Pink BOB Silicone Vibrating Dildo Review: body-safe sex toy under $20

UPDATE: I wish I hadn't writ­ten this review. This prod­uct isn't even worth the amount of time I spent writ­ing about it. It's cheap, it's ter­ri­ble, it's what­ev­er. But it didn't deserve my atten­tion at all. Not when you can get inex­pen­sive and higher-​quality vibra­tors from a bet­ter shop, run by bet­ter people.

2017 me: let's flame test this sex toy to find out whether it's body-​safe silicone

2019 me: buy from rep­utable brands and shops, so that you're not ask­ing that ques­tion in the first place

— Super Smash Cache (@supersmashcache) August 29, 2019

TooTimid does have some body-​safe sex toys, but they mark the prices waaayyyy up for sil­i­cone sex toys from oth­er brands. No, thanks.

Anyway, here's the review. I wrote it waaaay back before I got to know the ins and outs of the indus­try. However, I do under­stand that Pink BOB is some people's ini­ti­a­tion into the sex toy world. And I hope this blog post shows you a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on cheap sex toys and "toys for beginners."

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Pink BOB Alex Silicone Realistic Vibrating Dildo review

Have you ever got­ten lost try­ing to get from Florida to Michigan, and end­ed up in Colorado instead?

No exag­ger­a­tion. I know some­one who did that. He just nev­er asked for help because he believed that "God would take him to his destination."

Well, that's about how off-​base I found some reviews of Pink BOB's Alex real­is­tic vibra­tor.

In this review:

• How to flame-​test a sex toy to see if it's silicone
• How does this sex toy feel as a dil­do? As a vibra­tor?
• When is the phrase, "good for begin­ners" bullshit?
• Should I buy this toy? If not, what else should I look at?

Are Pink BOB and Too Timid legitimate?

Short answer: yes.

Pink BOB is the white-​label brand owned by Too Timid, a sex shop that was estab­lished in 2000. Frankly, much of their selec­tion doesn't seem to have left that era. Toxic PVC and porous TPR lit­ter the inven­to­ry, and one page on Too Timid's web­site calls tox­ic jel­ly "the per­fect material."

Further, Pink BOB stands for "Battery-​Operated Boyfriend." Yikes! Destroy the myth that sex toys replace peo­ple, that women love pink, and that only sin­gle peo­ple masturbate.

Despite the unscrupu­lous and prob­lem­at­ic use of lan­guage through­out their online shops, Pink BOB and Too Timid are legit­i­mate busi­ness­es that sell both porous toys and body-​safe toys.

When I saw a sil­i­cone vibra­tor on Pink BOB's web­site for $20, my first thought was, "is it sil­i­cone?" There's no label­ing reg­u­la­tion in the sex toy indus­try. So if you don't know who you're buy­ing from, you can't trust that it's sil­i­cone just because the web­site and pack­ag­ing say so.

Flame-​testing to tell whether sex toys are really silicone

There are prin­ci­pled sex shops that sell afford­able and gen­uine sil­i­cone sex toys, and there are brands that delib­er­ate­ly mis­la­bel their prod­ucts. How can you tell whether a sil­i­cone sex toy is body-​safe, for real?

You try to set it on fire.

By doing flame tests, you can observe how sil­i­cone behaves dif­fer­ent­ly from TPE, TPR, and jel­ly. To deci­pher the results of a flame test, check out Dangerous Lilly's guide.

How did Pink BOB's realistic silicone vibrating dildo react to fire?

I held a flame to the edge of the suc­tion cup (a part that I was least con­cerned about dam­ag­ing) and mon­i­tored for changes in the mate­r­i­al. The result: caught fire on a thin sur­face, but the flame quick­ly died out and left behind pale gray ash that I could eas­i­ly rub away. Indeed, the out­er lay­er of the Pink BOB Alex vibra­tor is real silicone.

What a relief! This sex toy meets my bare, bare min­i­mum stan­dard of not harm­ing a human being. It's chem­i­cal­ly sta­ble, won't leech tox­ic chem­i­cals that could give your vagi­na or anus chem­i­cal burns. And the surface's pores are small enough that bac­te­ria and mildew can­not embed them­selves in it.

But does the Pink BOB vibrator feel good?

As a dildo

Using the Pink BOB Alex vibra­tor as a dil­do, I can't com­plain much. It's rigid (read: not super real­is­tic!) enough and a suit­able girth to tilt and aim at my G‑spot and pos­te­ri­or fornix.

This vibrator's 6‑inch insertable shaft tapers from 1" at the coro­nal ridge to 2" at the balls, with an aver­age diam­e­ter of 1.65". If you're get­ting used to pen­e­tra­tion, you can start with the rel­a­tive­ly slim tip and work your way down the shaft as you get com­fort­able. If you're already com­fort­able with pen­e­tra­tion, it's still girthi­er down the shaft.

Overall, Pink BOB's Alex is worth the $20 if you plan on using it as just a dil­do and noth­ing more.

As a vibrator

The vibra­tions are pret­ty much absolute shit. I know the reviews on the web­site say that it's pow­er­ful and has soooo! many! set­tings! "If you can't find one that suits your fan­cy, I don't know what to tell you," says Erica. She gave Pink B.O.B.'s Alex the most egre­gious 5‑star review on Too Timid's web­site. It says noth­ing about the type of pow­er or the type of set­tings this vibra­tor has.

Buzzy vs. rumbly vibrations

I'd seri­ous­ly rather rub myself off, because 7 out of 10 times I use this toy, I can't orgasm with it on my clit. Now, I'm not claim­ing that someone's per­cep­tion is wrong if they think it's pow­er­ful. It's just not the type of pow­er I enjoy; it's very buzzy and surface-​level. It tick­les quick­ly rather than shak­ing and rat­tling my cli­toris. It feels like a fairy exhal­ing in the vicin­i­ty of my cli­toris. Further, while I have found some weak­er and buzzi­er toys accept­able, it's because their tips were pointy so I could tar­get the vibra­tions better.

I checked my email and start­ed scrolling through Twitter. That's how bored I was. The 30% of the time I could (which is dif­fer­ent from want­i­ng to) squeeze out an orgasm with this Pink BOB. vibra­tor, it wasn't pleas­ant. The orgasms were short, sharp, and fleet­ing. It's hard­er to go for mul­ti­ple with this sex toy because, once I orgasm and my clit gets sen­si­tive, the vibra­tions feel pinchy and irritating.

Sure, I can orgasm with this toy, but it's hard­ly plea­sur­able. There are three pri­ma­ry out­comes for me using it cli­toral­ly: bored, numb, or irritated.

Speed range and pattern selection

I think the ulti­mate thing to look for in a begin­ner vibra­tor is ver­sa­til­i­ty and a vari­ety of set­tings. Beginners don't nec­es­sar­i­ly know how much pow­er they'll need, so while ver­sa­til­i­ty is always a plus, it's cru­cial for begin­ners. The Pink BOB Silicone Vibrating Dildo fails by this criterion.

It might have ten vibra­tion set­tings, but they're all pret­ty crap­py. What's more, there are a mere 2 uni­form vibra­tion set­tings and 8 pat­terns, con­trolled by one but­ton. If the steady vibra­tions can't reli­ably get me off, the vary­ing rhythms def­i­nite­ly can't!

Why calling a weak and buzzy vibrator "good for beginners" is bullshit

Look, among sex toy review­ers, my cli­toris is pret­ty fuck­ing sen­si­tive; I can eas­i­ly orgasm in less than 45 sec­onds of a fin­ger rub­bing it. You would think that would make me more gen­tle about Pink BOB's vibra­tor, but it makes me a lit­tle saltier.

Why? Because if some­one as sen­si­tive as me strug­gles to orgasm with this toy, I'm inclined to think that most peo­ple would have an even low­er suc­cess rate with it.

Beginners deserve orgasms. If this was my first vibra­tor, I might think my body was bro­ken for not enjoy­ing the so-​called "pow­er­ful" vibra­tions. Worse, it might have turned me off to explor­ing vibra­tors more. After exper­i­ment­ing with a range of sex toys, how­ev­er, I know that it isn't my body's fault, but the toy's.

My verdict on the Pink BOB Alex

I can't say that this vibra­tor is respectable for a sex toy with sep­a­rate bat­ter­ies because it's not. Picobong's Ako and Zizo prove that toys with AAA bat­ter­ies can have range and rum­ble. Nor can I say that the Pink BOB Alex vibra­tor is pow­er­ful for the price. Not when the Blush Novelties Gaia Eco is $10 and has way rum­bli­er vibrations.

"But it's only $20!" only applies if you don't ever plan on using this toy as a vibra­tor. If you buy the Pink BOB Alex, buy it because it's one of your options for afford­able sil­i­cone that will last you a long time. Buy it because you like its size, shape, rigid­i­ty, and tex­ture as a dil­do. Don't buy it because you expect the vibra­tions to do much.