“…we make it easy to be good to yourself, your partner, and the planet.”

We’re just one month into Spring, and the awesome folks at Big Oh! Box are celebrating the season by filling their latest quarterly box with organic goodies. I was really looking forward to this box and wasn’t disappointed – and that’s despite me picking a box that didn’t come with the Noje Mini Wand (which is my absolute favorite sex toy.)

For those of you that don’t know, Big Oh! Box is a subscription service that sends you a new box of sexy things every few months. They’ve tailored their entire business around providing pleasure to everyone and not slapping gender or orientation labels on your shopping experience (though they can’t control what sex toy manufacturers put on toy packaging.) They want to banish the idea of restricting pleasure and exploration to “date nights,” and instead introduce sex positivity and new experiences into your bedroom. Or living room. Backyard? Guess it depends on how high your fence is.

Boxes contain an array of items with the focal point being a toy whose type/function is your choice (g-spot, p-spot, stroker, vibrator, backdoor, dual stim, or you can opt out of getting a main toy.) Lube, impact toys, arousal products, bondage – there’s all kinds of possibilities for what will be tucked in the discreet black box, but because you can choose the toy’s function, you know the box will be for you.

Wonderlust Serenity G-Spot Vibrator

Toy choice came in handy for me this quarter because Big Oh! Box went with the Noje Mini Wand as their vibrator choice, and I already have one. Plus, Buster isn’t as keen on external stimulation as I am, and it felt nice to pick g-spot instead so they got a treat for once. So among the goodies was the Wonderlust Serenity, a rechargeable silicone internal vibrator. The grippable portion of the vibrator has an ABS plastic face and two buttons and is attached to the insertable head – which has a slight curve and pointed tip for poking the g-spot – by a thin, flexible neck of silicone.

And “poke” is pretty much the summary of the Serenity’s capabilities as a g-spotter. (It’s also how Taryn of Ace in the Hole described it on Twitter.) Between the jabby nose and the prominent seam that runs along the head (an intentional design, for reasons I’ll never understand), the Serenity was an uncomfortable fuck even with liberal amounts of lube. Which is a shame, because its vibrations are rumbly but chill about it, which makes it a great fit for folks looking for steady but mild power against their g-spot.

I love it as an external vibrator though. The silicone is buttery sleek, and the seaming didn’t bother my junk. The flexible neck and modestly strong vibrations force me to take my time, which has been great for treating this week’s persistent migraines with relaxed orgasms. The buttons – one to turn it on/off, and one to cycle through the settings – are perfectly placed for me, with the settings button sitting closer to where I naturally hold it. The on/off button works with one click instead of requiring several seconds of waiting; and since the Serenity also isn’t particularly loud on its three steady power settings, it’s a pretty discreet vibrator.

There’s also an absurd number of patterns (17!) and a favorites function that allows you to imprint your favorite setting so you don’t have to click 20 freaking times to get back to it.

Value: The Serenity retails for $40 on Peepshow Toys and $45 at The Tool Shed, averaging $42.50.

Sliquid Shine Organic Toy Cleaner

I have a sink less than three feet from my bed thanks to the weirdness of RV living, so cleaning sex toys post-use is only as tedious as sitting up and leaning over. But when I have multiple toys and I’m still a little wobbly after going it solo, or Buster and I have chosen to just toss everything in the sink and leave it for the morning because we’re lazy beasts, I’ve thought about having some sex toy cleaner on hand for peace of mind. I’ve seen folks argue it’s largely unnecessary since good ol’ soap and water will do (and sanitizing is just a boiling pot away for non-mechanical toys), but I also peek out of my shower curtain at least fifty times even though I know nothing’s there. Sometimes you just need that extra reassurance.

Shine is Sliquid’s anti-fungal and anti-bacteria organic toy cleaner, made with tea tree oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, and aloe barbadensis leaf juice. (No parabens or glycerin!) The bottle I received was 8.5 ounces but was actually a misorder – the bottles intended for the box should have been 4 ounces, but the folks at Big Oh! Box gave the larger bottles to 20 of their subscribers. The bottle itself is very pretty: black plastic wrapped with a sleek black label with gold accents, with a gold plastic nozzle. It fits in unnoticed on our shelf of mildly fancy got-it-for-Christmas hair products and lotions. It says “naturally unscented” but I imagine that’s just shorthand for “we didn’t add any extra smells” because you can definitely smell that tea tree oil, y’all. It’s easy to apply because it’s not a foam and spurts smoothly from the nozzle. Just like the directions suggest, I like to put my toys in the sink, rinse them off with water, douse them in the cleaner, and then rinse them again.

And there’s been no lingering scent or residue on the toys, my hands, or the sink after the initial huff of tea tree oil fades.

Value: On Sliquid’s own website, the large size of Shine retails for $15 and the small retails for $9.

Toko Organica Organic Personal Lubricant

Here’s where we get into some controversy (and raw honesty.) I’m pretty anxious about what I put in my vagina, because I’ve had infections on and off since I became sexually active. My stuff’s super sensitive! I’ve become very mindful these days about what I let near my junk, and one of my hard passes is lube with glycerin in it… even the (deceptively?) more innocent-sounding vegetable/plant-based glycerin in this beautifully branded organic lube.

But my stunt vulva-haver, Buster, has a much better tolerance than me, so we did still give it a chance.

Organica, one of Shunga Erotic Art’s Toko line of lubricants, comes in a 5.5 ounce clear bottle with a simple black cap lid. Through the bottle, you can see a colorful (and hopefully not appropriated) Japanese print of an entangled couple. The lube is water-based, so it’s safe to use with silicone toys and latex condoms, gloves, and dams. It’s scentless but has a tart, unpleasant taste.

In use, Organica is good! It retains its slickness for a long time and feels pretty close to natural vaginal lubrication. A lot of friction does gather it up and turn it white, and it gets tacky after awhile – but like all good water-based lubes, adding a spritz of water slicks everything right back up.

And I definitely prefer its cap over other styles, it’s much simpler to figure out in the dark and easy to clean when spillage occurs. Which it often does, because I am the one doling it out.

Value: Organica retails for $18 on Shunga Erotica Art’s own website.

Sex and Mischief Enchanted Bed Bound Restraints

If the walls around my bed weren’t so desperately in need of fresh paint, I might have just taken a picture of the Bed Bound Restraints still situated under my mattress, because I kinda hated having to tug them out to take pictures. I vastly underestimated how keen I’d be on having a bondage set up that’s literally ‘set it and forget it’, always there when I impulsively want to involve bondage in bed but don’t want to stop what I’m doing long enough to dig up a set from the closet. I was cranky to remove them not because it was difficult – it’s as easy as lifting your mattress a bit and sliding out the strap – but instead because in the two weeks I’ve had them, they’ve become as essential to my bed as my sheets or pillows.

The Enchanted Bed Bound Restraints are easy to use, conceptually. You situate the long strap lengthwise beneath your mattress and adjust it the same way you would a backpack, pulling the strap through plastic buckling until it’s at the length you need it. You put your wrists and ankles against the restraint straps (which are purple and feel soft but not sleek) and tuck the attached cuff straps into place on rounded metal studs. Because your wrists and ankles are bound so close together, your partner(s) can have you stretched out in an enticing straight line.

They have their flaws. The cuffs straps and studs can fit a broad range of wrist and ankle sizes, but on the smallest notch they were so loose on my (thick) wrists I could easily slip out (which admittedly may be a benefit to some, especially for those nervous but wanting to try restraints, and folks who want to roleplay an easy escape scenario.) You have to tilt the cuff holes and push them onto the studs at an angle because they’re actually too small for the studs. And the vaguely crushed velvet-y feeling purple finish on the restraint straps is only on the front, which cheapens the aesthetic when it curls over itself over your wrists or ankles. Honestly, the whole system feels weirdly complicated as compared to actual circular cuffs.

And this is just a nitpick, but the woman on the box looks so displeased about the whole thing that it made me uncomfortable. Seriously, who thought this was the best picture to go with?

They’re vegan, which is cool, and they’re now a permanent fixture on my bed, so I obviously dig them. I imagine they’ll also be useful as anchoring points for other bondage cuffs, since I don’t have a headboard or any other hardware to bind them too.

Value: The Enchanted Bed Bound Restraints retail on Betty’s Toy Box for $35, and (ugh) Lovehoney for $40, averaging at $37.50.

Luxurious & Gentle Cleansing Towlettes with Lavender

Nothing that smells like these things is ever going anywhere near my junk. I don’t buy into the idea that people’s “sensitive places” ever need to smell like flowers (or in this case, old lady perfume) and studies have shown that douching, soaps, and wipes actually cause irregular odors. My vulva smells like a vulva. The side of the box suggests (in what I imagine is intended to be a cutesy way) that you use these wipes for post-activity freshening up, or to prepare for your doctor, “waxer,” or lover(s). If the people who regularly interact with your junk seem affronted by its scent, find different people to interact with your junk.

On their website, Box Naturals insists the intention of their product isn’t to shame “women” for how their bits smell: “Our scents are not designed to leave a lasting impression. The last thing BOX Naturals are meant to convey is that a woman’s natural scent isn’t ok.” But that narrative doesn’t line up with its suggested uses, if you ask me. (You didn’t, but I’m tellin’ you anyhow.) And the scent does last, or at least it does from these lavender ones.

The ingredients of these cleansing towelettes are clearly listed on the box (glycerin among them), but so are the things Box Naturals does not have: parabens, petrochemicals, synthetic fragrances. (So the old lady smell is all natural.) They’re biodegradable, and made by an indie woman-run company that donates a portion of its profits to charities for women’s issues. And they don’t use animal-derived ingredients either!

Despite the incredibly strong smell, I didn’t hate these as face wipes. I have naturally oily skin, and they dried even my obnoxiously shiny forehead. Without making my skin flake! I would love to use these for long days at theme parks (my face shines like a freshly waxed hood in Disney photopass pictures) but I don’t want to impose on folks with fragrance sensitivities. (Box Naturals’ site says they’re working on naturally scentless wipes, which I will definitely consider snagging.) For cleaning up my face after working in my yard for a few hours, these are dandy.

Value: These Cleansing Towlettes with Lavender retail for $10 on Box Naturals’ own website.

Isle of You 3-in-1 Massage Candle by Earthly Body

My favorite product in the box was definitely the Hemp Seed 3-in-1 Massage Candle. It comes in a palm-sized, 6 ounce brown tin, and has a little plastic spoon inside the lid. The scent – Isle of You – is earthy and sweet in a way I can’t quite describe but absolutely love, though when actually lit it disappointingly doesn’t permeate its smell. After burning for about 15 minutes, enough candle oil will have melted/warmed for massage use, and you can either pour it out into your hand or on the skin you’re going to massage, or you can dole it out with the little spoon. In use, the oil is slick but a bit pasty, and will stiffen back into soft wax if left dense and untouched. (It softens back into oil if you rub it.) My hands glided easily but weren’t so slippery that I couldn’t dig into unhappy muscles. It’s pleasantly warm when first poured but does not burn like regular candle wax, and it cools to skin temperature almost immediately. It smells amazing on skin, and both the sensation and the slick visual were very sexy. We loved it.

Buster and I used to trade massages a lot when we first moved out together, but as with most folks, relationship/sexual complacency crept in and we stopped doing it. When having my first look at this candle, I realized it had been at least six years since the last time I gave Buster a rub-down. It was nice to get indirect encouragement to get back to old favorites, and it was a sobering reminder that even good sex (and intimacy in general) can benefit from rekindling habits you’ve abandoned, just as much as it can benefit from exploring new things.

A shower was definitely necessary after using it for a massage. Though it says it can be used as a daily moisturizer, we found it too sticky even after prolonged rubbing to just be left on skin; and when Buster took a shower to rinse it off, it resisted being washed away to the point where after they got out they still felt a little tacky. (It also slicked the shower floor a bit, so be careful!) The scent did linger and was super relaxing to fall asleep with.

Value: Isle of You retails for $16 on Earthly Body’s own website.

Total Box Value: $130-$140

I loved this box. I loved the aesthetics of everything in this box (the Serenity stuck out a bit as a flamingo in an otherwise very handsome collection of products, but I’ll give it a pass!) and the fact that everything was organic and/or vegan. I admittedly knew I’d love the box the second I peeped the photoshoot for its promotional shots on Big Oh Box’s Instagram (you should follow them!) because gosh, y’all. I love the care Big Oh! Box puts into assembling a theme. And as someone who lives in the woods by choice, I can absolutely appreciate Nature’s Pleasures. Like most millenials, I try to be careful about how big of a print I leave on this earth, and it’s nice to be shown it’s not impossible to be mindful of it even in the bedroom.

This box was also such a big step up in terms of value; there wasn’t a single item I would dismiss as filler, and each provided something new (or familiar but forgotten) for Buster and I to try. I also loved the inclusion of a Big Oh! Box branded matchbox, which is a clever bit of advertisement that will no doubt be used when starting this summer’s fire pits.

Just like with New Year New Sensations, this quarter got us talking and playing – or, in the case of the restraints, bickering over whether or not we were fastening the cuffs properly. We’ve had fun, we’ve added the generously sized bottles to our cupboards alongside products we’ve purchased for ourselves (as opposed to being given samples to be used and forgotten), and we’ve impacted the planet maybe a little less than we might have otherwise.

Want a box of your own? You can use the code BETTY to save 30% on your order. You can also find really great codes on Big Oh! Box’s Twitter, like this one for a Nature’s Pleasures box with a dual stimulation toy. And if you’re not quite ready to commit to a box, you can still browse Big Oh! Box’s store for all kinds of toys and accessories as well as other curated boxes. They ship discreetly worldwide.

I received this quarter’s Big Oh! Box in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links.