UPDATE: May 2020: The Bijoux Collection Deluxe: Striptease is no longer in production. Bijoux Indiscrets is still around, but this collection is not.
The Collection Deluxe: Striptease from Bijoux Indiscrets is a small collection of items that are commonly used for performing a striptease. The collection includes a CD, a feather boa, some pasties, a garter, a little book, and some fake money. One of the items is meant for smaller/average-sized women, but the majority of these items are reusable and can be used by all genders and body sizes.
This all comes packaged in a black, metal tin. This tin is relatively small for the huge size of the boa. We have a very difficult time packaging the feather boa back into this original tin. Instead, there are usually feathers sticking out and such. This can make it relatively difficult for storage – especially if you don’t have somewhere to leave out a feather boa. However, the rest of the set is pretty easy to hide, and the collection tin itself is very discreet and is made strongly, so it can be stored with other items on top of it. All of the smaller items are stored in a cylinder-like box that is made from cardboard, and it leaves the items slightly bent.
The garter included in the set is a bright, hot red color. The EF picture makes it look much more muted, but think of your traditional fire-engine red, and you’ll have an idea of what shade of red this garter is. This garter does stretch quite a bit, and it includes a fake little bow on the side. It has elastic inside of the garter to allow it to stretch. The garter is slightly scratchy when worn, but it’s nothing horrible. It’s slightly annoying, but if you have something else going on, you won’t notice it. When unstretched, the Garter has a diameter of about 10 inches. When stretched, it goes up to 24 inches. Needless to say, this garter will not fit your thigh if you are a plus-sized woman.
The fake money it comes with are just little colored pieces of paper. They aren’t amazingly high quality, but they aren’t horribly cheap either. It’s like your average textbook paper pages. It comes with three of these little notes, and each one is shorter and wider than your average dollar bill. The money does come folded in half during shipping, so it’s near-impossible to get the crease out of the middle of the bills. However, I think the crease in the middle is slightly sexy in that “here’s my money folded in half into your garter belt”. The crease is done really neatly, and I think it works for the money.
While EF says this kit comes with a handbook, it really doesn’t. It comes in an instruction manual that is written entirely in French aside from one paragraph. This book also seems to be an instruction manual and not a handbook. It just has a lot of pictures advertising the company, but it does not seem like it was made to teach you how to strip, so don’t expect that from this kit.
These pasties included in the kit are designed for one-time use. (Sad!) They are made with strong adhesive (it is impressive!), but it doesn’t do well with the skin after the first time you apply it, so be very careful to get it right the first time. From my experience with these in the past, I recommend freshly washed (but very dry!) skin when trying to put these on. According to the instructions, these are meant to stay on your skin for 6 to 8 hours through sweating and such (they were thinking a night at a club), but we didn’t use them that long. They do hurt when pulled off early (like a band-aid), but it is adhesive, and that’s to be expected. The pasties themselves don’t actually cover the nipple. Instead, it’s like bedazzling your nipples – what these pasties are is just little gem-shaped stars. The gems are really small, and while I’m sure you could apply some body adhesive to stick them back on, don’t expect the same results the second time as the gems don’t seem to stick to each other too well.
The CD is okay. The nerd in me was very disappointed when I saw that the CD came with no sort of case at all. Since the Boa came out of packaging, this means that the CD has small feathers on it. It’s important you blow and remove all these tiny fragments before you place it into a CD drive/player to avoid harming your piece of equipment. The set includes 5 different songs, and all of the songs are covers of the original songs. There’s “You Can Leave your Hat On”, “Sweet Dreams (are made of this)”, “Get it On”, “Last Tango in Paris”, and “Tema”. I can’t say that I felt very sexy by listening to this CD, but it could just be my music preferences. I find pop and club music much sexier than more laid-back, softer music such as this. However, you might like the song choices. They weren’t the originals, but they were definitely good covers.
The feather boa is about seven feet long, and it’s completely black. It is a feather boa, so the feathers do fall off which is slightly annoying. They don’t fall off nearly as much after the first use as long as you aren’t too rough with it. When you first take it out, though, be prepared for some shedding. The boa is definitely light-weight, and it does shed, but even after a couple uses, it still looks like a regular boa. The feathers aren’t those cheap, scratchy feathers either; they’re pretty nice and soft. They aren’t perfectly silky, but they are softer than some of those boas you can purchase other places. The boa does reach about seven feet long, so it’s nice and long for sexy moves.
How does it work as a set? It’s okay. Most of the items are reusable, and you’ll get a lot of use out of this kit if you plan on doing a lot of stripteases in the future, but I wasn’t as impressed by it as I could have been. I was hoping for a softer-feeling garter, reusable pasties, and different music. However, out of what is included, you could definitely make a pretty sexy striptease. The garter won’t work unless your smaller in weight, but the nipple pasties should work for everyone, and the money adds a cute little touch.
Overall, if you want a lap dance kit, this includes everything you need to do a lap dance. However, for the price, I was expecting a little bit more from the materials, but it is really creative, and things are things you would have a difficult find purchasing on their own. (A garter at Wal-Mart? I doubt it. Fake money? Not unless it has children’s dinosaurs on it.) The set is really cute, and if you want a striptease set, this set works just fine.
