Nothing quite like combining two extremely disparate toys into one review! Uberrime generously sent me Helios and Alia to try out. Let’s take a look at these lovely, creative toys, shall we?

Helios

I received the Helios in the color “Alien Sunset,” which is a marbling of teal, blue, and purple. All Uberrime toys are hand-poured, so each is unique; mine has a lot more purple than, say, the example picture on SheVibe, which I’m personally fine with. It’s also super glittery, which is fun.

Helios’s design features a blunt head, a very twisted shaft, and a radial round base. It’s a stunning toy, as most of Uberrime’s toys are. It’s also quite squishy to the hand. I tend to like the soft shore that Uberrime uses for most toys. They’re really satisfying to clench around…

If you can get it in.

Yes, my friends. The Helios is a beautiful toy and it utterly defeated me. I’ve never been much of a size royal, but I do have some large toys…with a taper. Helios’s head is extremely blunt, and trying to put it in my apparently reluctant vagina felt like, um…you know when you really ought to take the trash out, but you don’t want to yet, so you push down the trash that’s in there to put a few more items on top even though you know it’s going to rip the bag and be a huge mess? YEAH. It was not sexy in the slightest, is what I’m saying.

Eventually I managed to warm up with some of those aforementioned large and tapered toys, enough to sort of insert it…and it hurt. The entire time. I tried to add a vibrator to get some orgasms and I honestly don’t remember if I came or not, because it just hurt.

And there was a spot of blood on the bathroom tissue after, so I admitted defeat and did not try again.

I’m sorry, y’all. The Helios is beautiful, and it doesn’t look absurdly big, but its shape and size were just too much for me. I guess you could say I was Icarus and, in requesting this toy, flew far, far too close to the sun.

However, I still think this is a gorgeous toy and, if you know you like big blunt instruments, definitely buy this! Size royals may enjoy it tremendously, especially since a lot of bigger toys lack much texture.

Buy from SheVibe for $115.

Alia

So…grinding toys have been a thing lately, huh? It makes sense, of course. A lot of people learned to masturbate by grinding on something. It puts weight on the genitals to apply more pressure, as well as giving some measure of control, and then friction, you know, is kind of an important thing.

I’m, uh, not one of those people. I learned to masturbate on my back and that’s still usually my comfiest position. However, I did come around to the merits of grinding a while ago, when experimenting with my Liberator Tula and my Silver Bullet (originally reviewed here). I liked that it was fairly hands-free, since I have wrists that just die at the slightest annoyance, and I was eager to experiment more with grinding, so I requested the Alia!

Alia is a facehugger-looking, extremely detailed chunk of silicone. Designed by Uberrime in collaboration with Betty Butch and Aus 3D Designer, it is—as I have come to expect from Uberrime—a work of art in its own right. Mine is in the green coloration which looks very sci fi to me [update 4/18/23: The green is no longer available], but it’s also available in a pretty blue. It’s buglike and a little creepy, with a row of raised ridges along its back. It does have a lot of grooves and bumps that require some care in cleaning, but I’ve had worse. As with many unusually shaped toys, it could be great for some non-standard fantasies (y’all read my review of In The Court of the Nameless Queen, right?) but also just works as, you know, an object.

So, I initially tried out Alia on my Liberator. I could get it positioned pretty well there, and then I…humped away. As you do. I tried several times, and even tried edging first with a vibe, but apparently my body just will not come like that using anything but a vibrator.

So I tried other methods, because the cool thing about sex toys is that there’s no wrong way to use them unless it’s unsafe. I lay on my back and rubbed it on my clit.

HOLY CRAP y’all.

I should note that I’ve never been great at using my fingers to masturbate; before I had access to sex toys, I used objects to rub my clit, and then I bought a vibrator and really didn’t look back. And since my wrists hate me, even though I can use my fingers sometimes, I’m usually going to pay for it the next day.

Holding onto the Alia took a lot of the discomfort off my wrist and hands, while being able to put a lot of pressure down. The ridges felt pretty darn good on my clit, and I was even able to maneuver them to the side of my clit, where I’m most sensitive, which felt great.

I still struggled to orgasm with just the Alia, but after using a vibe to orgasm once, I’m generally more sensitive and my body is more amenable to more, so I gave it another go. And…I did! And it was really nice! It’s not the best method for me, obviously, but once I managed to make it work it had the nice slow build I tend to like and a satisfying conclusion. Like a good fanfic. But with my genitals.

Alia isn’t just useful as a masturbation or sex toy; it’s also useful as a stim toy or a stress ball. It’s really squishy and fun, and if left out, no one will know it’s a sex toy, because it looks like a bug.

That’s actually one of Alia’s strongest selling points in certain situations. If you live somewhere that you aren’t sure you could keep a sex toy from prying, disapproving eyes—if you live with your very conservative and nosy relatives or whatever—Alia is one of the most genuinely discreet toys available. It doesn’t look like a sex toy. It makes no sound. It’s small enough to hide if you need to, but you don’t need to.

And if you don’t need to be especially discreet (I say, looking at my overflowing drawers full of sex toys) it’s still a lovely piece. For me, I really liked that it gave me an option to enjoy manual masturbation on the occasions I want that without wrecking my wrists. It’s not the most reliable orgasm method for me, but that’s okay. It still works.

If you really like grinding, or want a different manual masturbation experience, or you just think the bug looks pretty cool, or you want an extremely discreet but body safe toy, Alia is great! Uberrime has also put out a rose-shaped toy, which is equally discreet, and a labia-shaped toy which is, uh…less so…so you have some options to try out. And at $42, it’s not the cheapest toy on the market, but it’s not luxury priced, either.

Even if it wasn’t the most reliable orgasm-maker for me, I’m really glad I got this one! I don’t know if it’s going in regular use for me, but I think I’m going to keep it out…just in case.

Buy from SheVibe for $42.

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These toys were given to me free in exchange for an honest review. This post does use affiliate links. Thank you also to my spouse for lending me one of their Alien action figures to model both toys even though it really only makes sense with Alia. That’s not important.