5 Ways Sex Toy Companies Make More Budget-Friendly Toys

Affordable sex toys are the future of the industry.

Nowadays, you can eas­i­ly find a rumbly, body-​safe vibra­tor with a vel­vety fin­ish for under $50.

Blush Novelties colorful affordable dildos and vibrators under $55

In this pic­ture: Blush Novelties Avant Pride P6, Exposed Nocturnal Bullet, Nöje W4, Avant D15, Sweet Rush slim­line vibra­tor, Wellness dila­tors, Avant Pride P3, and Aria Flutter

If you're cutting costs, it has to come from somewhere.

That could mean mate­ri­als, labor, pack­ag­ing, adver­tis­ing, and so on. By being strate­gic, though, a com­pa­ny can man­u­fac­ture a decent prod­uct and treat peo­ple decent­ly for the price.

Here are a few ways mak­ers like Blush Novelties have reduced expens­es. Not every­thing on this list applies to all of their prod­ucts. However, I'm delight­ed when a com­pa­ny can pass their sav­ings on to you while pri­or­i­tiz­ing pleasure.

Heads up!

This post was spon­sored by Blush Novelties, but my past reviews for them weren't. I've been hon­est about times I did or didn't like their toys.


1. Food-grade, body-safe silicone

Let's start with material safety!

Part of how Blush reduces costs is using food-​grade sil­i­cone instead of medical-grade.

Think of silicone kitchen utensils:
  • Boilable
  • Chemically sta­ble enough for food prep or storage
  • Practically non-​porous
  • Easy to disinfect
  • You can put them in your mouth with no problems!

According to Kenton from Funkit Toys, food-​grade sil­i­cone is test­ed is by immer­sion in ace­tone, eth­yl alco­hol, oil, and water. "If any­thing harm­ful leach­es out in dan­ger­ous amounts, they don't pass food safe­ty test­ing," he told me.

There are many ways to test silicone's safe­ty for more spe­cif­ic pur­pos­es, but food-​grade sil­i­cone, by def­i­n­i­tion, is body-​safe. And it's safe for gen­i­tal con­tact while cheap­er than medical-​grade sil­i­cone. Non-​luxury toy­mak­ers use food-​grade sil­i­cone for this reason.


2. Small and sleek designs

Smaller toys take less silicone to make, so they're less costly.

Plenty of users are sat­is­fied with G‑spot/​prostate stim­u­la­tion — which doesn't nec­es­sar­i­ly take much length to accom­plish. Even a bul­let with a girthy, front-​loaded sleeve could do the trick for some.

Blush does have some big toys, like the Ruse Jammy, Avant D3, and Avant D4. They're steals for $35, $46, and $53, respec­tive­ly. However, if you're look­ing at sub-$35 dil­dos, the key to afford­abil­i­ty is simplicity.

Clean lines and minimal detailing mean quicker and easier unmolding.

Think of Blush's Neo Elite, Temptasia, and Luxe lines. The Temptasia Elvira: is girthy, has a defined head, is fun to clench around, and works for my G‑spot. Its (lack of) length isn't the eas­i­est to aim, but it's hard to beat the price for a girthy sil­i­cone dildo.


5 Ways Sex Toy Companies Make More Budget-Friendly Toys 1

Left to right: Blush Avant Pride P5, P6, P1, P3, and Realm Draken/​Drago sil­i­cone sword dildo


3. Minimal packaging

Sturdy boxes and satin pouches don't affect how I feel about the product in the long run. It's what's inside that counts.

Blush keeps its pack­ag­ing costs down with min­i­mal box­es or clear clamshells with paper inserts. It's not fan­cy, but it works. If you're on the go, put the toy in a Ziploc bag.

Ducky Doolittle, Blush's Marketing Director, made anoth­er inter­est­ing point: Americans don't trust low-​priced prod­ucts with fan­cy pack­ag­ing. It makes us won­der what the com­pa­ny is try­ing to hide.


4. Simpler construction

Blush's cheap­est body-​safe vibra­tors might not have the best crafts­man­ship, but they're fair. Their Gaia Eco slim­line vibra­tor is rumbly and qui­et for the price; its price and no-​frills design make it acces­si­ble to any­one new to pen­e­tra­tion or vibration.

Blush didn't sacrifice the quality of the motor much here.

But again, the low cost came from somewhere.

Remember when I took apart and com­pared bul­let vibra­tors? The higher-​end ones had screws and stur­dier ABS plas­tic on the inside. Taking them apart and putting them back togeth­er was a rel­a­tive­ly clean process.

The Blush Gaia Eco, in con­trast, had an ABS shell but a soft­er plas­tic under that. It's body-​safe on the out­side, just a lit­tle more frag­ile. The vibra­tions were still decent­ly pow­er­ful, almost par with the VeDO BAM and Femmefunn bullets.

5 Ways Sex Toy Companies Make More Budget-Friendly Toys 2

Blush's Exposed Nocturnal, an even stronger bul­let, has hard glue keep­ing some parts togeth­er. Again, it's not seam­less or ele­gant, but it takes lit­tle time to assem­ble, and it works. You get incred­i­ble pow­er in such a small pack­age — at a frac­tion of the com­peti­tors' costs.


5. Fewer settings and buttons

Another way Blush Novelties keeps it simple is by limiting their controls.

The more fea­tures a toy has, the high­er the price. That also applies to oth­er brands, like when com­par­ing the Womanizer Premium vs. Classic vs. Liberty vs. the ROMP Free and Shine. Sometimes, cheap sex toys mean you get a weak­er motor, and some­times you get sim­i­lar rum­ble with few­er frills.

Blush's Wellness G Ball vibra­tor def­i­nite­ly has great set­tings and con­trols, but it's one of their mid-​priced vibes. And that's total­ly fair. They don't jack up their prices like LELO does, despite their Hop Cottontail out­per­form­ing the LELO Gigi 2 in strength.

Blush makes body-​safe sex toys acces­si­ble to a wider range of users — get orgasms are boun­ti­ful with­out break­ing the bank.


What are your favorite affordable sex toys from Blush Novelties?

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8 Responses

  1. D. Dyer says:

    This was an infor­ma­tive arti­cle about how Costs can be cut with­out com­pro­mis­ing qual­i­ty, per­son­al­ly I am a rather big fan of the var­i­ous pride flag toys blush produces.

  2. Bitt says:

    I'm think­ing the plus is gonna be my next purchase.

  3. G says:

    i'd won­dered about food sil­i­cone so ty for the lit­tle info about that ^^

  4. Trix says:

    I'd been won­der­ing how priced had been dropped with­out com­pro­mis­ing safety…this was so informative!

  5. Kat says:

    I'm just slooow­ly warm­ing up to Blush's prod­ucts. I have a few of their Avant series in my wish­list. This is super insight­ful! I have been super anx­ious of buy­ing cheap­er toys, as some­one who bought most of her prod­ucts from our local sex shop…who, unfor­tu­nate­ly, sup­plies a lot of real­ly tox­ic toys, cheap in every sense. :T I get depressed think­ing of what I put any­where near my body because I felt assured it was safe lol. Thanks for this cohe­sive list and guide­line! Feels good to make informed choic­es. <33

  6. Quinn Rhodes says:

    This was a FASCINATING read — espe­cial­ly the sec­tion on food-​grade and med­ical grade sil­i­cone both being body-​safe! I love how nerdy you get about this, dis­man­tling the toys, etc. to find out exact­ly where Blush saved mon­ey yet still made good and low-​cost toys. I think it's also real­ly inter­est­ing when brands go for min­i­mal pack­ag­ing when we live in a time when it feels like we need to doc­u­ment ever aspect of our lives in per­fect pho­tos for social media — though every Blush toy I've ever seen has been total­ly Insta-​worthy, maybe *because* of their sim­ple and sleek designs? Obviously sex toys shouldn't be judged by how many likes a pho­to of them will get on Twitter, your post has just giv­en me some thoughts about what folks are actu­al­ly pay­ing for when they buy super fan­cy sex toys! (I don't think I actu­al­ly own any of their toys yet, but I'm very keen to get my hands on one of their Avant Pride dil­dos in the near future.)

  7. Chelsea says:

    I like the min­i­mal­ist packaging

  8. Prudence says:

    It's inter­est­ing to find out how Blush keeps their prices so rea­son­able. I've always been hap­py with the qual­i­ty of their products.

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