Review: CalExotics Naughty Bits Ombré Hombre

[Description: A blue, pink, and brown glittery dildo, covered in star-shaped glitter, on a galaxy-print background]

When Betty’s Toy Box sent around their “stuff you can review” list, I really intended to stick with one or two budget-friendly toys. I’ve been posting irregularly the last few weeks, and I do, after all, try to do a lot of budget toys.

But I saw the Ombré Hombre and…I just…had to. Yeah, it was $83.99, well outside of anything I’d consider budget-friendly, but it was beyond the promised ombré, it was practically galaxy-print. You know me. I love color anyway, and galaxy print is one of my favorite patterns. As I type this, I am—no exaggeration—wearing a galaxy print skater dress, sitting at a computer with a galaxy print mousepad and a galaxy print wrist cushion, with galactic Tardis artwork behind me and a galactic mermaid sticker on my laptop. I had to own this. My soul has been waiting for a galaxy dildo!

So, I requested it, and then I forgot about it until it showed up in the mail. I recommend this approach to deliveries, because then everything’s a surprise. But once it arrived, I loved how it looked. Firm silicone with a gradient from blue and pink, with a few swirls of brown to break it up a bit. And it was glittery. Holy shit. If all of my sex toys had glitter, I would not be mad. (Instead they’re all covered in cat hair.)

A rechargeable vibrator, the charge-hole is located in one fake testicle, and the on/off button is right next to it, embedded in the silicone. It also features a “flexible” core, made of what seems to be teddy bear armature, so that it can bend, although as with the Squeeze It dildo, it can’t hold a shape. Altogether it’s not very big, which is fine—I still adore the 5-inch rainbow dildo I reviewed last year and size-wise, it was quite comparable. Damien and I messed with it a little in a non-sexual capacity, and set it aside for testing.

[Description: The Ombré Hombre dildo with a glittery headband and some star-themed jewelry, on a background of galaxy print + neon unicorns.]

Because my sex drive has been largely located somewhere below the Mariana Trench lately, it took a bit to actually try it out. My lovely dom gave me a Required Testing Schedule, but they wound up trying it out before I did. Due to their full hysterectomy last year, they struggle with larger toys, but do like playing with small toys and thought this might be nice.

“Wow,” they said when they were done with it. “I kind of hated that. But it might just be my picky vag.”

It might, and I, undeterred, went in without any real expectations. I could tell that the vibration would be too buzzy for my taste but, with very few exceptions, internal vibration does nothing for me anyway, so I wasn’t too distraught at that. If nothing else, I was sure, this would make a fun silicone dildo.

I messed first with the “flexibility” feature. Of course the armature didn’t hold its shape, so it seemed a little pointless, since silicone is by nature fairly flexible unless it’s set very firmly. Also, I have to say, the sound grated at me a little. It’s kind of an awkward ‘pop’ noise that reminds me uncannily of the sound my wrist made when I ruined it at my last retail job. So, uh, that was neat. But honestly, it didn’t make a huge difference in use, I was sure. So, I tried it out without paying much attention to that feature.

As a dildo it was…okay? It was a little weird. I love texture under ordinary circumstances, but something about the firmness of the silicone and the location of the veins and so on felt…off? It felt kind of hard, but not so bad I couldn’t use it. Mostly, they each seemed to hit me in just the wrong spot. Not ideal, but not a dealbreaker. It still felt okay as a dildo, though already I could tell I preferred other ones in my collection. Still, a dildo is a dildo, and with a good vibrator on my clit, I could live with it in its un-vibrating state.

The vibration, though.

The vibration.

The fucking vibration.

[Description: The bottom of the dildo, showing the power button and the suction cup]

It was so buzzy that half the time I couldn’t feel it. And if I could feel it…it did not feel good. I tried to bend the toy so that part of it would make contact with my clit (the armature was going to earn its keep, dammit) and oh my God, it felt horrible. Itchy and annoying. I kept turning it off, internally or externally, because I just could not stand the buzzy sensation.

And the noise. Sweet Jesus, the noise. It was like masturbating in a mosquito-plagued swamp. You know that vzzzzzzzzzzzzz drone of a bug in your room that keeps swooshing past your ear? Yeah. That, but in my vagina.

I mean, I guess it works if you’re that lady from A Bee Movie who wants to fuck a bee or whatever. (I’ve never seen A Bee Movie.) So, if you want to fuck a bee, I have the vibrating dildo for you!

Everyone else: no.

Also, a word on the controls: They’re one-button controls with that damn CalExotic memory chip thing, so I was going to be biased against them anyway, but…the location on one ball is not ideal. Granted, it’s hard to find a good, natural place anyway, so I’m not super mad about that, but it’s also hard to hit just the right spot with lubey fingers. (There’s a light that will help a friendly partner to find the button in the dark, but if you’re using it alone, the button is facing the wall and you cannot see the light.) And when you do find it, it doesn’t always press quite correctly. It takes me a few tries to turn it on or off, or to change the speed, because the button is weirdly imprecise.

“But Ollie!” you cry, “at least it’s still a good dildo!”

Well, it’s an okay dildo. But…it’s 83 fucking dollars. I could buy EIGHTY-THREE shredded chicken quesadilla melts at Taco Bell. What do you do with eighty-three quesadillas? I don’t know, but for the price of this dildo, I could find out! The comparable Colours Pleasure 5-Inch is less than half the price for a dildo that is, to me, a lot more enjoyable.

What it comes down to with this vibrator is that I think CalExotics is trying to do a lot of things at once, and therefore, not doing any of them especially well. The flexible armature doesn’t do much and sounds hideous, the vibration is crap, the controls are awkward and imprecise, the texture feels weird. The silicone mix is still fairly pretty, but…that’s nothing new, is it? We’ve already learned not to trust aesthetics alone when it comes to sex toys. And for significantly less money, you could get a fun confetti dildo or a glow-in-the-dark dildo or even, on sale, a more complex galaxy dildo with a removable bullet so that you could get vibrations you actually want.

And to be honest, after all that, I’m not sure I’m all that enchanted with the patterning. The brown swirls in particular are beginning to look kind of sloppy. But that might just be my general unhappiness coming through.