The Lubricant Lowdown

 

The Ingredient Lowdown

Most body lubricants have traditionally contained certain ingredients which recently have become controversial.   These ingredients fit into two categories:

1. Sweeteners
• saccharin
• aspartame
• glycerol
• glycerine  (another name for glycerol)
2. Parabens
• Butylparaben
• Ethylparaben
• Methylparaben
• Propylparaben

 

A Bit About Ingredients Lists

Aside from these particular ingredients, others are likely to be of interest to you as well, such as whether a body lubricant is oil, silicone or water-based, if it contains added fragrance, if it’s suitable for vegetarians, and so on.   For me, reading ingredients labels carefully is  de rigueur. 

I appreciate that reading ingredients lists can feel at first sort of like trying to decipher a technical foreign language trade magazine on drywall or something.   But ingredients lists are  wayyyyy  short!   With practice I promise it does quickly get a whole lot easier.   In the case of body lubricants the quick easiness is especially true, because rather than closely checking each and every item, you’re learning to look only for certain key ingredients.  

Check out this assortment of personal lubricant ingredients, Multiple examples make the similarities and ingredient meanings easy to see. Click for legible size.

Reading ingredients lists will also quickly become easier because regardless of manufacturer or product, all ingredients are always listed in order of proportion.   So ingredients always appear in similar places in every list.   Therefore if a product is water-based, then no matter what it is or who made it, water will appear at the top of the list.   You’ll also find that oil-based products feature oil at or near the top, silicone at the top or in the middle, sugar alcohols in the top half and parabens at or near the end.

You’ll also quickly learn to recognise ingredient endings, such as ‘ose’ for sugars and ‘ol’ for alcohols.   This means that with a bit of experience, you’ll soon learn to jump your eye straight to the items you’re interested in.  

If you persevere, a wee investment of practice and time will get you the ability to extract what you need from an ingredients list in about 5 seconds or less.

So please do keep at it, the gains are so worth it.   :)
 

By the way  –  I know that listing ingredients on the packaging of certain products is a legal requirement in the United States, and I am aware that people who live in the United States are therefore able to peruse ingredients lists on every body lubricant they consider.   However, all the Durex and Body Shop products I’ve seen in the UK and Republic of Ireland completely  omit  ingredients from their packaging.  

However, many other brands do include ingredients lists on their packaging.   So if you live in the UK or Republic of Ireland and packaging with ingredients lists is important to you, then you may want to limit your choices to brands which include ingredients on their packaging.

 
Meanwhile  back at the farm  coming back to body lubricants, I’ll move on in order of my personal preferences, which means we’re having dessert first!   :)

And so, on to sweeteners.
 

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