Materials
Making Body-Safe Sex Toys
There are a lot of dodgy materials that go into sex toy manufacture. Make sure yours are body-safe.
There’s a lot of attention in the media these days about body-safe sex toys. A lot of cheap sex toys are made with ingredients such as plastic softeners called phthaltates that may not be safe on contact with delicate skin.
Silicone is the preferred material for making sex toys. It's rugged, non-toxic, body-safe, and easy to sterilize. But not all silicone is the same.
Jelly rubber used to be a common material for sex toys because it's incredibly cheap. Some (but not all!) jelly rubber contains phthaltate softeners. This material isn't skin safe, and should be covered with a condom before it's used.
Latex is occasioanlly used for sex toys. It's super-smooth, but (obviously) not a good choice for people with latex allergies.
TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomere) and TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) are starting to become more common in sex toys. They may be used in "blended silicone," sold under trade names like "Realistic Feel," or just called "thermoplastic" or "TP." These materials are body-safe, but quite expensive. They warm quickly, so they're sometimes advertised as "ultra-realistic" or "body heat responsive."
All About Silicone
Download - Print - Pour - Enjoy
Silicone comes in two basic varieties, tin-cure and platinum-cure. Tin-cure silicone is the type used for things like silicone caulk. It's cheaper than platinum-cure, but it produces chemicals such as acetic acid as it cures that aren't safe for use on mucous membranes.
Platinum-cure silicone is biologically inert, and safe for use in food products and medical devices. High-quality sex toys are made from platinum-cure silicone. When you shop for silicone, make certain you get platinum-cure silicone.
Using colorants: Silicone can be dyed, pigmented, or colored with cosmetics coloring or acrylic powder. Of course, if you use a coloring material that isn't body-safe, the toy you make might not be body-safe either even if you use platinum-cure silicone.
The cheapest, most versatile
Silicone firmness and Shore hardness
You can find silicone in a lot of different firmness grades, from very hard to super-soft and squishy. Silicone is measured on a scale called the Shore harness scale, where higher numbers are more firm.
Most dildos and butt plugs are made from silicone that's somewhere between Shore hardness 10 and 20. I use Dragon Skin 20, with a Shore hardness of 20, for most sex toys.
Very soft, stretchable silicone uses a scale of its own, that starts with 00. Shore hardness 00-10 is extremely soft, stretchy, and pliable. Shore hardness 00-20 is quite soft and squishy. This is the type of silicone things like strokers and masturbation sleeves are made of. Smooth-On makes very soft silicone in a line called Eco-Flex. It's normally sold for making Hollywood special effects devices like fake torn skin.
You can mix and match different hardnesses of silicone in the same sex toy to create unusual effects. For example, the Alien Oral Violator sex toy has a normal shaft made from Shore hardness 20 silicone, but the head is extremely squishy, made from Shore hardness 00-20 silicone.
What You’ll Need
- Stick with platinum-cure silicone from reputable vendors. You can find platinum-cure silicone on Amazon or direct from manufacturers like Smooth-On. A Smooth-On "trial kit" is plenty to make several sex toys; a one-gallon container can make dozens.
License
By downloading mold files from this site, you agree to the following terms:
The mold files and sex toy designs are protected by copyright. You may use the files to print a mold on a 3D printer. You may use the molds to cast sex toys for your own personal use, You may not:
- Sell, give away, or otherwise transfer the mold files to anyone else
- Use the molds to make sex toys for sale to others
- Use the molds to make sex toys to give away to others in combination with sale of another product
- Reverse engineer the sex toy designs for sale, or to create derivative molds or designs for sale