The Irohas are obnoxiously adorable. Plush and palm-sized, they look like minimalist animations come to life and come in three different varieties – sakura (cherry blossom), midori (a little green thing. a leaf? a pear?), and yuki (snowman), each intended for a different purpose.

Getting the kind of stimulation I prefer out of vibrators is difficult for me; the one external vibe I’ve found so far that rivals my fingers is the We-Vibe Touch, thanks to that scoop shape it’s got going on. It’s like surround sound for my clit! I just wish it was softer because I like a shitton of pressure and pushing that scoop against my clit for twenty minutes feels great at the time, but then I wind up with bruised inner labia and that’s not fun. The Irohas, I think, seem to be aimed more at pinpoint stimulation using their respective tips, using a light touch to take full advantage of the silky soft ‘skin’.

That magical, dust repellent (it really is dust repellent – I have no idea how they did it but nothing sticks to these, Tenga delivered on that) skin is a little bit of a letdown for me and yet another reason why you should probably go to a sex toy shop to feel up the items you’re interested in before you drop cash on them.* The issue I have is that in pictures, the Irohas look like puffy marzipan sweeties and you assume – I did, anyway – that the squishiness goes far deeper than it actually does. The reality is that you can push your fingernail onto the Irohas and touch the firm plastic that lurks a few millimetres beneath. This very quickly dashed all my daydreams of literally hugging a fluffy cloud to my genitals and brought me back down to earth with a thud. Oops. They’re not as quiet as they look, either – I imagined they’d emit a soft purr at most but I have to smuggle them under the duvet to use them if anyone else is around.

With three speeds and a single (!) vibration pattern that I literally never use, the Irohas aren’t overly complex – until you get to the elaborate charging setup. Each Iroha comes in what looks like a pretty display case, which is actually the charging port. You plug this into the mains using the plug provided and wait 2 hours for it to charge, because a magnetic click-n-charge cable would just be too easy and of course everyone has the privacy required to be able to do this. The controls are located on the flat underbelly of each Iroha, and thankfully the buttons are the clicky raised kind – if they were the flat Lelo kind I don’t know if I’d ever be able to change the speed in use. It’s not waterproof, either, which…really? Really?

The vibrations the Irohas give off are nothing to turn up your nose at. Rumblier than your average clit vibe and more powerful for sure than the Lelo Mia 2, they’re more than enough for me and I use them both frequently. They’re a nice middle ground for people who don’t really know what they like, I think, and they give me warm, fuzzy orgasms. I want to roll over and take a lil nap afterwards. I prefer the shape of the Sakura over the Yuki; I can smush the squishy pincers of the Sakura around for a kind of clit-cuddle, and I use the Yuki by pressing and rolling the little head (I guess you’d call it a ‘head’ – it is a snowman) around, like a massage on a very small scale. I don’t use it internally as suggested; yes, the first three inches of the vagina might hold the most nerve endings, but inserting that small satiny sphere does absolutely fuck all for me.

I generally don’t talk much about price in my reviews, but I think that unless you’re looking for a very particular kind of stimulation (more of a brushing motion than intense pressure, maybe, preferring pinpoint to diffuse) the price is almost prohibitively high. I do admire Tenga, they rank up there with Fun Factory on my list of companies whose toys I want to collect and leave out on display like sculptures in their own right, and I understand that these are ~luxury products~, and yes, they’re body-safe and yes, they’re rechargeable, but £64.99 for an external use only vibrator that produces ever-so-slightly rumblier than average vibrations and isn’t even waterproof just doesn’t seem fair. I didn’t pay full price for either of mine; I was bought the Yuki by dream babe, who got it on Lovehoney’s deal of the day, and purchased the Sakura myself when it went on sale over christmas. If they died and they weren’t under warranty, would I buy them again? Sure! If they were on sale.

Coincidentially, the Yuki and the Midori (an adorable pastel green pear that I feel like I need – Gritty Woman has an extremely in-depth review of it here) are both on sale at Lovehoney right now, so you CAN get yourself a snowman and a pear for a fair price. I like the Irohas. They’re soft, small, easy to use and travel well – not counting the ridiculous charging/display box – and the vibrations are a comfortable middle ground rumble. I just think they might be a tiny bit overpriced, that’s all.

*if you live near one – I don’t anymore. Sad trombone.

My plug came in a tiny little velvet bag, which I have of course managed to break the drawstring on and cover in miscellaneous fluff in the month or so I’ve had it. The plug itself is TEENY. I know this is the ‘small’ version (from what I can gather, Rosebud plugs come in four sizes- small, large, XL and XXL) but this is truly pocket size. It’s shorter than a lipbalm tube, has a reassuring weight to it, and while being smaller than I thought it was, it’s my favourite shape for a plug to be, with an almost lollipop-like bulb, a tapered tip, a long skinny neck and a flared base. I’ve never actually lost something up my butt, but I’ve read enough cautionary tales and had enough gruesome stories told to me by a pal who’s training to be a nurse to be extra super cautious. I pretty much view buttholes as distant, organic relatives of vacuum cleaners at this point.

The gem (crystal?) on my plug is the ‘white lagoon’ colour, and it is beauuuutiful, opalescent and milky with a warm pinkish shimmer to it. I’m officially infatuated with something that lives in my butt. There is one thing that’s less than perfect about it, and it’s weird – there are little black clusters of something around the edges of the jewel. It looks like soot. When I first took it out of the package I gave it a good wash, went in there with a soft toothbrush and cottonbud soaked in Lelo cleaner and most of it came off but there are some traces of whatever it is stuck right in the difficult to access crevice between the steel and the gem. I’m not concerned and I’m just assuming that it’s something to do with the process of inlaying it, maybe, but still. It’s weird. If anyone else has one of these plugs I’d really appreciate you telling me if yours came with this ~mystery substance~ too!

Being the eager lil bunny I am, in my rush to get this thing up there I forgot that steel’s generally PRETTY FUCKING COLD, especially when you combine it with silicone lube from a bottle that’s been sitting on your windowsill all night. This led to the butt equivalent of brain freeze. That’s a thing. I can tell you first hand that that’s a thing now. You can warm this or any other steel toy up by running warm water over it or alternately, clenching it between your thighs for twenty minutes or so if you’re especially concious of your water bill.  The good news is that this little plug fits me like it was made especially for my body, and it’s easy to insert and easy to remove. The tapered tip does look a bit pointy but it doesn’t feel that way at all, and I think it’s just the right size for the material it’s made of. Like a good set of kegel balls, I can feel it in there but not to the point where it feels off and I want to remove it.

The Rosebud plug gets major points from me for actually staying put, too. I know it’s a fairly common sex tip (‘remove a plug or a string of anal beads at the moment of orgasm for heightened sensations!’) but I can’t get into that. I like my plugs to stay where I put them until I want them to remove them myself, intentionally, thankyou.

The one thing I don’t like using this plug for is keeping it in during penetrative sex as it’s too firm for it. Penetration with fingers feels stupid good with this in, it’s definitely a dick thing – silicone or otherwise. My male partner said it felt like I ‘had a frozen grape sitting up there’ and I got this feeling that I was being uncomfortably compressed and took it out eventually.

Glass toys are a no-go, too, I tried it with my very lovely recently acquired Double-O, but the rigid, bulbous head of the Double-O banging against the plug wasn’t something I’d ever want to repeat. I remember reading a quote years ago by some horrible man I don’t remember the name of where he said he ‘wanted to click his fingers inside women (he) didn’t like’ and that’s what that feeling brings to mind.

I think I end all my reviews with ‘I’m so happy I bought this!’ but I really am! It’s made me even more curious about trying the Large size, and I want a glass one more than ever. And another thing – I’d only ever seen bits and pieces of the Rosebuds line before finding the website, but GO LOOK. I URGE YOU TO LOOK. You too can have Athena’s face poking out of your rear end if you wanna! It’s amazing. And it’s in very charming translated English, which makes me feel a bit like a knowledgeable French person is murmuring in my ear about bespoke anal jewellery. If I ever get super rich you can bet I’ll have the most sophisticated butthole in the northern hemisphere. 

The Mia is soooooo pretty. In fact, it’s soooooo pretty that I thought about setting up one of those ridiculous photos for it, where you have a beautiful buttery-soft leather handbag lying on its side, with a brand new lipstick spilling out next to a nail polish in a corresponding colour, then something totally irrational, like a fresh flower or a pearl necklace, and in the middle of it all, your luxxxury clit vibe, inexplicably without a storage bag and somehow completely intact and free from cat hair/lint/general dirt. Who keeps a £15 lipstick knocking around in the bottom of their bag anyway? I don’t care how well groomed or neat you are, if you keep doing that one day you’ll stick your hand in there to feel around for your wallet or something and come out with the tips of your fingers covered in Creme d’Nude or Ruby Woo or whatever it is that floats your fancy lipstick boat. I like Morange, personally. Why don’t I live in a world where I can match my sex toys to my mouth?*

My Mia came to me in a very discreet brown box with no clue to what’s inside, which I’m thankful for – I normally buy from the same two companies and whenever I order from a new one I’m terrified it’ll arrive emblazoned with ‘FOREVER DONGS – YOUR PREMIUM RUBBERWANG WHOLESALERS’ or something, but no worries here. The Lelo packaging was as classy as ever, and it comes with a manual, storage bag, sachet of Lelo lube and a registration card.

The Mia 2 likes to tout itself as being travel-friendly, thanks to the relatively subtle shape and size – I’m not entirely sold that other people wouldn’t twig what the pink and purple versions are, but the black one looks pretty innocuous – and the lock function, which you can enable by pressing down on the + and – buttons at the same time for three seconds, which means if I want to travel with it I don’t have to do that thing where you swaddle it in a pair of tights or three and then sit gripped with fear just in case it goes off for the whole length of your journey. It’s also surprisingly light, I was expecting it to be way weightier than it was but it’s one of the most lightweight vibrators I’ve ever held, only slightly heavier than the Tracey Cox bullet I’ve shown it next to – that’s with the battery removed – and much lighter than both my Tango and Iroha Sakura. Also, it’s made of shiny ABS plastic which is easy to clean and attracts NO LINT AT ALL. Except for the silicone buttons. They will still attract lint. Ugh, lint.

Mia is simple to use and recharge – just plug into your laptop or computer, an LED under the buttons’ll flash to show that it’s charging, and when it’s done charging it’ll stop flashing but remain on to remind you, hey, I’m still here, you can unplug me now. You adjust the intensity of the constant vibration and skip through the pattern settings by pressing the + and – buttons respectively, and when you’re done you just hold the – button, where it does a rather satisfying downward scale until it turns itself off. I haven’t had the battery run out on me once but this is probably because the USB compels me to plug it in to charge after nearly every use. It’s just too easy! For your stats books, though, the longest time I’ve used it for so far has been around 45 minutes and it didn’t lose any strength towards the end of that time.

I’m definitely not a power queen. I go numb easily, and I don’t really like bullet vibes either because of how small they feel – ideally I need something with an indent or a broad surface area, or a lot of the time I end up giving up and finishing off with my fingers. Honestly, when I first started getting into sex toys properly, I assumed that the business end of the Mia was the angled end and I was more than a little disappointed when I found out that, no, actually, the smaller pinpoint-y is the functional end, but it’s an easy mistake to make – right? The angled end is actually a hollowed out lid to cover the USB, and the vibrations do make their way down there, but by the time they actually get there they’re obviously a lot weaker and I’d have to REALLY persevere to get off with them. I will say though, it’s good for when I get that weird post-orgasm hypersensitivity and can’t bear to just leave my poor clit by itself but I can’t stand anything on full power either.

Sometimes it seems like vibrators only ever carry two kinds of vibration: depressingly thin and halted entirely by the faintest amount of pressure, or they go so deep it feels like you could cause a minor landslide with them. The vibrations from the Mia are a great middle ground – not rumbly enough to like, frighten your cat with, but they’re not remotely buzzy. I genuinely think that the lower intensities should be the base for every boring basic £9.99 ‘ideal for beginners’ vibrator out there – they’re strong, they haven’t numbed me and they’re actually ‘whisper quiet’, the buzzword that’s printed on every shitty ABS plastic C-battery insertable out there. The lower intensities are a near-silent purr, the highest are only slightly louder, and I promise you, there’s no chance of anyone hearing this through a door or a wall or whatever even on the pattern settings. If you’re living in a shared house or maybe you’re just sensitive to sound, like I am, this is the ideal. This Is It.

The Mia is close to perfect. I hesitate to say that, but it’s just so convenient. It’s quiet. It’s rechargeable. It has an excellent vibration range. It doesn’t attract dust, it’s easy to clean, and it’s waterproof. I can take it anywhere with me with no pre-planning, no, god, better drain the battery and wrap this up in half my lingerie drawer in case it goes off on the train type of hassle. It’s so pretty that the prettiness rubs off on me and is capable of making me feel like a sexy and sophisticated person by proxy, like someone who wears minimalistic jewellery and gets a matching mani-pedi in a matte finish every five days**. If I had to recommend just one toy to a novice, this would be it. I can call this an all-purpose vibe like I call certain lubes all-purpose lubes, it’s everything I love about Lelo and if I was revoltingly wealthy I’d buy one for everyone I know, even the ones who ‘don’t see the point in sex toys’. I’d still like it better if the angled end really was the business end because it does feel a little bit small for me, but I can’t fault it otherwise.

The Mia 2 was sent to me by BarbaraKelly.co.uk in exchange for a review of the toy and their store. I had a lovely experience with them, their communication was great, and my item arrived within two days. Barbara Kelly offer free delivery to the UK on orders over £10, and they’re one of the few UK retailers to stock the Leaf line, Picobong, and the new PalmPower wand! They also offer a price match guarantee and excellent customer service. I was really happy to work with them, and they’re going on my I’d-use-’em-again list.

*If you desperately want to match your sex toys to your mouth, Hue seems like a pretty good match for Lelo’s petal pink?
**For about twenty minutes. C’mon, this is a sex toy, not a devastatingly attractive sugar daddy.

These vibrations are SO powerful. I was honestly shocked by how strong they are considering they come from such a cute looking little thing, they blow many of my bigger and more expensive toys out of the water! The three first constant vibration speeds are next to silent under a blanket, I’ve purchased a lot of toys in the past that promise to be ‘whisper quiet’ and been disappointed by the noise level, or, if they are as quiet as promised, the vibrations are lacklustre, but this is not one of those. It’s magical. The pulse settings are a little louder but very enjoyable and you’re unable to hear them through a wall. The ears can be inserted for very, very slim and shallow penetration – this sounds a bit pointless but it gives a really nice sensation, and I like the ears being used on my nipples as well as they’re the perfect shape to really grip ‘em.

1. A low steady vibration (it’s not actually ‘low’ at all, this is just the gentlest setting it has)
2. A medium steady vibration
3. A faster, more powerful steady vibration
4. 3 Pulses p/second
5. A long pulse followed by two short ones
6. Two short pulses followed by a long one
7. 5 escalating pulses – low to high
8. Varied, faster sets of two pulses
9. Gets louder and more powerful over 10secs, slows down again
10. Does the same as above, but instead of slowing down it pulses afterwards

EDIT: it hasn’t been discontinued at Lovehoney: it’s back in stock for £44.99 here!