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.

This is a very long review. Very long. Like, 1000+ words long, so please, please read it. I spent more time on this review than I’ve spent on some essays, I spent more time stressing about a sex toy than I’ve spent stressing about academic work, can we just let that sink in for a sec? Couple’s toys like this seem to be an incredibly divisive thing, judging from the reviews I’ve read about the We-Vibe(s) and the Tiani, and some people hate them, and some absolutely can’t-live-without-them adore them. My review falls into the former camp.I am a huge, huge fan of Lelo toys, like, I’m a little bit fanatical about them. My Gigi was one of the first toys I ever bought so that’s probably why I have such an unwavering loyalty to them – I think I’ve already mentioned in previous reviews that I’m definitely not a power queen so Lelo’s slightly subtler vibrations are perfect for me. I love ‘em. I really do. And this, coupled with my bizarre urge to smooth over everything bad (‘c’mon guys, it’s just a sprain! it’ll heal itself! what do you mean you can see the bone, don’t be daft, i feel fine!’) made writing this review a lil bit of an upsetting experience for me.

Just to reiterate – this is hella long, mostly waffle, and if you’re only interested in my experience using it solo, with toys, with my girlfriend, or with a male partner, please ctrl+f for either SOLO/TOYS/FEM/HET, whichever one you’re interested in, or you can just scroll down until you see the capitals. You do you, I won’t judge.

I know nobody ever reads the bit about the packaging, but the Ida, like all Lelo products, comes in gorgeous packaging, so…I’m going to write about it. It comes with a storage pouch, the charger, a ‘key’ to open the battery compartment for the remote, a remote control, a little Lelo registration card, a sample sachet of waterbased Lelo lube (very good, I highly recommend this), and batteries. The box it comes in can double as a storage box as it’s pretty sturdy but if you’re low on space the pouch will protect it too. I have no pictures of any of these delightful extras because I am a) lazy and b) a mucky pup who ruins all the beautiful packages she gets her hands on within a day.

I received mine in black – this contrasts beautifully with the gold detail on the Ida and on the remote. The only negative thing I have to say about this is that I wish the gold parts were made of metal instead of plastic as I think this cheapens an otherwise beautiful toy. The silicone the Ida is made of is matte, which looks wonderful against skin, is easy to clean, and feels super smooth and luxurious. The battery compartment on the remote opens with a little plastic key provided. I like this feature but I do wonder how you’d open it if you lost the key? I keep my nails long but I couldn’t claw it open and I had no success trying the slightly dampened flannel way of opening things. Another thing – why does the Tara come in that lovely cobalt blue but the Ida doesn’t?

I couldn’t wait to try out the remote function, I’m such a sucker for fancy gadget-y type things and I’ve never owned a toy with a wireless remote before, so that was the first thing I did. I wasn’t disappointed – it has ‘SenseMotion’ technology, which basically means that depending on how you tilt (or shake!) it, the Ida reacts accordingly. It’s pretty involved but I’m going to describe it as best I can, you turn the Ida on and then you press the + button on the remote to turn it on and they kind of ‘find’ each other, they’re able to communicate from this point. The remote and the Ida will vibrate together, varying in intensity, based on how far you’re tilting it towards and away from you. If you press the central button, you can switch the function, and if you press it again, you can switch to the ‘shake to vibrate’ function, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Included with the Ida is a little booklet explaining all of this much better than I’m able to. Oh, and there’s a little light on the remote that’s signifying that it’s on – you need to press the – button to turn it all off. Oh, another thing – it’s  completely waterproof. Sexy couples tiny rotating arm aquatic funtimes for all?

One thing that I did notice before I used the Ida is that you’re unable to turn off the rotation setting. Kind of a bummer for such an expensive toy, really, especially considering how loud it is – it makes a pretty abrasive noise, but it’s not intolerable or anything, I’ve used battery operated vibrators that have been way worse – but I was hoping that I’d be so blinded by this wonderful rotating sensation that I’d never want to turn it off anyway. Huh. On to what it actually felt like.

SOLO: Using the Ida totally alone isn’t something that tips me over the edge, the arm doesn’t rub against my g-spot as hard as I’d like it to to so it can’t make me orgasm just from that, and the part that’s supposed to rest on your clit and move around in circles doesn’t actually sit on my clit unless I push it way back and then the outer arm part digs uncomfortably into my vulva. It’s irritating because it’s such an almost-there, almost-there kind of feeling, similar to the feeling you get with from a rabbit that doesn’t ‘fit’ you quite right, and then I end up pushing it back and – ouch. No. I do like using the rotating arm to rub in little circles around my clit though, like a very sensitive teasing finger. It’s not going to make me orgasm just from doing that but it feels pretty great. Not £140 great, but y’know. It’s good. Next.

TOYS: Glass toys, especially the textured kind, are a no-go zone with the Ida as the little rotating arm grinds against the toy and creates a noise not dissimilar to the sound that was created when I tried to crush chunks of ice in my ancient blender. Softer and more flexible toys work best for me and Ida, my favourite so far being a slim, slightly curved silicone dildo that I’ve lost the packaging for and can’t remember the make of. The arm seems to rest nicely in the curve of the toy and this gives it a little bit of room to do its fun rotate-y thing in, which I do like, while I’m still able to benefit from the fuller feeling the dildo gives me. Also, interestingly, I found that you can kind of use it like how I think wireless eggs are meant to be used! The Ida is big enough for me that it sits nicely inside my vagina by itself with no slipping or escape attempts, so I can use it for a bit of a tease during foreplay with a partner. Using it with lots of lube applied on what my girlfriend calls the ‘clit shield’ and clenching my pelvic muscles produces a sensation kind of similar to very soft, very gentle oral sex, which I haven’t experienced from any other kind of sex toy so far. Unfortunately, standing up and walking around with it in wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it’s not designed with that in mind. Swings and roundabouts.

HET: When I showed this to my male partner he crinkled up his nose and went ‘are you sure that’s going to fit in there? with me? seriously?’. I should’ve listened. We tried. We tried so hard! There was no room in there! It really hurt, it didn’t matter how much lube we used, it felt like I was being jabbed AND stretched too far at the same time. Thrusting pulled it out a little bit and then whacked it back up against my vulva again, it just wasn’t good. We tried it with me on top, which was by far the most painful, spooning, where it almost slid out and got crushed, missionary, where it jabbed me the most, and from behind, which was the most tolerable, but I still wouldn’t repeat it. I definitely wouldn’t use it again with a male partner – I will just say that he is girthier than average, so I had anticipated some difficulty, but I didn’t expect it to hurt quite like it did. We do use condoms, so there was additional friction there, but I did think that the amount of lube we used would’ve negated that somewhat, I can’t imagine there being that huge of a difference if we didn’t use them.

FEM: The Ida seems to be almost solely aimed at heterosexual couples but there’s nothing stating that you can’t use it with strapons, so, my partner and I decided we’d try the Ida with the one we most commonly use, which is the Fun Factory Share. Unfortunately, this was an unmitigated disaster. The Share is made of a matte silicone, the Ida is made of a matte silicone…if we had used any more lube I think there would have been serious danger of one of us drowning. Our bedroom quickly turned into some kind of lubricated hell world where the bedsheets are slippery and you’re doomed to wrestle with a beautiful girl for the rest of your life but you’re totally unable to get her off. We ran into the same problem that I had with my male partner, which is that there just doesn’t seem to be enough room inside me to fit both the Ida and something else in there comfortably – it just didn’t work. However. I’m a big old softie and I hate writing things off completely. The main issue we seemed to have here is that the Share, which we were using, is too matte and too thick to play happily with the Ida. Other, slimmer toys have worked in conjunction with her, and so I’m going to say that if you own a strapon with a slimmer, more slick dildo – say, the Tantus Silk in the slim or medium size (bonus points for it having a curve) – it might just work? Maybe? If you have £140 to burn and a compulsive need to try everything once, it might be worth a go. Can you tell I maybe possibly kind of have issues saying that I outright dislike something?