Love Not War Koi Review

Meet my latest Love Not War Koi review. The latest Love Not War toy, the Koi is the wand massager addition to their line of sustainable sex toys. Made from body-safe silicone and aluminum with a focus on sustainable practices both as a company and in the creation of this sex toy, the Koi was made for your pleasure – while ensuring the Earth doesn’t sacrifice itself for that goal.

The Love Not War Koi is a particularly petite wand massager at 6″ in total length and a head diameter of about 1.25″. It features a single control button at the base of the battery/handle that cycles through the 4 steady speed vibration intensities and 7 vibration patterns. It’s waterproof, and it’s also fully rechargeable.

Most noticeably, the Love Not War Koi features an interchangeable battery/handle that’s completely unique to Love Not War. This allows the wand to enjoy a longer lifespan while simultaneously allowing you to power other Love Not War sex toys with the same battery.

Read this Love Not War Koi review to learn more about the wand massager – and its unique battery system!

Love Not War: Preserving the Environment

One of my major goals of the past couple of years has been reducing my environmental impact. One of the hardest ways to do that? With the sex products I consume. While a lot of other industries have made major changes (and have enough of a customer base to support “green” options in addition to the regular options), the sex industry really hasn’t. Lube still comes in plastic bottles (for the most part). Vibrators still come with expected lifespans around a few years – and no way to “change” the batteries once the inevitable happens with the built-in Lithium batteries. (It is possible to find more sustainable BDSM options, though, but the sex toy sphere is still dragging behind.)

Well, that is, until Love Not War. Joining a very, very exclusive club of only a few vibrating sex toys manufacturers out there, Love Not War vibrators are focused on preserving the environment – and creating sex toys that have a minimal impact on the world. You can still enjoy your pleasure – but Love Not War takes steps to ensure your enjoyment doesn’t necessarily come at the cost of the world around you.

Love Not War does this in a few different ways:

• Interchangeable Battery Base: Every single Love Not War sex toy (at least, at this time!) uses the same, interchangeable battery base. Just unscrew it and replace if need be. Not only does this make it so that you can simply swap out the “tips” of the toy, but it also means your sex toy won’t go to an early grave simply because its battery reaches the end of its lifespan.
• Limiting Plastic. Love Not War limits the amount of plastic it uses within its toys. Instead, they attempt to use aluminum as the buddy for their sex toy’s silicone.
• Better Packaging: Instead of giant, plastic plister packs or giant cardboard mazes, Love Not War keeps it simple with standard brown boxes that get your sex toy to you safely. It isn’t quite as beautiful as the Blow and Glow’s mostly-recyclable packaging, but Love Not War further reduces waste by minimizing extraneous colored printing and by using soy ink and eco-friendly glue on that packaging, too.
• Focus on Manufacturing. While any manufacturing plant is still a manufacturing plant, Love Not War has gone out of their way to attempt to make it as environmentally-friendly as possible. Their custom-built factory is mainly powered by hydroelectric sources – and it has heating and air conditioning timers to help conserve energy. They’ve been working with sustainability experts to try to find the best ways to improve – and ensure they’re doing the best they can.

One of their goals is net-zero carbon emissions. Even though they haven’t necessarily made it there yet, the fact that they’re cognizant and trying puts them leagues above other sex toy companies who haven’t started giving the environment a second thought yet.

So, if you’re looking for an environment-first approach to sexual pleasure, Love Not War pretty much hits the nail perfectly on the head.

Love Not War Koi Review: The Size

This will be, probably, the smallest wand massager you have ever used in your life. It’s adorably tiny. Some manufacturers have bullet vibrators that are bigger than this wand massager! Seriously, I can’t get over how cute it is. It’s just very, very small.

That being said, the size can be a benefit – or a problem.

On the benefits side, the Love Not War Koi‘s small size means that it’s a fantastic partner for traveling. The wand is shorter than my open hand – and the battery compartment disconnects from the toy to ensure it doesn’t accidentally turn itself on. Partner that with the fact that the disconnecting battery means that the wand massager easily splits in half for super-small storage, and you end up with a wand massager that’s actually travel friendly.

On the other hand, the small size means that your hand will feel every vibration. Unlike most wand massagers where the large, plastic handle softens the vibrations from your hands, that isn’t the case with the Love Not War Koi. My hand comes away from every pleasure session feeling kind of fuzzy and numbed from the vibrations. It goes away (obviously, or I’d be much more upset!), and it’s standard for vibrators to do that, but I’m not used to a vibrator with the power of a wand having that same problem.

It isn’t a dealbreaker for me, but if you’re sensitive to those sensations on your hand, it’s definitely something to be aware of.

Love Not War Koi Review: The Power

Now that we’ve established the Koi is adorably tiny, does that seem to affect the vibration strength? Can it still put out the power of a wand massager?

The answer is…sort-of.

When I heard about the Koi, I was worried that the interchangeable battery design might limit the vibrator’s power output. Honestly, on that front, I had nothing to be worried about. The Koi is noticeably more powerful than most standard clitoral vibrators.

That being said, it does fall short of the “wand massager” power expectations of the category as a whole. Compared to the Hitachi (which, to be fair, is an unfair expectation as the Hitachi plugs into the wall), you’re looking at about 40% of the power output.

I don’t blame or dock the Koi for its power, though. In fact, I’m impressed. There’s just a limit to how much power you can put into a rechargeable toy that’s less than 6″ in length. With all of this discussion on its power, my overwhelming final thought is: wow! This has a LOT of power for its size. No, it won’t compete with sex toys that plug in to the wall and are 14″ in length, but it has more power than a lot of rechargeable, stand-alone clitoral vibrators – and that’s what I’d really want from a sex toy that belongs to a category of toys known for their power.

That being said, it’s pretty easy to orgasm from the power of the Koi. I find the middle settings to be the most pleasurable and rumbly. The higher power settings get a bit too far into buzzy land, but the middle is the perfect sweet spot. As the Koi comes with 7 vibration settings (4 steady intensities then 3 patterns), I tend to hang out on intensity 2 and 3 for the most enjoyment.

So, as long as my wand massager has enough power to get me to orgasm reliably, I’m a happy camper, and the Koi does that.

Let’s Talk about the Noise

While providing those powerful vibrations that are enough to get to orgasm, the Koi is also surprisingly quiet. It can definitely be heard within the same room – but with the door shut and some music/TV on, you can easily use the Koi within the same house without any issues.

The same can’t usually be said of most wand massagers – which can occasionally sound like power tools themselves.

So, if discretion is the name of the game, now you’re looking at a wand massager that’s relatively quiet and can be unscrewed in half in order to easily hide the two, 3″ long pieces from view.

Love Not War Koi Review: Interchangeable Battery

One of the biggest cornerstones of Love Not War’s company philosophy is the ability to replace the battery.

Unfortunately, with the majority of rechargeable sex toys, if the Lithium battery goes, your toy is pretty much now a paperweight. (The same problems that plague a cell phone – like the battery dying over time – will plague the Lithium battery in your sex toy, too.)

Love Not War solves this issue by making the battery a removable part of the sex toy. The battery (which doubles as the “handle” in most of their toys, too) unscrews from the tip of the toy.

This, essentially, means you can replace the battery. So if your Love Not War’s vibrator battery starts to lose power, it’s as simple as getting another battery and screwing it onto your Koi.

But this also means that you only need one battery to power all of the Love Not War sex toys you own. Just unscrew the battery base from the toy you’re using – and screw it onto another toy – to instantly swap up sensations.

It’s a system that has become really standard in (actual) power tools. As the battery adds additional cost anyway, making a reusable/rechargeable battery design makes financial sense. You can make your products cheaper for the customer (only one battery to buy!) while simultaneously expanding the lifespan of your products.

You can simply purchase any of the other Love Not War sex toys without their batteries. Just visit their site to purchase any of the Love Not War heads – without the battery. Not only are they cheaper, but it’s better for the Earth!

Finally, this interchangeable battery also makes the Love Not War Koi extremely discreet to charge. Since the charging port for the Koi is inside the battery screw-on area, you’ll need to unscrew the battery from the wand massager tip in order to charge it. While you’re doing this, you can easily hide the wand massager tip and just be visibly charging a rounded tube that looks a bit like a facial cleanser battery or a lipstick tube. It’s much, much more discreet than having a vibrator sitting on your bedside table.

Just an unexpected bonus to this interchangeable battery system.

Love Not War Koi: The Packaging

While I’ve mostly stopped talking about packaging in my sex toy reviews aside from a few off-hand comments, I think the Love Not War’s Koi deserves its own section – and that’s because they’ve put as much thought into the packaging of the Koi as they did into the Koi itself.

The Koi comes in a standard, brown cardboard box (great for recycling!). The box has stickers on it that show off the Koi itself, and for security, you need to slice open one of those stickers in order to get into the box.

Inside the box, the Koi sits in a cardboard-made stabilizer that uses the handle of the wand to hold the wand in place for secure storage. Love Not War placed the folded drawstring storage bag underneath the head of the Koi to help pad it during its journey and keep it from moving around.

Underneath this cardboard-made stabilizer (it’s really just a tiny triangular piece. It’s impressive how well it works!), you’ll find the USB charging cable. Underneath that, you’ll find the entirety of the instructions and information which are all printed on slices of cardboard. There is no dyed-white paper to be found inside of the Koi (though the instruction manual is a fold-out of instructions on white paper/cardboard. I can’t figure out which.)

Despite being focused on sustainability, I’m really glad to see that they still include all of the instructions with the wand itself. It doesn’t have a single QR code to scan to access all of the instructions online; you can easily learn how to take care of your Koi with what’s just included as instructions.

I will caution, however, that the text on these things is TINY. Probably 8-point font. It’s well under any font size that I’d find in a book or magazine. (Just went and compared) I attempted to scan all of the QR codes included on the pages in order to see if any of them led to an online version of the instructions, but none did.

I’d recommend that Love Not War get an online version of all of the Koi’s instructions available – and add a QR code to the included instructions – in order to make the instructions available to people who need larger fonts.

Love Not War Koi: Final Thoughts

No, the Love Not War Koi is not the most powerful wand massager out there. BUT if the environment is important to you, you enjoy the freedom of playing without cords, you want a sex toy that feels like luxury (but minimizes its impact on the Earth), and you want a wand massager that makes the perfect buddy for travel, the Love Not War Koi is it.

Essentially, I wholeheartedly recommend it as long as you aren’t sensitive to vibrations in your hands while using a vibrator.

I especially recommend the Love Not War Koi if discretion or travel are a large part of your pleasure profile. You, honestly, can’t get a more discreet wand massager if you tried. Not only does the toy easily split in half for really-small storage, but you don’t need the sexy parts visible when charging the toy. The battery base charges all on its own – without the head attached – which means you can hide the wand massager head while charging. With its sleek design, you can easily explain away the base as the battery for a facial cleanser – or anything else.

Partner that with the Koi’s pretty good power and its relatively quiet vibrations, and you end up with one of the most discreet wand massagers I’ve ever seen.

And it’s a much better alternative for the environment. Talk about a win-win all around! 

Thank you for reading my Love Not War Koi review!