Well, here it is. The review no one asked for but we all definitely 100% needed.
I can’t begin to describe why I needed to make this article for you. One day I just found myself in Ann Summers looking at the large selection of flavoured lubes and knew that I had to try them all. It was only 30mins later when I came home with my bag full of expensive lubes, (more lube than any one human ever needs to buy at one time), and I told my flatmate what I was doing that I realised how crazy I looked. Thankfully they were used to my crazy antics and, bless them, they just nodded and began helping me lay them all out. Ten minutes later, we are full of caffeine, blaring early 2000s tracks, and ready for the taste test of a lifetime.
We started with the Ann Summers ‘Dessert Flavour Lube’, a set of 5 different, colourless lubes that claimed to taste like various well-known desserts. We noticed half way through tasting these lubes that they leave a ‘tingly’ or ‘burning’ sensation in the back of your throat (which we assumed is supposed to happen) that is kind of strange but fun. Anyway, below are the rest of the notes I took as we tested them all:
Banoffee Pie
- Ew that smells like banana, smell is worse than the taste
- Tastes like fake banana sweets
- Not that bad, but wouldn’t choose it
Cherry Bake Well
- Smells and tastes like cherry scented lip balm
- Very sweet!
- We like this one a lot
Strawberry Cheesecake
- Smells like the squishy candy (?) and the cupcake lip balm that was popular in high school
- Bad taste, don’t want it in my mouth
- Too sweet and very fake
Mint Choc Chip
- Smells good, like the ice-cream
- It tastes good but not great
- Not a very strong taste, would like it to be stronger
Black Forest
- Nice smell, very mild taste
- Exactly what you would expect
- One of the better ones but I would rather lick the real thing
After cleansing our palettes with yet more caffeine, we moved onto the Ann Summers ‘Licks’ range of flavoured lube. These lubes were really colourful which is what drew me to them but as you will see, unfortunately, the pretty colours could not make up for the strange sensation of having these in your mouth. What we didn’t realise before tasting these is that some of them ‘warm up’ upon consumption and others ‘cool down’ and this was a horrifying thing to realise when you have already eaten something. Anyway, here are the notes I took:
Bubble Gum
- It’s just bubble gum
- I like this one, would lick
- Not too sweet, good flavour
- It was cold
Tropical
- Smells and tastes like peach iced tea
- It got warm in my mouth
- Not a huge fan
Passionfruit
- Dislike, 0/10
- Tastes like tic tacs and clear gummy bears
- It was warm
Raspberry
- Smells good and tastes bad, bad candy
- Really bad after taste
- Not warm/is warm
- Worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth
After what felt like 10 thousand years, we had tasted all the lubes (a sentence I never thought I would ever have to write) and I was left a little disappointed. While flavoured lube sounds like a really fun idea, I don’t think we have quite cracked the flavour aspect. All of these lubes were silky and non-sticky but, unfortunately, the flavours were not quite as advertised. In the end, for those of you still interested, this was my final ranking of all the flavours:
- Cherry Bakewell
- Black Forest
- Mint Choc Chip
- Bubble Gum
- Banoffee Pie
- Tropical
- Passionfruit
- Strawberry cheesecake
- Raspberry
If, for whatever reason, this review has inspired you to pump yourself full of caffeine and taste test lubes (or whatever activity sane people do on a Sunday evening) here is the link for my spectacular Spotify playlist of early 2000s bops: