The Fleece-lined Wrist Restraints is a pair of high-quality wrist cuffs manufactured by Spartacus. While I haven’t come to expect amazingness out of Spartacus, in my experience, they normally manufacture pretty high-quality products for a decent price. That’s exactly what I was expecting from these cuffs. The cuffs are made from genuine leather (with the sexy smell!) and fleece. There is also metal for the buckling. These have a regular buckle – not a locking one. The cuffs have a width of about two inches.
The cuffs are large enough to fit a variety of wrist sizes – at the tiniest size, I can only fit two fingers in while at the largest, I can fit both of my wrists into the cuff. So you obviously have a nice, huge size range. At the larger sizes, the two ends of the cuff don’t connect when the cuff is buckled on. It still holds just as fine, but it just doesn’t look as nice. However, you’d have to have a very large wrist for that size to be required.
A neat thing about these cuffs is that they make quite a bit of noise. That large o-ring, while great for attaching to points, also works really amazingly for noise. The ring ends up hitting up against the buckle quite often. It makes a lot “ting!” when it does. (I know because I’m trying to write this review while the boyfriend is asleep on the futon.) It’s easily heard in the same room and probably could be heard a bit with the door closed which would lead people to go “wtf are you doing?”. I think it’s actually a sexy noise while someone is wearing them – it sounds a bit like the rattling of chains which, for bondage, is pretty hot. However, just if you need to be discreet, I’m letting you know.
The cuffs are padded with fleece instead of faux fur. This is important because fleece is so much more padded. Fur feels nice, but the fleece is just big! Fur just kinda hangs out on the cuffs while the fleece actually is about 1/3 of an inch in width. This isn’t really a big deal, but I find that it makes the cuffs look a lot more “serious” on the wrist. It’s hard to describe. Since the cuffs look like they are really large and heavy-duty on a wrist (since the fleece is adding so much in diameter), the cuffs look like serious bondage implements instead of just a random pair of cuffs. Coupled with the large O-ring, they look like professional bondage cuffs. Which was definitely sexy as well.
I’m not sure if I’d say that the fleece gave too much of extra comfort during play compared to faux fur. The boyfriend says that the fleece did make the restraints feel more heavy and hotter (as in temperature), but he didn’t see much of a difference in comfort. However, he doesn’t struggle too much. If you have someone that struggles (and usually ends up making the cuff dig into their own skin), I’d imagine these fleece cuffs would provide a lot more cushion than just faux fur. When trying the two against each other with large amounts of tugging, I found that the fleece tends to cushion the wrist quite a bit more for a lot more comfort. Some people may also find the fleece to be a bit itchy after awhile though I honestly can’t say that we experienced that problem.
The cuffs were comfortable. Another EF reviewer found that the cuffs fell off, but I’m not sure how they would. We tried every which way, and if you have the cuffs tightened tightly enough, they don’t come off. Since the fleece is so nicely padded, if you have someone who is really intent enough to get out, they could squeeze their hand through the fleece since the fleece would easily give way while attempting to get out, but when we tried it, it was downright painful, but it could be done. Both of us agreed we wouldn’t ever attempt to do something like that during a scene or anything though just because it was so freakin’ painful to have the blood squished out of your hand.
It’s pretty easy to clean the cuffs. You just want to use a damp washcloth to wipe down the leather. Leather doesn’t take nicely to soap, so I’d recommend against it. I’m honestly not-so-sure about the fleece part – I’d just recommend keeping these cuffs away from bodily fluids and lubricant so you don’t have to worry about cleaning the fleece. I’m sure bodily fluid won’t completely sterilize from this, so if it any gets on it, they should be bonded to that partner. (Or, I was told that leaving them out in the sunlight for a couple weeks would kill off the bacteria. This is because it would make the object a humidity-free zone. You’d have to flip the object over half-way through your weeks though.) For storage, I recommend you curl these back into their circular shape and put them away for storage. The leather does seem to shed – only slightly, but it might require flicking some pieces of leather off your skin after play.
For those who are curious, these cuffs are made from extremely great quality. The fleece is sewn on with multiple threads, the cuff uses rivets and multiple threads to keep the layers together, and the leather is thick enough to be strong enough to resistant to strong tugging. (If these had more wrist support, they are easily of enough quality to be suspension cuffs. They don’t have that wrist support, so I recommend against suspension with these.)
Overall, I’m impressed. Really. None of the cuffs we own compare at all to the quality of these cuffs. The fleece is soft and pads well, the O-ring is strong and makes awesome noise, the leather is thicker than most cuffs which means it will hold up to abuse, and it just has an amazingly kinky appearance overall. If you are ready for the next step in your bondage play (and just want more comfortable cuffs), these are cuffs I’d recommend without a second’s thought.
