German consumer group Stiftung Warentest has put sex toys, love balls, and cock rings from some of the industry’s leading brands through laboratory testing to check for a number of pollutants, and one of its rather surprising conclusions was that price did not necessarily guarantee the best performance – prompting Satisfyer to draw attention to the test after its product earned a good score.
Berlin-based Stiftung Warentest was formed in 1964 with the aim of comparing goods and services in an unbiased way for the benefit of the consumer, similar to Which? in the UK. Toys tested in February 2019 included models from Big Teaze Toys, Doc Johnson, Durex, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fun Factory, Joydivision, LELO, Mystim, NMC, Satisfyer, Pipedream, OV, Seven Creations, Svakom, We-Vibe, and Womanizer.
The organisation said of the test on its website: “The test result is mixed: the scores in the pollutant check range from very good to poor. In three vibrators our laboratory was unable to detect any of the pollutants tested. Test result: Very good. The pollutant laboratory also gave the all-clear for eight other products – they cut well, and in one case even very well. Five times, however, we forgave the note poorly because we found critical substances in bedfellows in very high quantities. Among other things, the critical plasticizer diethylhexyl phthalate, DEHP short, which can damage fertility or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, short PAK, which are suspected of causing cancer. One of the big surprises in the test: among the losers are also two expensive vibrators – in terms of pollutants is expensive so not necessarily better.”
As alluded to earlier, the lab test resulted in Satisfyer receiving a good score (for the Satisfyer Pro 2 Next Generation), outperforming other, more expensive products, and Satisfyer’s senior brand and sales manager Nadine Schwalbe said the company was proud of the result: “Sex toys obviously have a lot of contact with mucous membranes,” she said. “This makes it all the more important to us that our Satisfyer is clean, and that the pleasure of our customers does not suffer from any harmful substances. The customer is for us the first priority and with our Satisfyer Pro 2 Next Generation one gets clean, pollution-free fun at a fair price.”
The article can be read by clicking here though the actual results are hidden behind a paywall which only allows access to German consumers.
