Marital Aid Test Kitchen: Goodvibes’ “Under the Mistletoe” Holiday Gift Kit

This elaborate kit boasts all the bells and whistles, with a vibrator containing G-spot and clitoral stimulators, vibrating suction pump toy, creamy liquid lubricant and all necessary batteries to boot — but is it too much or just enough?

I'll start with the Butterfly Kiss Waterproof Vibrator. To begin, everything in this kit is purple, which I find a pretty innocuous color. But the particularly iridescent, sparkly purple here, coupled with a cartoonish butterfly brought up some middle-school-era Lisa Frank memories that weren't really the most arousing. But I moved beyond the vibrator's appearance, with some help from a generous slather of the Sliquid Silk Lubricant included with the kit. Slick yet creamy and a translucent white, this lubricant appears decidedly jism-like—a boon for those who might be into that—yet is odorless, tasteless, and just as slippery as you could want.

But onto the meat of the encounter. The vibrator is soft, floppy, and a bit on the short side, which I thought may be to its detriment. I was proven wrong rather quickly. This toy does have the one-button control we've bemoaned in the past, but there are just three settings so it's not a huge deal. Once on my desired setting, the sensations of internal vaginal stimulation (I'm still not sure I've been fully G-spotted) and the little clitoral butterfly doing her part—I was not long for this world. The Butterfly Kiss Waterproof Vibrator gets my resounding support and an up front spot in my toy chest.

Now onto the rather complicated apparatus that is the Vibrating Pleasure Pump. With two different caps, a loose sponge, movable head and dangling hand pump, this toy requires some light reading before getting down to business. The instructions are pretty straightforward, though not quite a turn-on, and are worth going over before breaking the pump out for the first time.

Despite getting all parts in working order, the pump proved a disappointment, hardly warranting the effort required to reach that point. Despite properly soaking the provided sponge with lube and placing that behind the silicone cap, and then placing the cap onto whichever body part we wanted suctioned, the hand pump mechanism proved very weak. For the most part, even with a tight seal, suction power was minimal. And when suction was achieved, the hand pump itself remained collapsed, unable to be further pumped.

When used in concert with the vibration (again a single-button, three-setting deal), the suctioning is so overpowered it's basically pointless. The vibrating is nice enough, and the concave head of the pump makes it ideal for any of those convex body parts that could use a little tickle, but without a noticeable, titillating suction this toy has lost its main attraction.

If you're interested in just tiptoeing into the world of pleasure pumping (and dual-powered dildoing) for beginners, this might be the kit for you. And perhaps with more practice the Vibrating Pleasure Pump would be made to fulfill its duty, but for me, I'll happily stick with the Butterfly Kiss.

· Buy Under the Mistletoe Kit (goodvibes.com)