UPDATE DECEMBER 2023: This sex toy review is from December 2010. Companies tend to change formulas at least once a decade. ;) Make sure the ingredient lists match before using this review as a reference for your lube purchase.
The LELO Personal Moisturizer is a water-based lubricant. It comes in both a 5 fl ounce variety and 2.5 ounce variety. The 5 ounce comes in a gorgeous black, glass bottle while the 2.5 comes in a squeeze tube. This lubricant is paraben-free, glycerin-free, and unscented. This review is for the Black Glass 5 Ounce bottle. The glass bottle also comes with a pump-top dispenser for the lubricant.
As always, LELO is the king of packaging on this one. Beyond king, actually. The black, classy looking box I received can be easily opened to reveal the lubricant bottle – a glass bottle. On the top is the little black round piece – that actually is removable before use and just exists to look pretty, but it does look pretty.
In most cases, I’d be annoyed by this glass bottle, since lube and glass slide together (which makes it great for glass sex toys!) In this case, LELO made the glass bottle heavy enough that you can just sit the bottle in one place and push down the top to dispense lubricant without the bottle falling over. There’s no need to be holding onto the bottle at all.
The lubricant for this LELO lube is dispensed through a little push-down dispenser at the top of the bottle. There isn’t any “cap” to protect this dispenser while not in use. The only thing that protects it is the rounded circle top. That circle top is easily removed by just a little pull and tug with no problem – just like a cap would be. The push-down dispenser dispenses a pretty good amount of lubricant – not a lot, but it’s enough to lubricate an entire area with the amount it gives up.
Ingredients in this lubricant are: Water, Propylene Glycol Hydroxyethylcellulose, Aloe Barbadenis Leaf Juice, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Tetrasodium Edta, Panax Ginseng Extract, Paullinia Cupana Seed Extract, Avena Sativa Bran Extract, Polysorbate-20, Aspartame, Polyquaternium-5, PEG-45M, Citric Acid.
Unlike other lubricants that claim to be paraben and glycerin free, LELO’s actually is. There are no traces of parabens or glycerin at all in the product ingredient list. I’m unsure about the effects of aspartame inside lubricants, but I’ve never felt any irritation or anything while using it.
I’m not sure how I feel about this lubricant for sex, though. Not amazed, honestly. It dries up – and fast. While a little of the lubricant does lubricate a very large area, it also dries up within about five minutes of applying it.
For intercourse for some people, that’d probably actually end up being enough, but if you want to go a bit longer, you’d have to reapply the lubricant. Reapplying is really easy, but it’s still a pain in the butt.
On the plus side to this, the lubricant really does leave your skin feeling nice and soft, and for the most part, requires little to no clean-up depending on how it dried. It doesn’t have any sort of greasy or sticky quality to it, and it ends up feeling like my body’s natural lubricant – just thinner in texture.
For this reason, I could not recommend this for use for anal pleasure or pegging. Because of how light and thin the lubricant is, it’d dry up and absorb within a couple of thrusts. Friction during anal just isn’t pleasant.
However, for vaginal intercourse, it’s an okay choice.
For sex toys, it depends on the toy. For LELO silicone, it works great. LELO’s silky smooth, non-plushy silicone doesn’t absorb much lube at all. However, for plushier silicone like Vixen Creations or Fun Factory, the toy’s material would munch up on the lubricant really quickly and would make this more of a hassle than a pleasure.
On the bright side, the moisturizing this lubricant provided was really nice. I feel like LELO should have made a hand lotion instead of a lubricant with as nice as this lube makes my hands feel.
Cleaning up this lubricant is relatively non-existent. Really. After you’re done using it, you can just massage the area a bit (if it’s not already gone) and the lubricant will nicely absorb into the skin with no icky feelings. None at all. I used this as hand lotion to see how it’d behave, and my hands felt better for it.
If you use a lot and don’t want to massage it in, it’s really easy to clean up with soap and water. Water-based lubricant can be used with all toys, and it didn’t seem to stain any fabrics.
Who would I recommend this for? Well, LELO did a great job on the presentation of this lubricant. If you really like the bottle, go for it – it’s a gorgeous, high-quality bottle. If you don’t expect your vaginal penetration sessions to last too long, this one works great as well. If you are tired of cleaning up after greasy and messy lubricants, LELO came to the rescue with this product. If your partner is against lubricants in the bedroom and you’d like to try them, this one looks luxurious instead of cheap.
However, I really can’t recommend this if you want your water-based lubricant to last a long time – this one just doesn’t.
