Silicone Lubes

hi, ive been looking at different lubes to use with my girlfriend, we have only used durex lubes so far but i was woundering wats the difference between them and the silicone type lubes? ive also read somewhere that silicone lubes are hard to clean off? is this true? any advise would be helpfull, thanks

Water-based lubricants are non-staining, safe with condoms, safe with toys.

Silicone-based lubricants will stain, you can use them in water, thinner than water-based but aren't condoms and toys which are made from silicone. 

We use Pjur silicone lubes a lot (as well as Liquid Silk which is water based with 2% silicone). The Pjur original is actually quite thick - thicker than the Liquid Silk I would say. Pjur "Woman" is thinner but not exactly runny.

One thing you need to remember is that compared to water-based lubes you need a very small amount of silicone - my guess is that we use about 1/5th as much silicone as we do if using a water-based lube. If you remember this you won't get issues with staining things. The Pjur lubes come in bottles with small holes that mean you won't get gallons of it rushing out unexpectedly.

Silicones are fine on condoms which are latex - rubberists use silicones by the bucket to shine their very expensive latex garments and they wouldn't do that if it harmed them.

The lubrication properties of silicone and water based lubes are different. Water based lubes are usually non-Newtonian and become thinner the more they are sheared. This does make them good at making things very slick but unfortunately they dry out and loose their slick quite quickly. Silicones are not quite so good at making toys very slick but they continue to work almost unchanged for hours. We use a combination - silicone  on its own for PIV sex but silicone and Liquid Silk with toys.

Now there are lots of people who say silicone oil 'goes' for silicone toys but this is not our experience with Pjur Original and Tantus, Fun Factory, and Vixen toys (plus some others). We actually only use silicone toys

We find that Pjur lubes wash off easily with a liquid hand-wash detergent.

One other difference you will notice - silicone lubes are warm to apply. You don't get that cooling that you get with water based lubes. (My guess is that the cooling is due to the water-based lubes evaporating - latent heat and all that jazz)

Hi HD just wnted to say hi and welcome to the forum i hope you find the advice great i useually do!

Just to add, silicone lubes should't be used with jelly toys, silicone blends and certain silicone toys as there is a very high chance it will kill them. You also have to watch what is in the lube.

I find that the silicone lube I use can be hard to wash off the bottle itself more than it is for toys. I also don't use it after a couple of inconclusive tests on a couple of silicone items.

Really, for everyday vaginal sex a good water based lube should be enough.

I don't use my silicone lube on silicone even. : p
I use it happily with glass and hard plastic.

Hey, i use the water based lube, ID Lube, have no complaints with it , you could give it a try.

Regarding the silicone lube with silicone toys thing, here is a link to Tantus giving some of the background to the confusion:-

http://tantusinc.com/sex_ed_005.php

The lesson seems to be if you buy good quality toys and lube you should not get a problem.

Hi, I would only personally use silicone lube in the shower, as it does stain a bit. Also they are harder to wash out, which personally annoys me to no end, as I dont want any soap to wash it off round my lady parts and leaving it there is also not an option. It does wash off toys far more easily than from your body.

I am using WET as silicone and I did not notice the need of less than waterbased or not 1/5 of waterbased. But I mainly use lube only for my solo play time, so not large amount anyway and well I do worry about staining things, it happened few times when I was less patient and a small amount fell onto the sheet. So if things get rushed I think waterbased is safer in this respect in case it pours out - while I am happy to throw a bottle of waterbased lube on the bed and dont care, I would never dare it with silicone.

Interestingly, I see that amongst the declared content of WET silicone is vitamin E which is present in vegetable oils such as sunflower oil. Being of a slightly suspicious turn of mind I wonder how much else of the vegetable oil it has in it given that sunflower oil is a fraction of the cost of a silicone oil.

Which brings me to a general point - to what extent are the lube manufacturers obliged to declare all the components and are they obliged to declare them in descending order of occurrence as per foodstuffs?

An easy way of discounting if it has oil is to check if it's condom safe. Any oil wil make it unsafe.

It is claimed to be condom safe at least here, I cannot check the bottle as it is 1000km away right now (I only bothered to bring the waterbased lube with me and not silicone I use very rarely). At least the one I have, so there should not be any. But I never used it with partner as I am not fan of sex in bath or shower and I dont need the help of lublicant while with my partner 95% of the time and in the 5% we use waterbased.

Pixieking wrote:

An easy way of discounting if it has oil is to check if it's condom safe. Any oil wil make it unsafe.

Actually not that simple. Unlike mineral oils some vegetable oils are OK on latex - Castor oil being a well known example.

I did not know that. Learn something new every day. : )

thanks for all the advise :) were quite messy with lubes so i think we will stick to the water based ones for now, however i do like the idea of using a silicone one for the shawer :)

horny-hotdog wrote:

thanks for all the advise :) were quite messy with lubes so i think we will stick to the water based ones for now, however i do like the idea of using a silicone one for the shawer :)

You can stick to waterbased for bed fun and get silicone based for shower or bath and dont use it in the bed.

Silicone lubes are condom safe. Their great virtue is that they take much longer to dry out than others. Their main drawback is the staining. A large spill of silicone lube will leave a dark stain that no even boiling will get out. We put our play towels over the bed when we're into heavy action!

Another nice thing about silicone lubes is that they feel warm to the touch.

Some manufacturers of silicone toys say that you shouldn't use silicone lubes with them. Others, usually the makers of the best quality toys, say it's perfectly all right.

As for jellies I don't let these toxic objects get anywhere near my precious cavities. Keep the silicon, junk the jellies I say!

atlanta wrote:

Silicone lubes are condom safe. Their great virtue is that they take much longer to dry out than others. Their main drawback is the staining. A large spill of silicone lube will leave a dark stain that no even boiling will get out. We put our play towels over the bed when we're into heavy action!

Another nice thing about silicone lubes is that they feel warm to the touch.

Some manufacturers of silicone toys say that you shouldn't use silicone lubes with them. Others, usually the makers of the best quality toys, say it's perfectly all right.

As for jellies I don't let these toxic objects get anywhere near my precious cavities. Keep the silicon, junk the jellies I say!

There are other options out there than just silicone or jelly! Like plastic (both my bullets are ABS plastic), metals or glass. Also with jelly toys you can use condom over it, which would also keep it cleaner.

As for manufactures saying it is all right. I think I only heard Tantus saying that. Lelo (although they do say you can test it and see how it goes, but dont really make it explicit anywhere), Je Joue (just got the G-Ki), We Vibe do recomment water based in their manuals. Not sure about Zini, dont have a toy from them in my collection

Btw. my friend may be suffering allergy on silicone. She had bad reaction to silicone toy (not a cheap one), not sure from which manufacturer and also had the issue with some medical instruments in hospital - luckily it just irritates her skin and does not cause any serious reaction. But it was listed as not containing eg latex, which could cause it. I heard allergic reaction to silicone are rare, but so are eg allergic reaction to water or sun, yet I know people who had one of those.

An allergy to silicone would be extremely unusual. Silicone is regarded as hypo-allergenic, which is why prosthetic implants are made of the stuff.

Square Peg toys say that silicone lubes not a problem with their toys, and Babes 'n Horny are cool about silicone too. The lady who sold me a Fun Factory vibrator a few weeks ago assured me that silicone oil would not damage it.