Tag: Christian Grey’s Playthings

03

A floral milestone

I can’t quite believe it but Behind the Chintz Curtain has been live for three months as of today.

Nearly 3,000 of you have visited since the first post went up and every day, more and more of you stop by. So a massive ‘thank you’ to all my regulars, and a warm ‘hello’ to those who are here for the first time.

Sixty posts in (this is number sixty one) and guess what the most popular entry has been so far? No real surprise – it’s Lizzie’s Fifty Shades of Grey-inspired review of jiggle balls, which is sitting at the top of the pile with over 500 pageviews. But I think E.L. James’s ben was may be in for a bit of competition; also making appearances in the top ten, C is for clitoris, c is for clip and the wonderfully erotic Victorian birching story, Uncle Charles’ Girls by Anne Randolph. (Clearly, there’s call for more toys in the Toy Box and some red-bottomed literature!) Continue reading →

16

Just Tease Me

What we used:  Tease Me Soft Satin Blackout Blindfold
From: Lovehoney
Price: £14.99
Material(s): Satin

Lizzie and Thomas have the opportunity to try out Lovehoney’s innovative satin Tease Me blindfold. Will they encounter the slippage issues they experienced during their last blindfold roadtest?

Lizzie
A few weeks ago, we reviewed Coco de Mer’s ‘Freedom is deciding whose slave you want to be’ blindfold as part of the Christian Grey’s Playthings toy series. If you read our post, you’ll know that we loved the look and feel of this pretty and luxurious bit of kit but had some issues with it slipping off at inopportune moments.

Enter the very lovely Alice from Lovehoney who, after reading our review, kindly sent us Lovehoney’s very own Tease Me blindfold to try out. This innovative product has an ingenious flexible wire embedded inside the satin, so the wearer gets a much better fit across their nose and cheeks and, consequently, there’s less chance of it parting company with the face during use.

First impressions …

Lizzie
The Tease Me blindfold arrives in a slim white cardboard package featuring the Lovehoney’s branding in purple white and black and encased in a clear plastic sleeve. Very simple and understated (I wouldn’t have been offended if Thomas had bought this for me as a gift).

The blindfold itself is pretty; the outward-facing side is rich purple and the inward-facing panel a lovely glossy black. The section that’s designed to sit over the nose and eyes is delineated by a half-moon of leather-like piping and inside the curved section of this is a thin, flexible wire (which you can easily feel and manipulate with your fingers).

Thomas
This is a very nice blindfold. It looks high quality, the stitching is good and it feels soft to the touch. The packaging is nicely discrete as well. Continue reading →

17

Christian Grey’s playthings, part four: handcuffs

What we used: Luxury Suede Leather Handcuffs in red
From: Bondara
Price: £25.99
Material(s): Cuffs – suede and leather. Fastenings – nickel-plated steel

Read Fifty Shades of Grey and curious about bondage? If so, we hope you enjoy the fourth and final post in our Christian Grey’s playthings series, in which Thomas restrains Lizzie with some very comfortable leather handcuffs and she does a bit of … hanging about.

Important: If you haven’t already, please read the Behind the Chintz Curtain Disclaimer. (It’s not as dry and boring as you might think, so please do take the time to have a look.)

First impressions …

Lizzie
I have a bit of a thing for the colour red, so it was probably a given that I’d like the look of these cuffs. They arrive in generic brown packaging and, I have to say, my first thought when I extract them from their plastic sleeve is that they appear to be very well made; heavier and a lot more substantial than I imagined they would be. I can’t resist giving them a quick sniff – I adore the smell of leather – and am not disappointed by their aroma!

Each red suede cuff is lined with smooth black leather and has a metal buckle, a leather strap with punched holes, and a metal D-ring (to which the accompanying chain can be clipped to secure the cuffs together) on its outer surface. A close inspection reveals that the finishing is excellent: the stitching on the cuff edges is neat and the rivets that attach the D-rings and buckle sections are firmly set. The leather is wonderfully supple and bends easily when I manipulate the cuffs with my hands – a very good sign since having something stiff or hard around the wrists isn’t a great idea if you’re going to get physical. (You don’t want restraints chaffing, cutting into your skin or affecting circulation.) Continue reading →

10

Christian Grey’s playthings, part three: pleasure beads

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.) Continue reading →

06

Christian Grey’s playthings, part two: the crop

What we used: Bondage Boutique slim riding crop whip in red
From: Lovehoney
Price: £14.99
Material(s): Leather, plastic

The second in our series of posts on Christian Grey’s playthings, in which we discover that crops with slightly imperfect handles are extremely flexible and feel very, very nice when applied to one’s bottom.

Important: If you haven’t already, please read the Behind the Chintz Curtain Disclaimer.

First impressions …

Lizzie
The crop arrives in a long, plain, brown box the day after I order it. Quick, prompt, discrete. I wait until Thomas arrives home from work before breaking into the packaging as we want to examine the crop for the first time together.

Some frenzied ripping of tape from the box later and we find the crop encased in a clear plastic sleeve and tagged with a Bondage Boutique swing tag on the wrist strap.

The crop itself is 27.5 inches (69.85 centimetres) long, with a red leather tab at the business end. The shaft appears to be made of a flexible plastic cane (which Thomas takes great delight in flexing and bending into a U-shape to see just how malleable it really is – gulp). A leather wrist strap is fixed immediately below the painted wooden handle and, to be honest, the latter is the only visually disappointing feature; on the crop we receive, it is slightly scratched and chipped. That said, for £14.99 I’m more than happy to live with the imperfection, especially since I’m not sure if I’m going to like how it feels when applied! (Hey, there’s a recession going on.) Continue reading →

04

Christian Grey’s playthings, part one: the blindfold

What we used: ’Freedom is deciding whose slave you want to be’ blindfold
From: Coco de Mer U.K.
Price: £25.50
Material(s): Silk

The first in our series of posts on Christian Grey’s playthings, in which we discover that silk blindfolds feel lovely but are very, very hard to keep in place …

First impressions …

Lizzie
This blindfold is beautiful. It’s gorgeously soft, feels wonderfully silky to the touch, and the words ‘Freedom is deciding whose slave you want to be’ are stitched in a pretty scripted font in the middle of the outward-facing panel. The Coco de Mer logo is embroidered at the right-hand end. All-in-all, very seductive and a million miles from sleazy and cheap. I’m impressed – and a bit surprised! – that Thomas has chosen this for me; it’s far sexier than a hanky or one of my pashminas, but being an average bloke, they’re exactly what I’d expect him to be wrapping around my head in place of this!

Thomas
The blindfold came in quality packaging from Coco de Mer along with several other items, none of which looked cheap or tacky, which is to be avoided at all costs if you are shopping for toys. The blindfold is of decent silk and is well made with black embroidery on one side. It has a nice look and feel and you won’t be embarrassed to whip it out (so to speak) on your partner. Continue reading →