Generally speaking, sex is quite nice. People seem to like putting their mouths on vaginas, putting their dicks in asses, putting their skin on other people’s skin. And I get it. Kissing a sweaty person when they are a little bit salty? That’s the best. Looks good, feels good, smells sort of okay. T’is a fiesta for the senses.
Objectively though, it doesn’t taste great. That’s just a fact, my friend. For example, if you were served a dish at a restaurant that tasted like someone’s vagina, you probably wouldn’t say, “Delicious! Compliments to the chef!” In fact, you’d probably be thinking, Something’s gone very, very wrong in this kitchen.
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What if sex could be both fun and conventionally delicious? That might well be the whole premise of flavoured lube. But does flavoured lube actually taste good? Is there a lube you could plate up in front of the MasterChef judges and tell them, with tears in your eyes, “This is me on a plate.”
Juicy Lube Piña colada flavour
PIÑA COLADA
Taste: The ingredients for the cocktail this lube is based on are rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice. Honestly, I’m about to coconut cream my pants after tasting this lube. Absolutely delectable.
One problem: The aftertaste isn’t so great. It’s actually much closer to what I’d describe as “a bit painful.” If I really wanted to hit the nail on the head I’d say, “It feels as though someone is melting plastic wrap directly into my mouth.”
Realism: I mean, sure. If I didn’t have the package to guide me, I would probably still be able to guess that this is supposed to resemble a Piña colada. At the very least, a pineapple.
Packaging: Very stupid. It looks like a rejected design for the cover art of A-ha’s “Take On Me.” If I were you, I’d keep this out of your sex partner’s eyeline, because they might genuinely think you stole it from your parents.
Serving suggestion: Obviously, for making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape.
Rating: 4/10. The cling film thing ruined it for me.
Swiss Navy’s Candy Cane lube
CANDY CANE
Taste: Oh, man. This one really stands out because it makes your mouth tingle a little bit, as mint often does. I really only tested these with my mouth, so it’s hard to say what might happen if the tingle was brought into contact with genitals. But sex is quite a lot about tingling feelings and sensations, so I reckon throwing this into the mix would work out quite well. Maybe test it on a small patch of skin first as you would a hair dye. I don’t want to be responsible for second degree burns on somebody’s dick tip.
Packaging: I like it. It’s thematic, but in a tasteful way. They didn’t literally cover it with candy canes, they made it look like a deconstructed candy cane. Not ramming the message down your throat, you know? And, at the very least, it doesn’t resemble a can of deodorant like some of the others did.
Best of all: You could have this fall out of your bag and roll the entire length of a restaurant without anyone being the wiser, because it looks like a Glossier face mist. Cute.
Serving suggestion: Christmas Eve, with somebody you really love. It’s a lube that says, “You’re not a novelty to me, baby.”
Rating: 8/10. Tasty, classy, tingly.
Wet Stuff Salted Caramel lube
SALTED CARAMEL
Taste: Are you there God? It’s me, Isabelle. I know we haven’t talked in awhile. I didn’t really believe you were “real” per se. I’m sorry. I now know that you do exist. How did I figure it out? This. This lube. It’s the culinary miracle I set out to find.
Somehow, presumably through your divine intervention, humankind have managed to capture the exact flavour of a salted caramel—a solid, sort of brown-ish coloured treat, within a completely colourless liquid. It’s incredible. It truly is.
Realism: Fucking. Identical. Like, worryingly so. If I was in the salted caramel business, I’d be shaking in my boots.
Packaging: Again, really knocked it out of the park. The pump system that other lubes employed frequently resulted in disaster—I was constantly overshooting and over-delivering. Potentially humiliating, in a bedroom situation. A simple tube is the way to go.
Serving suggestion: Masturbating to the Food Network.
Rating: 10/10. There’s no weird aftertaste! None!
Juicy Lube Passionfruit flavour
PASSIONFRUIT
Taste: I had high hopes for this one, given it claimed to emulate one of my favourite fruits. However, I was also wary of the general rule, “If it ain’t broke, don’t turn it into lube and drink it.” But I’d already thrown all caution to wind. I took the risk. It paid off. This stuff smells really good, albeit a bit like a Victoria’s Secret shop. Taste-wise, it’s actually pretty multifaceted. That is to say, there’s flavour notes here. Like, at least two notes. Maybe three.
Realism: Does it taste like a passionfruit? No. Absolutely not. I’ll tell you what it does taste like though: a passionfruit UDL. As far as I’m concerned, that’s almost better.
Packaging: This is made by the same company as the Piña Colada lube, so its packaging is almost identical. And yet, somehow… it’s less offensive. I think because it’s hot pink. It looks trapped-in-the-80s in a cute, gaudy way. Not a sad, my-band-did-not-end-up-changing-the-face-of-music-so-I-make-my-kids-busk-in-the-cbd-instead way.
Serving suggestion: This is for festival sex. It really is destined to be used in a tent.
Rating: 7/10. Because passionfruit UDLs are, in a word, bellissima.
Durex Play Sweet Strawberry
SWEET STRAWBERRY
Taste: Not many people know this, but Nikki Webster’s tune “Strawberry Kisses” was actually written about getting eaten out with this lube. Crazy, huh? Well, that’s the kind of stuff the ARIAs won’t tell you.
Here’s another unfortunate fact—this tastes like biting into one of those huge rolls of Hubba Bubba tape gum as if it was a biscuit. Genuinely sickening.
Realism: You didn’t even try. You absolutely did not attempt to make this taste anything like a real strawberry. That’s probably why you called it “Sweet Strawberry,” so when people realised they’d be ripped off and misled, you could point to the “Sweet” and be like, “Hey, we warned ya!”
Packaging: This one is half the size of the others, which makes me feel…. weird. It looks like fun-sized lube. Show bag lube. Or lube for children. That’s not good.
Serving Suggestion: Backstage at the ARIAs, just to spite them.
Rating: 5/10. It induced heart palpitations, but not the good kind.
