Have you every wondered if there is a difference between one brand of personal lubricant and another? Not a question that was on my mind. In fact didn’t give personal lubricants much thought until recently. Once in a while I would have a need, or maybe just a desire to use a personal lubricant , but I never read any reviews and frankly never thought much about how one lubricant might be better than another. I didn’t have a lot of personal experience and so I thought there wasn’t a difference between the brands. That initial reviews couldn’t have been further from the truth. The reality is, there is a big difference in performance and quality between the various personal lubricants. I have purchased a few personal lubricants at stores, but never online. The online option seems pretty good if a person plans ahead and knows they will need to replace a personal lubricant that is running out or that, at some point in the future, it will be needed. Plus the reviews online come in handy. Of course, I never paid attention to the reviews. Online purchase is a good idea when you can plan ahead because it usually saves money. But this is supposed to be about my reviews of the Astroglide water based personal lubricant and V Products water based personal lubricant. I should probably return to that story.

If you do read the reviews, you will probably notice the recommendation to use a silicon based lubricant any time you are engaging in skin-to-skin activities. But, as I mentioned, I didn’t really pay attention to the reviews. I didn’t even consider looking at the ingredients when I went to the store at first because I was just looking at the price. Silicon-based personal lubricants are more expensive, so those were quickly discounted and set aside. So, I purchased the Astroglide water based lubricant.

I thought it was fine. It seemed to do the job of added to the pleasure when the natural lubrication was less than adequate. It didn’t always last to the end, but I figured that’s the way those things worked and I simply added more.

I would have gone on this way indefinitely had it not been for a friend that pointed out a company called V that had recently entered the marketplace. V Personal Lubricants is a company out of California with what they say is the best ingredients and the best formulation. Again, I didn’t read the reviews, but on a recommendation of a friend, I decided to give it a try. As it turned out, there can be a vast difference in the performance of one personal lubricant over another and I figured that out on the very first use. The biggest thing I noticed was the V water based lubricant didn’t dry out. We didn’t need to apply more and more to complete the task at hand. That made a big difference because I wasn’t distracted by the need to keep handling something that wasn’t my partner.

I was very curious why there was such a difference so I decided to do a little reading. I was very interested to find out the details on parabens and glycerin. The reviews explained that V Products uses pure vegetable-based pharmaceutical grade glycerin and no parabens. Artroglide also uses glycerin but parabens are used. The issue there is that parabens are known to cause skin issues for some people and there are still questions about it’s possible link to breast cancer. The way I read the reviews, the V Products lineup is the way to go. But, for me, it really comes back to the practical side. I like the fact that the V water based lubricant lasts longer, doesn’t get sticky and feels great. The good news is that you can get V from a lot of local stores and online at their web site.