Road Test: Is this Melbourne-made lube going to change my sex life?
IMAGES VIA FIGR
WORDS BY GENEVIEVE PHELAN
Lube glorious lube.
I must confess, I’ve delayed submitting this article to buy more time. My assigned editorial mission was this: road test the lavish new lube from Melbourne-hailing sexual pleasure brand Figr and report back. Just another day in the office. And while fraught with highly personal anecdotes I would have to reveal and the risk of my mother reading about my sex life (again) online, I was up for the challenge.
My dating life is no secret these days. I’ve chronicled the past twelve months in love and life, laying it all bare online to the dismay of some. But (hopefully) its provided value to others. It’s just lately I’ve been feeling rather disenchanted about the prospect of intimacy with other humans. (For context, I am interested in men for reasons unbeknown to me and despite perpetual disappointment).
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Since one half of Figr’s two Eloise’s (the brands founders are Eloise O’Sullivan and Eloise McCullough) dropped off a prototype of their swanky new lube to my apartment, it’s been warming my bedside. The product has been on pre-order for a while now and the girls are getting bottles in hands this month, which is beyond exciting. But if you haven’t yet acquainted yourself with the brand or the very concept of lubrication, I’m hoping to gently goad you into giving it a squeeze.
Once Figr was in my possession, I joked with girlfriends about needing to ask a Hinge date to participate in lube market research for the sake of my journalistic integrity. Imagine that. I went on two dates in two weeks, but the vibes were absent. My recently reignited old flame was just extinguished again, so that wasn’t an option either. I was in an anecdotal drought, a girl with a deadline at a dead end.
When I asked one Eloise if Figr is something you could use solo, she assured me “It’s encouraged”. She also told me that if you use lube you are 50 per cent more likely to achieve orgasm, and lube has been used since around 350BC by the Romans (aka olive oil). So with my deadline closing in but my indifference to dating ramping up, I decided to use the lube in solitude.
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Everything happens for a reason. Or maybe in this case, an orgasm. The whole crux of Figr is to maximise pleasure in an often overlooked way. When some girlfriends retorted with “I don’t need lube”, I gave a shitty analogy of a water slide to make the case for good things becoming even better if you want them to be, and have the resources.
Ponder this: a slide is fun and you will go down it and probably have a happy time, but add water to the slide and your whole experience is changed. It’s faster and wilder and, naturally, wetter. You might prefer normal slides, or you might be a water slide kind of person. But you won’t know until you’ve been down both.
When the Eloise’s started forging Figr in lockdown last year, their openness around sex, body issues and masturbation helped normalise it for people like me. I think even setting myself this task and talking to my mates about it over dinner and laughing at my career prospects has all really opened up the convo around pleasure and sex for me. Why are so many things unsaid when everyone’s thinking about them? I find it remarkable that Eloise squared can both affiliate their entire lives and personal brands with sex, when I still get a bit iffy writing pieces like this.
“We made Figr to enhance people’s sex lives, whether it’s discussing it with friends, trying new things by ourselves or embracing them with a partner. Life gets better all-round when you normalise stigmas,” says Eloise O’Sullivan.
My findings aren’t groundbreaking. This elixir works to add slip in a non-offensive yet effective way. It comes encased in a glam glass bottle to show off alongside perfumes and other bedside ephemera, plus contains Australian native extracts to nourish your skin. It’s also been developed by two 20-something creative females who are best friends and forces to be reckoned with in the women’s wellness space.
In summary, here is a ‘quickie’ list of noteworthy thoughts from my time thus far with Figr:
- No squirty loud noise when dispensing.
- Fragrance-free, thank fuck. No smell at all to me.
- Feels silky and luscious but non-sticky on skin, disappears after rubbed in for a few seconds on hand.
- When examined first on the back of my hand, a fully-formed droplet comes out and sits there in a little blob, like water on a leaf.
- Doesn’t have that odd jelly-like consistency of classic lubricants.
- Did not conjure a gross flashback to lurid purple lube sticking to my leg and going weird, crusty and foul a year or so back in some random bungalow.
- Doesn’t resemble any other lube I’ve come into contact with before. If you gave it to me with a blindfold on, I wouldn’t even know it was lube due to my very distinct past experiences with random store-bought brands.
- I would feel confident using this with someone else and pitching it to them as a concept in my bedroom. It’s a fancy fluid reminiscent of a good face oil or something belonging to the instant dew but quick absorption family, so no tacky residue is left behind.
- Made pleasure better/heightened.
- Oh! And no UTI/yeast infection/dramas to report. (Old school lubes can be notorious for that stuff).
To road test some Figr lube for yourself, head here.
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