Reviewed by A. Marquardt
“Maybe I just don’t understand the purpose of flavored lube,” said my roommate when I told her I’d be reviewing four flavors of Sex Tarts lube. “Tasting like a raspberry isn’t sexy to me.” I tend to agree with her – flavored lube is mostly baffling to me, since a) I rarely use lube and b) when I do use it, the taste of the lube is the least of my concerns. However, since the whole thing about flavored lube is just that – the flavor – let’s talk about how the Sex Tarts line fulfils their part in the quest for a lube that tastes good. I enlisted a few friends to experience what I assumed would be a chore with me: testing the flavors.
Jeremy, one of my oldest and dearest friends, was first. He chose to try the Electric Lemonade flavor, reasoning that he liked lemonade and electricity. “It tastes like Pledge,” he said. “And cancer.” The flavor is artificial in a way I have not encountered before. We’ve all had lemon candy – this is like lemon candy that’s gone through some sort of nuclear facility. It’s not good.
Kat, a friend who is constantly begging me to share my goodies with her, finally got to get in on the fun when I offered her one of the flavors. She chose the Raspberry Rush. “I don’t understand flavored lube,” she sais. “But this isn’t terrible. I might buy it if it was the only thing at the drugstore and I, like, REALLY needed some lube. But I wouldn’t go searching for it…the flavor thing is weird.” I don’t particularly care for raspberry in general myself, and this was no exception, but I didn’t get as much of the lab-created aftertaste the Electric Lemonade induced.
The Pineapple Zinger (somehow, the name that makes the least sense to me) was what my friend Jennifer decided to try. “It’s tropical, but stale somehow…like a pineapple Jolly Rancher that’s been sitting out or something.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Which left me with just the Peach Pucker for myself. I was wholly prepared not to like it, which makes the fact that it’s kind of delicious all the more amazing. Seriously. It’s kind of good. Not that I’m eating it with a spoon, but I’m definitely thinking of ways to use it. There’s still a teeny-tiny bit of a weird aftertaste, but not nearly as much as the other flavors. And the peach is sweet but not overly so, which is, I think, the key to flavored lube nirvana: too sweet is nauseating and not sweet enough sort of negates the whole purpose of the flavors.
And then there’s the function. Obviously, the whole point of flavored lube is the flavor itself, sometimes at the cost of the effectiveness of the lube, but I found it to be fine – nothing amazing, but passable. Like the sole of a Manolo Blahnik, the effectiveness of a flavored lube, while not the star of the show, needs to be solid enough to support the fancy flavors piled on top of it, which Sex Tarts does admirably.
The bottom line is: If you like flavored lube, these are a good way to go. They’re sugar-free, they work fine, and if you can find a flavor you like (Peach Pucker, obviously, being my personal recommendation, but there are a total of nine others), you’re set. They’re a small investment for the flavored lube connoisseur, and if you dig the flavored lube, these are definitely the way to go. SexTartsLube
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