Oh my GOD! I am speechless… I am completely blown away by the Velvet Thruster. I was honestly not expecting the experience I just had… and I am… I’m… well… speechless (actually… I’ve got a whole lot to say… I just need to find the words…).
The Velvet Thruster is 100% more awesome than I thought it would be (I was pretty skeptical of this thing from the moment I saw it on Instagram)… which just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover… or a sex toy by its super weird shape and hideously ugly color.
Speaking of hideously ugly… this toy is the ugliest toy that I own. Like, seriously… I’m kind of embarrassed for anyone to ever see that I own this thing… there is absolutely nothing sexy about this toy. I’m normally a fan of (most) pastels and you know I love a good purple but somehow the Velvet Thruster managed to find the exact shade of pastel purple that is the absolute worst. It makes the toy look… I don’t know… cheap and cheesy? Maybe… one day… Velvet Thruster will give it some better color options and this ugly duckling can become a swan… but until then, its the color of Easter Bunny vomit.
Like I said, I first encountered the Velvet Thruster on Instagram. I started seeing pictures of it popping up here and there and then while I was attending the AVN/ANE show in Las Vegas this past January their Instagram account DM’d me and invited me to stop by their booth… which I did (partly because I was curious, partly because they were close to the bar I had a bunch of free drink tickets for…). So, they showed off the Velvet Thruster and told me all about how they made it and ideas for the future and said that they had over engineered the toy and they hoped to scale it back a bit in order to maybe drop the price… (I know we talked about a lot more… but I’m working from memory here… I’ve got to learn to take better notes…). Now… one of the toy companies I spoke to at this event bragged about how the motor of their toy is made by Tesla… or had something to do with Tesla… I want to say it was the Velvet Thruster… or maybe it was the Zumio guy… I’m a little foggy on these details (maybe it was all those free drinks I had on the show floor…I’m so professional). Anyway, to make a long story short, they asked if I would like to take a Velvet Thruster home and give it a try in exchange for a review. I said “I’d love to”, and just like that… this ugly beast was mine.
Okay, so just what is the Velvet Thruster? Well… it is a a self-thrusting dildo… so I guess it is more or less a tiny, portable, fucking machine. My particular model is called the “Abbey”. It is a pretty uninspiring tapered shaft with a ribbed texture that travels up the length of most of the shaft, with the last inch or so being left completely smooth. The entire shaft of the toy is coated in a very soft silicone with the last 2 to 3 inches (I’ve lost my ruler… so I’m having to estimate here… sorry) being solid silicone and very plush and flexible. The insertable bit of the toy is pretty comfortable, it felt good going in (and coming out)… I just wish there was a little more variety to the texture… but it wasn’t bad. Size-wise, The Velvet Thruster is 6.5-inch long with 3 inches of thrust that can deliver up to 140 strokes per minute… not bad, not bad at all (she says with a little bit of drool hanging from her mouth).
Alright, so here is what really blew me away with the Velvet Thruster. So, I’m laying in bed catching up on Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, and the Simpsons… I’m starting to get a little sleepy, a little bored, and a little horny… then I started thinking about all the work I had to do and that I was kind of wasting time by watching cartoons… so I decided to grab a toy and masturbate… (I mean… test and research products). Because of my chronic laziness I just reached for the toy that was closest to me, which happened to be the Velvet Thruster… (this is how scientific my sex toy blogging is…), so I thought… “cool, I’ll try this I guess.” I pulled the ugly purple thing out of its packaging (the packaging is very nice by the way, its a very well constructed black box that will work well for long term storage of the Velvet Thruster) and after I got over my disgust at how ugly this thing is, I began to use it. I lubed everything up a bit (don’t use silicone based lubes) and pushed it against my pussy lips and fumbled for the power button. The toy started off slow with nice, easy thrusts, it was a great warm up. But of course, I started to wonder how fast this thing could go, so I started increasing the speed… it got faster and faster and faster… I reached a point that I thought for sure must be the top end speed, it was already going crazy fast… so there was just no way there could be more… but I gave the button another press just for kicks… annnnnnd… OMG THERES MORE?! This thing seriously had like five more speeds above what I thought was its top end speed! I am seriously blown away with the both speeds this toy reaches and the general power it possesses. I was not left wanting at all.
Controlling the Velvet Thruster is pretty simple… if you can reach the buttons (don’t worry, I’ll complain about the buttons later). At the very base of the toy is a round pad that houses three buttons. If you hold the toy so that the buttons look like a surprised smily face, the bottom most button (that would be the smiley face’s mouth) is the power button, give it a press and the toy springs into action. To turn the toy off, just press the power button again (the toy will turn off within 3 seconds of you pressing the power button). Should you wish for the toy to turn off with the shaft in a specific position (all the way extended for cleaning for example) then you can press the button power button then press it a second time anytime during those 3 seconds before it powers down and that will stop the toy in whatever position it is currently in… this is a very tedious process and took me quite a few tries to master getting it turned off in the position I wanted it in… this works best if you have it on its lowest speed. The other two buttons (what would be the eyes, if we are sticking to this smiley face idea…) are the (+) and (-) buttons. As I’m sure you can already guess, those control the toys speeds, pressing the (+) will increase the speed while the (-) will decrease it. There ten speed settings overall and each is assigned a handy color that lights up the base of the toy… so you could tell your partner “RED! GO TO RED! AHHHH NOW BLUE! NO GREEN!” Or you can just remember… “Oh hey, I really like the light green setting…” Or you can just enjoy the funky light show as you cycle through your toys speeds in the dark.
The Velvet Thruster is rechargeable and has about eight hours of battery life to it. I have yet to run my Velvet Thruster out of batteries (I think I’ve only put in maybe 4 or 5 hours worth of play on this thing) but I am inclined to believe them on that number. To charge the Velvet Thruster, just attach the magnetic charger to the base of the toy and plug in to your nearest wall outlet.
It is also worth noting that while the Velvet Thruster is water resistant for cleaning purposes, it is not safe to completely submerge. So no bath time thrusting fun, sorry.
Okay, so not everything about the Velvet Thruster is perfect… but, because it is a pretty new toy and the creators seemed pretty eager to take feedback from users and improve on their toy, I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt and going to assume if they keep working on this beast, it will eventually become something super amazing. Beyond the eye-gougingly bad purple pastel color (have I mentioned I don’t like the color?) the Velvet Thrusters motor housing is super bulky… now, I am no engineer… but I have used a lot of sex toys… so I feel like there must be a less… obnoxious way to put this motor in…. or maybe make it smaller? This bulky motor housing makes the toy kind of hard to hold and doesn’t make getting at the controls at the base of the toy easy to get at. I felt like my fingers were playing a game of Twister just trying to reach the buttons (okay… pointer finger on blue… middle finger on red….), so either reducing the size of the toys base or possibly moving the buttons up closer to where you actually grip the toy would be an awesome improvement.
My second big complaint is… OH MY GOD IS THIS THING LOUD. Like… I wanted to go find some kind of ear protection after using the Velvet Thruster for twenty or so minutes. If you want discreet… this is not it, this is not it at all… unless you live in the middle of a NASCAR speedway there is no way you would be able to disguise this noise and pass it off as something that is not a sex toy. Sound isn’t a huge issue for me, I don’t have any neighbors I’m worried about scandalizing and my partner already knows that I masturbate (and masturbate A LOT), but it was still enough noise to make me jump and cause my dogs to flip out.
My last issue with the Velvet Thruster are its designs… (the insertable bit of the toy) they are so basic. Like… there is absolutely nothing unique about the designs they have chosen to produce… They have the Jackie (oh, yeah… all the toys have people names… which I know annoys the heck out of some bloggers… me… meh, I don’t care…) which is your obligatory penis shaped toy, then there is the Frankie which is still pretty penis shaped… only more abstractly, there is the Abbey (which is the model pictured in this review) which is so basic it almost looks like a medical device of some sort to me, and last but not least the Walter, which I think just looks like anal beads with the addition of a motor. So yeah… I think someone in the design department should take their job a little more seriously and come up with something more thrilling. BUT, like I said… this is a pretty new product… and they said they were still working out some things… so maybe… just maaaaaaaybe some of these issues will get addressed in later models of the Velvet Thruster. If not… well, the toy itself is still pretty great, I won’t deny that… it will just come down to personal preference if you can work around some of these flaws.
Do I recommend the Velvet Thruster? I really liked it (even with its glaring flaws) and I think it is a great alternative for those who want to experience a fucking machine but don’t have the money or the space for the more expensive floor-mounted thrusting machines. The Velvet Thruster does carry a pretty hefty price tag, the manufacturers website currently lists the toy at $229.00 (don’t worry, I’m going to tell you where to pick one up a bit cheaper), which is a lot of green to drop on a sex toy. If you think of your Velvet Thruster purchase in terms of a fucking machine though… (where a nice fucking machine can run anywhere from $500 to $1,000) then suddenly this toy doesn’t look so bad and is a cheap alternative. But… if you are trying to compare it to your average dildo… you are going to have some sticker shock. Quality-wise, I think that the Velvet Thruster is very well made, I have no issues with the toys material or construction (other than the bulky motor case) and I imagine that this toy is something that will last you quite some time with proper care. Over all, if you have the cash to throw around… I say go for it, I think you will probably enjoy the Velvet Thruster… if not… well… attach a stiff bristled brush to it and now you have a fancy motorized cleaning tool. OOH… strap your tooth brush to the shaft and now you don’t have to do any of that pesky arm moving yourself while you brush! Man… I’m so clever.
Can’t wait to give the Velvet Thruster a try? You can pick one up directly from Velvet Thruster themselves or stop by SheVibe and nab yourself one there!
The Velvet Thruster was provided to me free of charge by Velvet Thruster in exchange for my honest review.