What we used: LELO Luna Pleasure Bead System
From: Lovehoney
Price: £29.99
Material(s): FDA-approved body-safe silicone

The third in our series of posts on Christian Grey’s playthings, in which we review pleasure beads (a.k.a. ‘jiggle balls’, Ben Wa balls, Geisha balls) and discover that they make a bit of noise!

First impressions …

Lizzie
Nice. The packaging is very grown up and classy – not a topless porn-star in sight! There’s an outer case in white with the LELO branding on it, and inside that a heavy black cardboard box with ‘LELO’ embossed on the lid. Opening up the latter reveals four pleasure beads – two in ‘petal pink’ and two ‘powder blue’ – sitting in a moulded black plastic casing. The pink beads are encased in a flexible white sleeve (girdle) shaped like the number 8.

All the beads are made of transparent, coloured silicone and inside each one there is a small grey weight, roughly the size of a marble. (Shaking a bead causes the weight to rattle against the outer plastic sleeve but the noise it makes doesn’t seem particularly loud – more like a dull thudding.)

In terms of size, each Luna bead is 36 millimetres in diameter. The weights inside the pink beads are 28 grams each and the weights in the blue ones 37. Two of the beads (one in each colour) have loops of string attached to them to facilitate removal from the body; these beads are known as the ‘foundation’ beads. (It takes me a minute or two to work out that you don’t need the string on all four because the girdle is used to join the string-less or ‘crown’ beads to these.)

Lifting the moulded plastic reveals instruction and warranty booklets, a storage pouch and a packet of LELO ‘personal moisturiser’ (that’s lubricant to you and me).

The road test …

Lizzie
I decide to try the Luna beads by myself. To be honest, I’m not really sure how much fun it will be using them with Thomas (who has helped me review the other items in the Christian Grey’s playthings series). I know Mr Grey whips them out in the middle of shenanigans with Anastasia but to be perfectly blunt, these beads don’t vibrate so I can’t see them being that all that exciting. Call me a cynic. The instruction booklet confirms my suspicions that they’re for exercise rather than my immediate orgasmic pleasure – the introductory paragraph is all about ‘increased muscular strength’, ‘pelvic floor muscles’ and ‘elasticity’.

After cleaning the lighter beads (the pink ones) with antibacterial soap – don’t ever use cleaners with petrol, alcohol or acetone on silicone products as this will damage them – I rip open the sachet of lubricant and apply it liberally to myself, the Lunas and a bit of the bathroom floor.

Inserting them isn’t difficult and I do it standing up and bent slightly forwards (although the instruction manual suggests it’s easiest lying down) but getting them in the correct position internally takes a bit fiddling – mainly due to my inexperience. Consulting the instruction manual, I see that I am supposed to have the lowest edge of the foundation bead at least two centimetres inside me. After a bit of poking, pulling, prodding and confusing of metric and imperial, however, I get them in the right spot.

My first impression, once they’re in place, is that I am slightly weirded out by the thudding sound they make when I take a step forwards. They feel comfortable enough and my post-kids pelvic floor is holding them in place okay (hooray!) but the subtle thud the weight makes as it rolls around inside the silicone casing is audible. I get a bit obsessed with jumping up and down on the spot and running up and down the stairs to see how much noise I can generate with them. (What can I say? I’m home alone.)

After exhausting myself with all the running and jumping, I sit down at the computer to work and find that I very easily forget the beads’ presence. It’s an hour later before I remember them and decide to swap them out for the heavier blue set to see if they feel any different. (Removing the beads proves easy enough – a gentle tug on the string attached to the foundation bead and out they come.)

Although the same size physically as their pink counterparts, the extra weight in the blue beads makes a difference. They’re a bit harder to keep in place and my internal muscles have to do more work to hold on to them.

Over two hours of Luna pleasure bead action later, I’m not the least bit aroused but I do feel like I’ve given my pelvic floor a decent workout – and that can only be a good thing for my post-baby body and future encounters with Thomas.

Cleaning the beads was very easy – lots of antibacterial soap and warm water and a quick dry with a lint free cloth.

The verdict?

As a sex toy? These pleasure beads did absolutely nothing for me and I have no desire to use them with Thomas unless he tells me they float his boat. As a pelvic floor toning aid? Brilliant. They’re easy to insert and, aside from the sounding and feeling a little bit like a pinball machine, relatively discrete. I would highly recommend them to women who’ve had children and want something to help with Kegel exercises.

In summary

Things I liked:

• The quality and materials. Well made, from FDA-approved, body-safe silicone. Phthalate-free
• The packaging. It’s chic and lovely.
• Ease of use. Very simple to assemble, insert and remove.
• The effect on the pelvic floor. A great way to exercise your internal muscles, especially if you’ve had kids.

 Things I wasn’t so keen on:

• The noise. The thudding generated by the internal weights is low-level but it is audible if you listen for it.

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