When I first began selling sex toys over a decade ago, I learned that you can’t use silicone lube with silicone sex toys because it will ruin the toy. What a conundrum this creates! Silicone is one of the safest sex toy materials and silicone lube feels slippery rather than wet, and stays slick so much longer! As someone who doesn’t get particularly wet, that staying power is priceless.
Then I started hearing folx say that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the whole story. I chatted with a few silicone experts to get the low-down on silicone-on-silicone fun.
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Most sex educators and sex toy companies teach that you cannot use silicone lube with silicone sex toys and that doing so will ruin your toy. Is this true?
Kind of. But if you imagine your toy melting immediately upon contact, that’s not the case.
“The most accurate answer I can give is that this is sort of true, sometimes,” says Aly Oseth, Community Outreach Manager at Lotus Blooms, a feminist sex shop in VA, “…but it won’t ‘ruin’ a toy, exactly.”
Goddess Cecilia, a sexuality and pleasure educator elaborates, “From what I remember learning, I imagined that the toy would begin to melt immediately to become more viscous like the lube. At least, that’s what folks made it seem like. While that’s not exactly what happens, there is a change in the toy’s structure from what I’ve observed.”