The Pelt paddle is made from a silky smooth matte black silicone that attracts little bits of fluff like nothing else, but I find it easier to clean than my shinier, grippier silicone toys – a lot of the time I just spray this with Lelo cleaner and wipe it down – and you can bleach it, boil it, and stick it in the dishwasher. It’s basically indestructible – I’ve even bitten it a few times (don’t look at me like that) and didn’t leave any dents behind. It measures just under twelve inches long, six inches of that being the handle, with a little hole at the very end which you can use to loop a ribbon or a nylon string through and keep it hung up with, or I guess you could loop something through it to use as one of those secure wrist loops. Does anyone actually use those things? 

I’m not very well versed in ~kinky terminology~ and I’m not in any kind of scene, all I know is I really love impact play, being bruised, and being hit. I started out with wooden hairbrushes and eventually graduated up through various leather and suede paddles, I’ve had some brief experiences with crops and floggers – crops are pretty fun, I haven’t found a flogger I’ve liked yet, never tried a bullwhip but I want to – but wooden oval paddles (and hands) have always been my favourite. The Pelt pretty much blows everything I just listed out of the water.

I don’t actually hold it like this, it’s just so nobody’s exposed to more of my chipping manicure than they need to be. Oops.

The silicone it’s made from is thick, but with lots of flexibility to it – it’s not floppy or flimsy by means but I can bend it over on itself, and this bendiness means that to deliver a really good hard slap you don’t have to put your back into it (figuratively) like you would do with a wooden or leather paddle. Seriously, you don’t need to put a whole lot of force behind this unless you know what you’re doing, you/your partner has asked for that and you both know how intense this paddle can be – when I first got this, as soon as I got it out of the bag I gave my bare leg a good whack with my arm drawn back how I normally would, which turned out to be a Very Big Mistake. I had a bright red mark come up immediately, the kind I usually get from being spanked repeatedly with a leather paddle. From one whack!

What I love about the Pelt is that with practice, you can easily deliver slaps that won’t sear your skin off – one thing I like doing is using my hand, not my arm, to wibble-wobble it slightly and by doing that you get a much gentler but still pleasantly stingy sensation. Being bruised, though, that’s my thing and that’s what I want from a paddle, and it delivers. I’m left with a big grin on my face and speckly purple skin after a session with the Pelt, and it gives me these beautiful bruises that take days to start to fade. I’m not able to describe the sensations it’s capable of giving as either solely ‘thuddy’ or ‘stingy’ – it really is more of a slapping sensation than anything, with a stingy warmth afterwards. I’m hella curious about what kind of sensation the Snap Strap gives out if this is anything to go by.

My man-thing sometimes calls me a ‘pain slut’ and I guess that’s true because after hearing on twitter about how you can get an even more intense sting from Tantus’ silicone paddles by using them wet, I toddled off to run myself a nice bath, had a soak and then went to town on my thighs. My legs looked a bit like barber poles by the end of it. I aimed to do six hard slaps on each leg but gave up at three because I just couldn’t handle it. It was like being whacked with a giant nettle leaf and I’ve definitely hit my limit with that one, but if you want a sharp sting on a larger surface area than a crop can give you, that could potentially do it for you – although, y’know, applying a good lube to the area you want spanking instead of popping in the shower every damn time would probably be more practical.

I’m pretty besotted with this paddle and it’s not going to be leaving my collection any time soon. I wouldn’t recommend it to a total beginner, but if you’re after something with a real good slap to to it, you’ve found it. Just remember to stock up on aftercare goodies beforehand.

You can buy the Pelt, and the rest of the Tantus silicone paddles at Tantus. All of them – except for the Plunge paddle – are $44.99 – and couples toys at Tantus are 30% off through the rest of March with code ‘GETDOWN’!

I’m going to admit this right now – I mainly bought this because it’s pretty and it matches my clear PVC ankle cuffs. I had been wanting to try out a ball gag properly, but honestly, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if it didn’t match my cuffs, I’m that much of a sucker for pretty, matching things. I wasn’t disappointed when it arrived, the PVC is the same thick and flexible plastic that the cuffs are made from, the buckle and hardware connecting the ball to the rest of the strap is sturdy and I couldn’t feel any seams along the ball itself. The ball is 1.75 inches in diameter, slightly too large for me to put in the palm of my hand and close my fingers around it, and made out of a shiny, firm, red rubber, which I was a little intimidated by despite it kind of reminding me of William’s Wish Wellingtons. Anyone else remember that? The strap has nine holes, and is adjustable from 15″ to 22″.

I found the main strap comfortable and it felt nice and cool on my skin, it didn’t dig into my cheeks or the sides of my face, but unfortunately that’s where the comfort ended for me. The sharp edges I mentioned in my review of the matching cuffs? They’re here, too, but I had way more problems with them on this than I did with the ones on the cuffs. They’re especially present on the strap that runs through the middle of the ball and sits on the sides of your mouth – I found this really concerning, especially considering that both PVC and rubber are porous materials, as after I’d used it I had fairly prominent red marks by the side of my mouth which stung quite badly. I’ve been wondering if you could potentially cause a papercut type of injury if you were using this in a rough session or if it was strapped in too tight. Also, speaking of the materials – I clean and keep this the same way I take care of my cuffs: it lives in a cotton bag separate from everything else, I clean the ball with toy cleaner and the pvc straps get a thorough wipe down with an antibac wipe and then the whole thing gets polished up with a silky cloth.

As I said, I’m pretty much a total beginner to ballgags, so I tried to train myself with this one. At a 1.75″ diameter, this ball is taller and obviously much rounder than the things I normally use, my favourite O-ring gag is only 1.5 inches tall so this was a little larger than I was used to. I initially tried wearing it for up to five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty, and then eventually I tried wearing it during sex. Unfortunately I still haven’t found this totally comfortable to wear, it holds my jaw open further than I’d anticipated and I find it slightly sore and uncomfortable in general. As a result it knocks me out of the mood I like to be in when I’m being gagged and/or restrained, so this coupled with the stinging/pinching issue means that I don’t get that much use out of it.

I did really want to like this gag but I don’t think it’s for me: it has a couple of design flaws, the sharp edges being the most prominent issue, and I’m unable to wear it comfortably. If the edges were rounded off and the ball was made slightly smaller I’d love it, but I think this might well be getting returned at some point in the future unless I can find an alternative use for it.

You can purchase the Bondage Boutique PVC Ball Gag here at Lovehoney for £12.99

They arrived in the usual discreet brown box Lovehoney packaging – I’ve bought some things from Bondage Boutique before and really liked everything I’ve bought from them, and all their items come with a little loyalty card and some stickers to put on it and when you’ve collected enough you can claim a free spanker. I’m two off mine, I think, mainly because I always lose them. If I were better organised I’d have about five by now. Anyway.

First off: these are marketed as wrist cuffs. I actually found these way too big for my wrists, and apparently I’m not the only one according to the reviews I looked at before buying them. They say they’ll accommodate a wrist size of 6-10 inches and my wrists are just over 6″ around so they should fit, but they somehow don’t. I think it’s because the PVC, while bendy, doesn’t fit to you and sit snug against you like fabric or a soft leather will, it just forms a smaller circle and this gives you room to wriggle out of them with, and when I’m moving (or being moved around) I feel like they’re sliding up my wrists and over my hands a bit. However, having said that, I tried these on a male partner when I got them and he said they were perfectly comfortable and in no danger of slipping, so I’d say if your wrists are 8″+ you should be fine.

Because of the slipping thing I use these as ankle cuffs. They fit really well, they don’t slip, the D-rings are wonderful and sturdy and I haven’t experienced any loosening with the buckle. The only thing I would say is that if your ankles are quite small, the strap you pull through the buckle ends up quite long and sticky-outy, and you might want to (carefully) cut off the excess to avoid scratching yourself or anyone else. The clear PVC feels great – thick and flexible – but bear in mind that the PVC is cut with a sharp edge and as there’s no lining they do leave marks, which I personally don’t mind as I get off on having marks left on me. I don’t think the edge is sharp enough to cut yourself or anyone else on, but a more rounded finish on the edges would be reassuring. I also found the chain a little bit long – it’s four inches, but this can be switched out with another double ended clip, or if you’ve lost yours, like I have, it’s long enough to be tied over on itself. However, this might weaken the chain and can potentially snap it so I’d just buy another clip, I really wouldn’t recommend doing that for long term use.