquid Lubricant, I began to realize that I require more from my lube than originally suspected.

Let me tell you a bit about this specific lube before going off on my rant. Better Sex Essentials Liquid Lubricant is a water-based lube from Sinclair Intimacy Institute. According to the bottle it is expert recommended, hypoallergenic, glycerin- free, non-toxic and latex compatible. Sounds like it would be a good pick, but unfortunately it didn’t really measure up to my apparently high standards. Ok, onward to my grumblings.

First, lube needs to be slippery. Duh, right? Well, you’d be surprised. The nature of lube is to make your bits nice and slick to enhance pleasurable friction. Sounds right to me. So, why do lubes get sticky and gummy so quickly? Yes, stickiness is a known problem with water-based lubes, so I can’t blame Better Sex Essentials for the problem, but it’s highly frustrating when you want to get off and you need to keep adding water (read: adding spit) to the lube to reactivate it. I will say that Better Sex Essentials wasn’t better or worse than any other water-based option I’ve tried. If you’re looking for long-lasting slide, you’ve gotta go with silicone-based.

That said, I need my lube to be water-based, so yay that Better Sex Essentials is! While silicone-based lube is great, I’m never sure when I’m going to want to add a toy to the mix, and most of my go-to toys are silicone. And as we know, silicone lube and silicone toys are not a good pairing – unless I want a melted pile of silicone goo. No thanks.

Another thing I really like is to know that my lube won’t make my vag unhappy. Nobody wants an irritated snatch. It’s important to me that my lube is glycerin-free and hypoallergenic, which Better Sex Essentials is. True, I can’t pronounce most of the ingredients, but I think that’s probably true of most of the stuff I put on or in my body (have you SEEN what kind of crap is in a Poptart?!). And while I’d rather know what all the ingredients are, I’m just happy to know that there will be no glycerin – or it’s associated yeasty beasty – in my vag!

A lesser issue, but still an issue, is that I want my lube to be odor and taste free. To me, there is nothing less sexy than having to stop everything to get a gross tasting lube out of the way. Unfortunately Better Sex Essentials turned out to be a little bit lacking in the department. Not only did the lube smell like some sort of astringent cleaner product (which automatically reminds me of pimply teenagers – way to murder the mood), it had a very chemically, alcohol-ish taste. Think rubbing alcohol, not so much expensive rum. So, if you are even remotely thinking of heading downtown for a little oral entertainment, think before pulling this lube out of the drawer.

All in all, Better Sex Essentials is a decent lube made by sex-positive folks who care about enhancing your pleasure. While not everything is as I would like it to be, this water-based lube is a quality product I would use in a pinch. I’m not giving it a place on my coveted ‘frequently used toys’ shelf, but next time I run out of my favorite lube, I know where I’ll be heading for backup coverage.

Get your own Better Sex Essentials Liquid Lubricant!

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