Will Coconut Oil Hurt My Silicone Sex Toys?
We don’t know what it is about sex and sex accessories that makes people superstitious, but for whatever reason, logic and evidence-based practices often seem to go out the window when we’re talking about Doing It.
Actual essential advice (e.g. do not use oil-based lubes with condoms, only use anal toys with flared bases) can get mixed in with inaccurate, unsubstantiated and just plain odd rumors (e.g. masturbation makes your palms hairy, douching with Coca-Cola prevents pregnancy, coconut oil will destroy your silicone sex toys).
Actually...that last one sounds a little more plausible, if only because there’s a bewildering array of information regarding lubricants, condoms and toys: oil-based lubes can’t be used with latex condoms or plastic or latex toys, silicone-based lubes are fine with anything except other silicone, and so forth.
Lately we’ve been hearing that coconut oil also can’t be used with silicone toys. Since we make delicious things with organic coconut oil, and since we wholeheartedly approve of (high-quality!) sex toys in general, this rumor was relevant to our interests. Is it BS, or not?
Silicone Safety
Turns out that yeah… it’s kinda BS. The silicone used to make sex toys is, chemically speaking, the same silicone that’s used everywhere, from heavy industrial components to kitchen implements to certain types of wedding rings.
It’s a popular material because it’s so inert and stable. If you cook, you probably have at least one silicone spatula or basting brush somewhere in your kitchen, and it likely comes in contact with various forms of oil all the time. Go take a look; if it was reasonably well-made to begin with, it’s probably just fine — unless you, too, have a bad habit of absentmindedly setting your spatulas too close to the burner on the stovetop. Oops!
If a tool that spends its whole working life sitting in grease holds up perfectly well, there’s no reason to believe that other “tools” won’t.
Questionable Toys...
So where did this rumor come from? We can’t say for sure, but we suspect it might be because people were using oil-based lubes with “silicone” toys that weren’t really silicone at all.
Unfortunately, there’s a wide array of cheap, weird sex accessories on the market. Something that feels like silicone might actually be a Frankenplastic of some description, and plastics (which are made of petrochemicals) don’t get along very well with oils. If you use coconut oil on any cheap plastic gizmo, it will deteriorate over time. (Ever noticed how rubber spatulas — not silicone — tend to get floppy and useless and fall off their handles after a while? Yeah...)
There’s one thing to keep in mind when using silicone toys with oils, however. If the toy is mostly silicone but has plastic components (like cords, remote controls, power dials etc) be careful. Extended contact with oil-based lubes may damage the plastic bits even as the silicone stays perky. A little bit of advance planning – and masking tape – goes a long way, though, and if you’d rather throw caution to the wind, stick with 100% solid silicone when you pair your toys with Foria’s famous “pre-lubes”...
...which you should absolutely do!
Awaken Arousal Oil with CBD was developed after the runaway success of Pleasure, our legendary flagship “weed lube” with THC. Pleasure is available from licensed dispensaries in CA & CO, and when people began to ask us where to get it in other places, Awaken was born, featuring CBD oil from sun-grown hemp and an array of synergistic aphrodisiac botanicals to ease discomfort, enhance arousal, and decrease tension.
Both Pleasure and Awaken feature their zesty active ingredients in pristine, organic MCT oil from young coconuts... which gets along great with silicone toys, solo or with a partner.
Silicone and Sex Oil — two great tastes that taste great together.
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