I didn’t consider there would be a big difference in performance between one personal lubricant and another. In fact didn’t give personal lubricants much thought until recently. The idea of using a personal lubricant has come up for me in more recent years , 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. What I am about to report is my experience which indicates my initial assumption about the personal lubricant quality and performance was not exactly correct. 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. If you have the time to wait, buying the v products online is a great way to save money and time. But this is supposed to be about my reviews of the Astroglide water based personal lubricant and V Products water based personal lubricant. So I will get back to that subject.

If you do read the reviews, you will likely see for the best skin-to-skin contact while using a lubricant, the choice would be silicon based. But, as I mentioned, I didn’t really pay attention to the reviews. When I first went to the store I was focused on the price of the lubricant more then the ingredient list. It didn’t cross my mind that silicon-based lubricants would be that much better so I didn’t consider them due to their price. So, I purchased the Astroglide water based lubricant.

For my purpose, it was fine. It was needed in some cases to provide added lubrication when the natural stuff was a little lacking. From time to time we would have to add a little more to keep things going, but we assumed that was the way it worked.

When a friend shared some information about a new National brand called V, I decided to make the comparison. 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. That first use told me everything I needed to know. There is, indeed a difference between the various personal lubricants. 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.

After that experience I went back and read some reviews. That’s when I learned about glycerin and parabens. 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. Plus, V can be purchased both online and at many local retailers.