Every piece we sell is platinum-cured silicone. That sentence does a lot of work on a product page, and most shops leave it there. This article is the longer version: what the material actually is, what the alternatives are made of, how to check what you have at home, and the claims you will not find on our pages because we cannot back them with a document.
What platinum-cured means
Silicone is a polymer built on a chain of silicon and oxygen atoms. As a raw liquid it is useless; it has to be cured, which means the chains get linked to each other until the liquid turns into a solid that holds a shape. There are two common ways to do that.
Peroxide cure uses a peroxide compound that breaks down under heat and kicks off the linking. It is cheap and fast, and it leaves by-products in the finished rubber, which is why peroxide-cured silicone often has a faint chemical smell and a slightly chalky surface until it has been washed a few times.
Platinum cure (the chemists call it addition cure) uses a tiny amount of a platinum compound as a catalyst. The reaction adds the chains together without producing by-products, so there is nothing to bleed out later. The finished rubber is clearer, more stable over years, and does not smell. It also costs more, partly because of the platinum and partly because the process is fussy: sulphur, tin, and some latex residues will stop the cure entirely, so the workshop has to be kept clean of them.
For a toy, the properties that matter come out of that chemistry. The surface is non-porous, so it does not absorb fluid and can be washed properly. It tolerates boiling water. It does not need plasticisers to stay soft, which is the point that separates it from everything below.
What the alternatives are
PVC, jelly, and TPE are the three you meet most. They are all cheaper to cast than silicone, and none of them is soft on its own. PVC is rigid pipe material; to make it bendy you add plasticisers, historically phthalates, which are oily compounds that sit between the polymer chains. Jelly is a marketing name for soft PVC with a lot of plasticiser. TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) is a blend of plastics and rubbers, often softened with mineral oil.
The problem with all of them is the same: the softening agent is not chemically bonded to the plastic. It migrates. That is the sticky film that appears on a jelly toy after a few months, the reason TPE strokers ship with a bag of cornstarch, and the smell that comes back no matter how many times you wash. Because these materials are porous, they hold on to whatever they have touched. A user on r/SexToys described looking into a "jelly" dildo before buying two of them and finding out it "isn't body safe and isn't able to be fully cleaned." That is the whole case in one sentence.
There is also a middle tier: silicone blends, and products sold as "silicone" that turn out to be TPE with a silicone-sounding name. The label does not settle it. The tests below do, mostly.
How to check what you actually have
Three checks, in order of usefulness.
The oil test. Wipe the surface with a dry paper towel and leave the toy in a sealed bag for a week. Silicone comes out dry. PVC, jelly, and TPE come out tacky or with a faint oily film, because the plasticiser has kept migrating.
The smell test, after washing. Wash with warm water and unscented soap, dry it, and smell it the next day. Silicone smells of nothing. A persistent sweet, plasticky, or chemical smell after washing means plasticiser.
The flame test. People recommend holding a lighter to the base for a second: silicone chars to a white ash and will not keep burning, PVC melts and drips, TPE goes gooey. It works, but it damages the toy, it produces fumes you do not want to breathe when the material is PVC, and a coated TPE can fool it. We mention it because you will read about it elsewhere. Use the first two.
One check that does not work: bending it. Soft silicone and soft TPE bend the same way. Firmness tells you nothing about the material; it tells you about the formulation, which is a separate subject we cover in the firmness article.
What we say, and what we refuse to say
Our range is platinum-cured silicone across the board. There is no cheaper material in the small sizes or the sleeves. The materials page has the care rules that follow from that: warm water and unscented soap after use, boiling for three to five minutes or a diluted bleach soak when you want it sterile, water-based lube without a second thought, silicone lube after a patch test on the base.
What you will not find on our pages is a certification. Phrases like "medical grade," "FDA approved," or "ISO tested" are common in this category and most of them are unsupported: the FDA does not approve sex toys, and a "medical grade" label means nothing unless someone can show you the test report and the lab. We do not currently have a third-party report number we can print. Until we do, we will not print the claim. If a supplier hands us one, it goes on the materials page with the lab's name next to it.
A tangent, because someone will notice. A couple of our older web addresses still contain the words "medical grade," because they were written before we dropped the phrase, and changing an address breaks every link pointing at it. The wording is gone from the pages themselves. We decided a stale address was less bad than a dead link.
Why platinum silicone is not automatically the best choice
It is the best material for anything that goes inside the body and is meant to last. It is not the best material for every job. Silicone is heavy: a large piece in our range weighs over 2 kg (4.4 lb), and a hollow sleeve has to be thin-walled to stay wearable. It is expensive to make, so an entry-level buyer who wants to try a shape for one evening is paying for a decade of durability they may not use. And it is not compatible with most silicone lubricants without testing first.
If you buy a jelly toy for one night and throw it away, you have not made a mistake, provided you use a condom over it. The mistake is keeping it for a year.
Questions we get
Is silicone hypoallergenic?
Silicone allergy is rare but documented. What people usually react to on a cheap toy is the plasticiser or a surface coating, not the base material. If you get irritation from a silicone toy, check the lube and the soap before blaming the silicone.
Can I share a silicone toy?
Yes, after washing, or with a fresh condom per person. Non-porous means it can actually be cleaned, which is the difference from the materials above.
Does platinum silicone degrade?
Slowly, and mostly from abuse: silicone lube left on it, sunlight, being stored pressed against another silicone toy. Replace it when you see a tear, a change in surface feel, or a smell that survives washing. Kept away from those three things, it outlasts the interest in the shape.
Is it worth paying for?
For something you will use for years and put inside your body, yes. For a shape you are curious about and may never use again, buy the cheap one, wrap it, and see whether the shape is for you first. Then come back for the version in a material that will last.
