Sweet Vibrations on Orgasms, Sexuality in Tech, and Toys
Pictured: The Perfect Match, Pixie, and Girl’s Best Friend. Photo by Malaika Astorga
Pink Things interviewed the Sweet Vibrations team about what makes their vibrators a best seller on Amazon and how they are helping people around the world reach a “big O”. Their three vibrators were designed with a range of women in mind and are cute to boot. Sweet Vibrations has made shopping for sex toys fun and unintimidating with their witty product descriptions and clean designs. We love their products and think you might too.
Pictured: The Perfect Match, Girl’s Best Friend, and Pixie. Photo by Malaika Astorga
Sarah Sickles for Pink Things: Tell me about Sweet Vibrations and why there was a need for a new type of sex toy company. Was the team dissatisfied with products available? Is Sweet Vibrations meeting a specific market demand? Why Sweet Vibrations and why now?
The Sweet Vibrations Team: There were a couple of things that led us to start Sweet Vibrations. First, finding a good toy wasn’t easy. There’s a lot of options out there, and anyone who has shopped for a toy, especially beginners, can relate. Sifting through a sea of sex toys can be a daunting, disappointing, and expensive journey. For us, it usually went something like this:
Phase One. Research and pick something relatively cheap with good reviews on Amazon. After a brief love affair, it would die two weeks later and we were left holding a funeral for a piece of silicone covered disappointment. No customer service, no warranty.
Phase Two: Going big and dropping $80-$200 for a ‘quality’ toy from a company with a huge marketing budget and celebrity endorsements, but having to skip lunch for a week to pay for it.
Phase Three: A cry for help. After repeating steps one and two a handful of times, the toys we ended up liking the best typically came from asking our friends what they had tucked away in their dresser drawers or closets.
Early on, as we were still just exploring this idea, we shared it with friends and got a variety of responses. Some were supportive and excited about it, but others blushed and were too embarrassed to even talk about it. The realization from these conversations was that while our culture has come a long way in the last 50 years, there is still a stigma around sex toys and sexuality. A lot of women feel embarrassed and even ashamed about sex and masturbation. Many never felt comfortable going into into a ‘sex shop’ or even talking with friends about sex/toys/masturbation. They had no idea where to start when it came to what kind of vibrator they would want or what would even work for them.
This experience was key in shaping the type of customer we wanted to serve. We were all beginners at one point and remember that feeling of insecurity; some of us had to come a long way to feel comfortable with our own sexuality. Through our own experiences, we believe being comfortable with your own sexuality is an important part an individual’s journey to being a confident, happy person. With Sweet Vibrations, we feel we have the opportunity to help a lot of people attain that while in the safe space of their own bedroom or with their partner.
Buying a new toy should be something fun, so we decided to be the company that provides that great experience: quality products with a lifetime warranty and amazing customer service, all while not breaking the bank.
Pictured: Girl’s Best Friend and Pixie. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: How do Sweet Vibrations’ designs align with its mission to help “everyone find their ‘O’” and make your products stand out?
SV: No two women are the same and neither are their orgasms. If you asked each member of our team, “What’s your favorite part about the Pixie?” you’d get a different answer from each. But as varied as we can be, the go-to erogenous zones are the g-spot and the clitoris, so our toys are designed with one, or both in mind.
For vibrators, the preferred shape and texture, intensity, and vibration patterns are unique to each person, so to fulfill our mission of helping our customers “find their ‘O’”, we pay attention to every detail, testing and mixing these elements in the right order so that each toy has enough packed into one design to really WORK for everyone.
Our process to design a new toy is part of what makes this job fun! We typically begin with in-depth market research and expert focus groups, e.g., we open a bottle of wine (or 2, or 3) and share what we’ve been trying out, what’s been working or not working, and then start brainstorming what we think would be fun to have in a toy. After some non-judgemental discussion and laughs, we design a prototype and test it out. When all is said and done, we end up with a unique design that tends to stand out from the crowd. Honestly, the whole process feels like designing your dream home with your friends over, and over, and over again.
Pictured: Pixie - The Pixie is a clitoris vibrator made to fit in the palm of your hand. The unique shape provides plenty of angles that can be used to hit just the right spot. It’s waterproof, rechargeable, and made with ultra smooth medical grade silicone. Ten playful settings provide incredible sensations where it feels best. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: Let’s also talk about how tech savvy these products are. They don’t run on batteries, they charge with a USB, and they’re cute! The tech world is beginning to finally grow in women’s sexuality businesses, and I would love to hear your views on that. (Like Unbound).
SV: We appreciate the praise, but in our minds our toys are rather simple. Having waterproof, rechargeable toys is a no-brainer to us. It’s no fun when your toy dies in the middle of a “session”. You have to stop everything and pray you still have some batteries left in your junk drawer. Lame.
New technology should make our lives easier, not harder, and likewise vibrators should relieve stress, not cause it. A lot of the “innovations” in this industry come off as gimmicky and unnecessary. If adding tech to a toy doesn’t make it easier to use or make your orgasms better, we’re not going to do it. So rather than complicate things with remote controlled bluetooth vibrators and apps, we are focused on making our toys as simple and effective as possible. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried and failed to pair with a bluetooth speaker, and if I was in a situation where timing is of the essence and all of the sudden my phone’s battery is low or it’s having trouble pairing with my vibrator? No thanks. I prefer something I know is going to work every time.
Pictured: Pixie, Girl’s Best Friend, and The Perfect Match. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: Sweet Vibrations branded itself an “intimate lifestyle product” company, but some might just call the company a sex toy retailer. What’s the difference? Why brand yourself this way?
SV: Today, yes, we are a sex toy company, or you could even just label us a “vibrator company”, but there is a lot more to your intimate bedroom life than just your favorite vibrator. We want to help people unwind and relieve the stress of everyday life, and for some people a vibrator is a great way to do that. Additionally, we will be moving into other categories of toys for different types of fun, lubricants, and more intimate products for men, women, couples and everyone in between. If there’s a product out there that will give our customers a moment of bliss in their intimate life and help improve their everyday life, we want to make it for them.
Pictured: The Perfect Match and Pixie. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: We’re all about the color pink at Pink Things. You’ve made your products a bright pink. Can you tell me why?
SV: Well, honestly we just love all pink things, so it was the obvious color choice ;) We actually have a few new fun color options starting to come out, so if pink is not your thing we have a few almost as good as pink colors for you to choose from too.
Pictured: The Perfect Match - A fan favorite, The Perfect Match is a flexible, dual tip and dual motor rabbit vibrator with ten powerful settings that pleasure both inside and out. It is made with the same ultra soft silicone, and it hits the g-spot while stimulating the clitoris for amazing orgasms. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: The Perfect Match rabbit vibrator also advertises as an alternative to online dating or random hookups. Can you comment on this? I thought it was terribly funny.
SV: We were in the middle of one of our super intense focus groups while working on The Perfect Match’s design and a team member shared a story of a particularly horrible Tinder date. The date was getting on her nerves, so she lost interest in the conversation and began daydreaming about how her date matched up to her vibrator. This had everyone laughing and we started a laundry list of reasons why vibrators are better than random hookups: they’re strong, reliable, always there when you need them, and they get the job done without expecting anything in return.
It’s no secret that we’re living in a world where everyone is online dating. It can be awkward and frustrating, and most times you’re left… unsatisfied. We wanted to use The Perfect Match to play on that relatable experience and lighten the mood. In an ideal world every date would be like The Perfect Match.
Pictured: Girl’s Best Friend - Two-in-one vibrator and oral sex simulator with 40 unique settings for a completely new orgasm experience. The innovative vacuum technology gently sucks and vibrates the clitoris, simulating oral pleasure, while the the opposite side acts as a traditional massaging vibrator. Both ends have power settings that range from “light” to “OMG”, so the Girl’s Best Friend is known for satisfying even the most challenging customer. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: Which products are the most popular? Why?
SV: The Girl’s Best Friend was our first big hit. It is unique in that it is a two-in-one toy, and it also looks unlike anything else — even we think it looks weird, but it certainly gets the job done so we’re more than ok with “weird”. Reviews poured in after we launched and it didn’t take long for it to reach ‘best seller’ status on Amazon. Since then, it’s consistently stayed in the top selling vibrators.
Pictured: The Perfect Match, Girl’s Best Friend and Pixie. Photo by Malaika Astorga
PT: What’s next for Sweet Vibrations?
SV: We’re almost through the initial production run of our next vibrator. We spent a lot of time on this one and are more than excited to get it out there. I can’t share much yet, but anyone that is curious can sign up for our email list and they’ll get a sneak peak and first dibs at launch, mid-October.
Next, we have a few more vibrators in the works and are expanding into other intimate products, so keep an eye out or keep in touch with us.
We’re also excited as our success has enabled us to grow our team. We’re looking to add a few more fun people to the SV team by the end of this year and in expand into more international markets to help people find their “Ò”, “Ø”, or “Õ”.
Pictured: The Perfect Match, Girl’s Best Friend and Pixie. Photo by Malaika Astorga