LoveHoney - The UK's favorite sex toy retailer?

Because I have very probably the best job in the world, this is the first part of a new Popcorn.dating series reviewing and commenting on a wide variety of online sex toy retailers. I’ll be looking at everything from the giants of the industry to small, independent Etsy shops. Today, I'm starting with LoveHoney, one of the biggest sex toy retailers in the UK.

Dildo or Dildon't #1: A Basic Overview of Lovehoney


If you live in Europe - especially the UK - and you own more than two sex toys, there’s a very good chance that you bought at least one of them from LoveHoney. They’ve pretty much got the corner on the industry here.
 

Quality and Quantity


Their range is so massive that the quality of that range is immensely variable. There’s a lot of cheap, tacky nonsense, sure; the place is full of flimsy furry handcuffs and weird faux-sexy card games no real couple has ever actually played. Look beyond all that, though, and there’s actually some really great stuff at very reasonable prices.

Their vibrators, for example, range from the perfectly serviceable £4.99 LoveHoney BASICS Love Bullet Vibrator all the way up to the Kiiroo Connect Onyx Male Masturbator and Pearl Female Vibrator Set, which will set you back £299.99 and claims to offer “unparalleled personal intimacy for long-distance partners.”
They’ve got pretty much everything. Their kink and BDSM range is pretty shoddy (and, yes, they’re the home of the original line of Fifty Shades sex toys), but for more common or garden shopping you’re very likely indeed to find what you want.
 

Lovehoney Sex Toys To Look At Twice

Having just taken the piss out of the Fifty Shades range, I must confess that they have some of the best Ben Wa balls currently on the market. They have a pretty good price on the Eroscillator - otherwise known as ‘the sex toy that once ruined me for a week, only in a much better way than that sounds’. One day I will own one of my own. Good grief.

Their Hitachi Magic Wand version is exclusive to them, actually very good, and probably a much better choice for customers in the UK than getting an actual Hitachi and using a power adaptor - our voltages are different and doing it that way can burn them out in the long run. The LoveHoney version will fit Hitachi attachments.

I don’t know whether or not anyone actually wants an official Motörhead vibrator, but I kind of love that one exists.

The Dear Abi Seal of Approval

Lovehoney are my go-to recommendation whenever someone asks me where to look for their first vibrator, butt plug, kegel ball or other reasonably basic and standard sex toy - and pretty much everything I own that falls into those categories came from them. They make it really easy to find what you’re looking for, and they’ve got plenty of videos and customer reviews to help you make a decision. Their customer service is pretty quick off the mark, their dispatch and delivery is always extremely reliable, and their billing and packaging is perfectly discreet. They also have a much better sizing policy than most retailers of this kind, and their plus size clothing range is genuinely worth looking at.

That said, there’s a lot of silly nonsense to wade through - crappy ‘supplements’ and useless creams and everything in their tacky Better Sex for Couples section. Their fetish ranges are large but generally of quite low quality, and there are plenty of better places to go for BDSM gear.

All told, I’d give them four out of five stars. If you stick to what they’re good at, you won’t find anywhere better.

 

Abi is a freelance writer and general pen-for-hire devoted to genre fiction, social justice and M.A.C lipstick. Follow her on her website or @see_abi_write