Presented by Erotic University
Presented by Erotic University
| Are Glass Toys Safe? | |
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There are
lots of glass toys coming on the market. They range from the inexpensive
to the very expensive. The question we had was whether they were really
safe to use.
We turned to the experts.
Steve and Dave of Knowmind Enterprises pioneered the concept of glass sex
toys. They graciously provided the follwing article giving their persepctive
on the safety of glass and what to look out for.
By Steve and Dave at Knowmind Enterprises Know Mind Enterprises is the leading designer of “21st century sex toys”. These include the Asstroknot series in borosilicate, Whip Lite, and Aqua Vulva II. We have made borosilicate adult toys for five years and have always checked every single toy under a polariscope to make sure our toys are the safest on the market. We have learned our craft from some of the world’s finest scientific glass makers. Since we have been on HBO’s “Real Sex” and more recently Playboy’s “Sexcetera”, a number of new companies have shown up making different types of glass sex toys. We have been buying these products and sending them to our glass blowers for evaluation. Here is what we have learned. The biggest problem with these products is that to the naked eye, they look just fine. The buyer has no way of judging what he is getting by looking at the product. Some of these products are not even made from borosilicate glass. They are soft glass, and in some cases leaded glass. These items have stress built into them. Whenever glass is manipulated to change its shape, stress is introduced. This means that these toys can spontaneously explode into 100’s of razor sharp shards at any time! This material should never be inserted in the body, period. Another major problem is that some of the items, although made from borosilicate glass, are either not annealed at all, or are simply flame annealed. Annealing is reheating the glass after it has been shaped to relieve the interior stress. This is done in an annealing oven. The temperature is brought back up over 1000 degrees F. for up to 12 hours based on glass thickness, then the temperature is slowly lowered over another 10 to 24 + hours. This process is very expensive and time consuming. Without careful annealing, these are also time bombs! A third way of making these products weaker is to piece them together. All of our products are turned on a lathe at low speeds, and shaped by compressing the glass to make the balls, heads, etc. As lathes can run $25,000.00 or more with the necessary attachments, most of these companies are not equipped to make these toys right even if they wanted to. Annealing dissimilar pieces, especially if they are different batches of glass or dissimilar (read cheaper) brands, is very difficult. Another dangerous precedent is adding color. Adding color to clear glass significantly weakens it. It may look nice, but it’s your ass! Even worse, are colored veins, bumps, and designs applied to the exterior of the glass. These are almost impossible to seal (melt into) to the shaft. We have found veins and bumps so loose we could snap them off wedging a fingernail into the crack between the vein and the shaft. Even if they do get a good seal, they will not react to temp. or pressure changes the same as the main body of the toy and so can chip off at any time. Many times bumps are applied to the glass by dripping molten glass on the shaft. If these are not carefully flattened, tapered, blended, and sealed into the main body of the toy one by one, the toy ends up with what is called “bad re-entry angle” on the bumps and they can pop off. Bad re-entry angle occurs where glass meets at sharp angles with no curving transition. Perhaps the most dangerous thing our experts have seen so far in glass sex toys is using hollow tubing instead of solid rod. Tube is too fragile, no matter what process is used. Some are filled with liquid, or sleeved on vibrators. We recommend cleaning our products in the dishwasher, or by boiling for 20+ minutes if sharing with different partners. Sterilizing these products is one of the many advantages of using annealed borosilicate glass however; proper cleaning can cause these ill made products to explode. Borosilicate glass will hold heat or cold for 10 + minutes while in use. This is probably the most exciting point to the end user. It is dangerous to use any of these cheap knock offs hot, cold, or room temperature as internal body temperature can be enough different from the toy temerature, to cause them to explode. The only way to know if any glass products are safe is to have an expert look at them under a polariscope and high intensity light. If any of the above conditions exist, you are taking a huge risk selling them, much less using them. From the editor: While
we have not heard of any cases of exploding glass toys while in use, we
can certainly understand how poorly made products will be much more subject
to potential problems and will probably not last. This is an area where
it pays to be a careful shopper.
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