What is lube?
Personal Lube, or lubricants, reduce friction during solo or partnered sexual activities. There are many forms of lube, e.g. water-based, silicone or oil-based lubes.
What is the difference between silicone based lube versus water based lube?
The biggest difference between silicone based lube versus water based lube are its ingredients.
Silicone based lube ingredients
Silicone based lube is normally thicker of texture and more slippery because of its main ingredient: silicone.
Silicone is a synthetic polymer and carries different elements, such as silicon, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Silicone lube can be made from different types of silicones, such dimethicone and cyclopentasiloxane. Frances and dyes are quite often added to silicone lubes too to make it more attractive for marketing purposes.
Water based lube ingredients
Water based lubes are made from ingredients that are water-soluble. These water based lubes will dissolve in water. They're as slippery as silicone lubes, but generally lighter in weight versus silicone based lubes.
Are silicone and water-based lubes safe to use?
Yes, generally both type of lubes are safe to use. For water-based lubricants, make sure to use them as directed as they contain ingredients that can dissolve in water.
Silicone lubes they are generally considered safe. However, make sure that you shy away from cyclomethicone and PERC in silicone based lubes. PERC has been discussed to be a cancer contributing ingredient, whereas cyclomethicone is known to disrupt your endrocine system.
Always try out your water based lube on a small part of your body to test if you have any allergic reactions before applying it to your more sensitive parts.
When do I use water based lubes?
Water based lubes are popular because they feel more natural and mimic your body's natural lubrication.
Use water based lubes when you
Water based lubes are easy to clean and won't stain your sheets or clothes. If you're just starting out, we recommend using a water-based lube to experiment with. If you are looking for a bit more excitement, you can also opt for a tingling lube - like our vegan tingling lube Joy Jelly.
Water based lubes tend to dry up faster than its silicone sister, so more reapplying is needed.
When do I use silicone based lube?
Silicone based lubes are long-lasting (hence the stains!) and known for having a thick consistency (versus a water based lube).
Use silicone-based lubes when you
Don't use silicone-base lubes if you intend to bring in sex toys into play. The silicone lube can degrade the structure of silicone sex toys (good to know: all our sex toys are made from medical-grade silicone). Generally silicone lube is used as anal lube as it's thicker in consistency - however, our water-based lube like Motion Lotion and Joy Jelly have proven to do the trick as well for anal play according to our community members.
Try out our lube tubes Motion Lotion (Water based all natural lube) or Joy Jelly (a tingling lube made from vegan ingredients) for sensational bedroom play.