It’s cute! It’s tiny! Even the packaging’s well-designed! It’s body-safe, discreet, and easy to travel with because it looks absolutely nothing like a sex toy and the battery’s easy to remove. It’s relatively quiet, ridiculously cheap and waterproof. It comes in colours other than pink and purple. So far, so good, right?

I received the sora-mikan colour scheme, which is the one I was hoping for as it combines two of my favourite colours – a chalky sky blue on the bottom, and a juicy tangerine upper half. The bottom half’s made from ABS plastic and the top half from elastomer, which I don’t really get the point of – both surfaces feel pretty much exactly the same and the elastomer doesn’t make a huge difference concerning softness, plus this means I can’t use oil or silicone based lubricants with it. Boo.

The mini’s easy to use; powered by one triple-a battery in the base, you twist the top half and it pops off to reveal the guts. There’s a nifty hidden button to turn it on and off with located on the side of the mini – as it’s concealed under the orange elastomer you can’t see it all, which is a feature I really like because I’m shallow, I guess. Another thing that’s important for me is that I can travel easily with it; because the mini’s battery powered I can just remove the battery and tuck it into my makeup bag, where it fits right in. It kind of looks like a cutesy perfume atomiser, actually.

Unfortunately, the mini doesn’t work for its intended purpose. Like, at all. The vibrations feel unusually strong in my hand; when I switched it on for the first time I actually jumped because they surprised me so much. All that power from a triple a battery? GOD HAS ANSWERED MY PRAYERS. Except…er, not so much, because the vibrations are so surface level that they just fizzle away to nothing as soon as I apply a hint of pressure. The mini buzzes away happily to itself but I can’t feel a thing. I was so confused by this that I thought I’d received a faulty one - surely the whole ‘deadened vibrations’ thing only happens to toys with an inch and a half of solid silicone between me and the motor? Apparently not.

I changed the battery twice, I used it underwater, hoping this would somehow give the vibrations a kick up the proverbial and force them to go deeper or diffuse or do literally anything but disappear into the ether as soon as I applied even the tiniest hint of pressure, but nothing changed. I’m fairly sure the tiny watch battery orbs that came with Tenga’s earlier Vi-Bo range were more powerful than this. At least they didn’t just dissolve. I don’t know what to do with the mini – it works okay if I use light, circular motions or gentle brushing strokes or traced over my underwear, but that is not how I get off. It’s a tool for teasing and not much else.

I’m disappointed. The mini had so much going for it! So much potential! I’m still not sure if I really believe in the concept of ‘beginners toys’, but obviously there are a lot of people out there who don’t want to or are unable to shell out upwards of £40 on a first vibrator, no matter how good the reviews are, and the mini could’ve been another, better option in a sea of mediocre bullets and flimsy pocket rockets. I was rooting for you, mini, and you let me down. At least you’re cute.

I was sent the iroha mini by the lovely people at Simply Pleasure in exchange for a review. Thanks guys! You can buy the iroha mini in all three colourways at Simply Pleasure for £16.95, and they also stock the original Iroha line, which I previously reviewed here.

Biodick-lookin dildos gross me out, I’m not gonna lie. They veer into uncanny valley territory for me personally, and while I’m all about the concept of having several disembodied dicks adorning your furniture like you’re living in some kind of seventies Hammer Horror maneating ladies-and-succubi-only cave, the reality just doesn’t appeal. The veins are either too delicate and thread-like and reminiscent of a recently skinned chicken, or too chunky and cartoonish. The heads are creepy and nearly always circumcised – my male partner is the only circumcised dude I’ve ever slept with and I still sometimes get confused! Balls frankly frighten me and the weird approximations of ‘flesh’ tones that you generally get make my skin crawl, usually either a sickly pale salmon or a generic orangey tan. But this. This is TIE-DYE. The colour scheme and the supersoft, super forgiving silicone puts a lovely blanket over all the things I hate about biodick-dildos and makes them more than tolerable. I now actively like all of these features. See? I could’ve said ‘flaws’ there, and I didn’t.

First off – specifics. The Mustang is 8 inches long, including the base, with a fairly prominent curve and it measures 4.5 inches in circumference. It has a faint veined texture on the shaft, and two ridges at the top. It’s 100% silicone, so always use this with water based lube – no hybrids, no silicone lube – and the base means it’s good for use in a harness AND it’s butt safe. The silicone is dual-density, which means it has this amaaaaazing plush outerlayer and a slightly firmer inner ‘core’…so a little bit like the dildo equivalent one of those ridiculous new Ben & Jerrys core ice creams, but in reverse and infinitely better. When I first got it I was initially intimidated by how defined the ridge on the head is in case it felt huge behind my pubic bone, but the material is really forgiving and gentle. It’s wonderful, girthy enough to give you a full feeling but not so much that you start to feel uncomfortably stretched out – the only thing with it is that it does tend to eat lube up so it’s a good idea to have a bottle of lube on hand in case you start, uh, running dry, as it were.

The dual-density silicone is one of the squishiest, most delightful textures I’ve ever had the pleasure of putting in my various orifices and occasionally snuggling up against and falling asleep with. It feels slightly tacky without (water based!!!) lube on it, it’s got a lot of bend, and a lot of what my girlfriend calls ‘flop factor’, as in, ‘this dick has an extremely high flop factor, I want to bounce it off your face and mouth/vulva’. Having said this, it’s still more than firm enough to fuck yourself or someone else with, the underside is definitely harder than the top of it, which is a plus because this means it still holds its curve well and looks perky and ready for action in a harness, and it doesn’t slip around or bend double onto itself when you’re trying to get it inside your vag. The Mustang lends itself really well to harness use – I know this might sound kind of dumb, like, duh, obviously – but there’s something about it that enables you to really fuck with it. It feels natural. I don’t know what it is, my girlfriend thinks it’s the curve and the flexibility, I think it’s more down to how it holds in heat, whatever it is, it’s great and we sometimes refer to it as ‘the dick’, which is Kind Of A Big Deal.

The Mustang, with a little work, is amazing for my gspot alone. My gspot is pretty shy, I only found it recently and while I can have orgasms just from stimulating it, it takes time, and work, and just banging away at it with a hard object doesn’t do it so much for me. It needs gentle coaxing, which the Mustang does – the ridges on the head almost brush it on the outstroke, and ten minutes of that and I’m drooling all over the pillow. I especially like using it with a clit vibe – the base isn’t so unwieldy that I’m unable to use a vibe and manoeuvre the Mustang the way I want to without getting hand cramp – and pressing the flat edge of my Tango up against the base makes for some pretty interesting sensations too. I’m saying interesting because I don’t really like internal vibrations, but the ones from the Tango end up deadened a little bit and become more of a gently stimulating purr. The head is also amazing for rubbing over my clit, which is my favourite sexy thing in the world, probably, so that’s a huge bonus.

However, this thing collects dust like nothing else. Please don’t ever put it in your mouth after it’s been lying in your bedsheets for a little while. I have a lot of hair, the cats have a lot of hair, this house in general has a lot of things in it that collect a lot of dust - it just seems to attract all of it, somehow, even after you’re done washing it. I think that binning the clear tube and putting it in a generic cloth bag would be a total disaster, which is partly why I haven’t got rid of it – the other reason being that it’s super pretty and I think it deserves to be shown off. The tube doesn’t take up that much room, anyway.

I’m so, so glad I bought this dildo. Thinking about it, I probably wouldn’t have bought the Mustang if it didn’t come in tie-bright (weirdly labelled as ‘blue’ on the Lovehoney website) but the silicone’s so great that I’m willing to try and overcome my irrational fear of flesh tones for a Maverick. Maybe one day. I mean, I’d much rather have the green or another tie-bright if they were miraculously made available again but I’m willing to try, guys, this is a Big Deal for me. If you want a high quality silicone dildo that’s ”’realistic”’ but not eerily so, with almost one-size-fits-all dimensions, I would highly, highly recommend the Mustang. Five stars, round of applause.

I bought my Mustang over at Lovehoney!