While your sex toys are unequivocally, thoroughly and absolutely a pleasure to play with because of where and how they’re used, it’s extremely important to keep them clean.
While it’s not something we particularly enjoy thinking about, the reality is even a single person and only a single person toy will likely expose to its owner all sorts of nastiness if it’s not properly maintained as well as when carelessly handled, like how going from your anus to your vagina without a thorough cleaning between one and the other is a sure-fire way to contract serious infections like vaginitis.
The risks skyrocket when sex toys are recklessly shared with someone else, opening the door to a host of other nasties such as syphilis, chlamydia, herpes, HPV, shigella, and on rare occasions far more dangerous ones like HIV and hepatitis.
Despite all this doom and gloom, you can use your Lovense toy safely, even with other playmates, if you take these simple precautions.
Read the Lovense manual
Beginning with the importance of knowing what your Lovense toy is made of and then, armed with this knowledge, knowing what steps you need to take to keep it clean.
Thankfully, in addition to designing and manufacturing so many awesomely pleasurable devices, Lovense cares about their customers and their sexual health, and provides each of their toys with a handy-dandy reference guide on how and what to wash them with.
And if you’ve somehow misplaced your guide, every single one is available on the Lovense site—and for their discontinued models as well.
When you should clean your Lovense toys
This is as easy as it is serious; however you feel, whatever’s going on, you must—emphasis on the must—clean your toy before and after using it.
I know, I know, in the heat of the moment this is probably the last thing you want to do but, trust me, when talking about your health it’s better to be over cautious than under.
So, please, make it an ingrained habit to automatically clean your Lovense product, even if you keep it in an airtight container, before you start and after you’re done.
Sharing toys with others
Another health-related biggie—before using a Lovense or any other sextoy with someone else, put a condom on it!
And before you ask, yes, I’m extremely serious about this as not doing so is practically a sure-fire guaranteed way to spread and contract those scary illnesses I mentioned.
Sure, you could wash, soap, wash, soap, and dry your toys between one person and the next, though whatever you use or however diligently you wash, it’s impossible to totally sterilize a sextoy—without destroying it in the process, that is.
So if you want to sexually share and share alike, your Lovense product or products have a box of high quality condoms at the ready so everyone will have fun—and be safe.
The right cleaner for the right material
Even with your handy-dandy Lovense guide at the ready, take time to thoroughly educate yourself about what your toy is made of and then what’s the most efficient method for cleaning it.
For example, Lovense is adamant you shouldn’t expose a Max 2’s inner sleeve to any type of soap. Similarly, while it’s okay to apply an extremely small amount to its interior shell, you have to be extra-diligent that none of it remains when you put it back together.
All of this is quite understandable considering toys like the Max 2 aren’t waterproof.
On the other hand, these predominantly silicone toys are fine and dandy in the tub or shower, so they have no problem with soap when cleaning them:
- Orgasm blending Nora
- G-spot oscillating Osci 2
- Prostate-pleasing Edge 2
- Powerful Lush 3
- Bluetooth-enabled Diamo cock ring
- Gush glans massager
- The classic Nora
- Teledildonic Hush butt plugs
- The Calor heated male masturbator
So they can be effectively cleaned with water, soap (or sextoy cleaner), a good rinse, finishing with a good dry with a lint-free cloth.
Though the Max 2, as well as the recently released Sex Machine, requires a few extra steps. In addition to users having to pay strict attention to where and where not you should apply water or soap.
Washing your Lovense toys
It may initially sound a touch no-duh, believe it or not there’s a right and, alas, loads of wrong ways to wash your Lovense toys.
Let’s go over what-not-to-do first, opening with what’s arguably the most egregious one.
Another understandable aspect of cleaning and maintaining the sex toys, particularly in light of how people like myself have been banging on pots and pans while yelling about how vital it is to stay healthy, you can’t and shouldn’t attempt to sterilize them.
Like exposing them to boiling water, popping them in the microwave, slathering them in alcohol or hand sanitizer, or anything except for the recommended warm water in conjunction with sextoy cleaner or a mild antibacterial soap.
Sure, doing otherwise may or may not kill a lot of germs and viruses, but it’ll unquestionably and utterly destroy your Lovense toy as well.
After all, preventing illness is all well and good. Just don’t throw your vibrator, massager, oscillator, and, best of all, enjoyable plaything while doing so.
On the matter of the sextoy cleaner versus soap debate, I tend to lean more towards the mild, unscented, barely applied antibacterial cleaner side of the debate.
There’s nothing wrong with products that’re specifically formulated to keep your Lovense products nicely spick and span. It’s in attempting to choose what cleaner is best suited for your specific toy where things can get a bit daunting—made worse when the cost of wrong choice could be ruining the toy you were trying to clean.
So it’s a safer rather than sorrier sort of issue—and it’s absolutely okay if you’re more comfortable with a certified safe sextoy cleaner. As long as you use it when and how you should, that is.
About the lint-free cloth I’ve mentioned, what isn’t (lint free, I mean) are paper towels, toilet paper as well as a majority of most shirts, blouses, or dish cloths.
Non-lint-free cloths aren’t a good idea because they’ll likely leave behind nearly impossible to remove little bits of this or that—which might end up … well, inside you.
Not good, right? So get yourself a real lint-free cloth and, exactly like your Lovense toys, make sure it’s completely dry before storing it in an airtight bag.
Keeping your Lovense toys clean
Remember my decidedly earnest recommendation to thoroughly wash and diligently dry your Lovense sextoy each and every time you use it—despite how strenuously you may have tried to keep it clean between uses.
Well, what I wasn’t saying is this lets you off the hook when it comes to thoughtfully, carefully storing your toy. Doing so prevents dust, dirt, and moisture from gaining a foothold and therefore, possibly making it exponentially harder to get rid of it.
Thankfully, Lovense’s customer care and quality merchandise extends to their packaging, which, while perhaps not providing a sterile seal, is considerably better than just throwing your toy into a cluttered, dusty nightstand drawer.
So after you’ve cleaned it and completely dried your Lovense toy, place it in a sealable plastic bag, return it to its box, and then put it somewhere where it won’t get too hot or cold.
I’ve found the top shelf of a closet works fine, or in one of those flat, rollable under-bed boxes. You can also toss in a silica gel pack or two to help everything stay dry, though that’s hardly mandatory.
The verdict
When all’s said and done, knowing how and when to wash your Lovense toy isn’t merely about keeping it shipshape and Bristol fashion, ready to satiate whatever sexual urges you desire sailing towards, but to get you there safe, sound, and most of all healthy.
I apologize if talking about infections and diseases bummed you out, but it’s important to understand that sex, even when it involves sex toys, is not without its risks.
Nor does it mean you have to lock yourself in a germ-free box to keep the microbial wolves at bay.
The key is to balance your right to be sexually fulfilled against the responsibility you have to yourself and others.
Good news, it ain’t that tough. And it all starts by reading articles like this as part of your ongoing sexual education—as is studying Lovense’s well-written materials on the cleaning and maintenance of their products.
Coupled with a willingness to stick to a regular routine, where after copious amounts of gloriously arousing fun with whatever toy you’ve chosen, you immediately stick it under a stream of warm (not hot) water, apply a moderate squirt of antibacterial soap or sextoy cleaner, give it a good scrub, rinse it off, dry it with a lint-free cloth, put it into a sealable plastic bag and store it someplace cool and dry.
Albeit this is Lovense’s recommendation. So, again, check your toy’s manual before you do anything.
Make this second nature and both you and all of your sex toys will be happy and healthy—and, seriously, what’s better than that?
