Storing Your Hard-working Toys!

[Tyger]

Congratulations!! You've either bought your first sex toy, or have added another one to your collection!!

Here, we've stressed over & over how important it is to keep your toys cleaned and santitary, AND of course, the best ways to use them. But one topic that I've seen here & there, but hasn't been covered a lot, is Sex Toy Storage. So, I'm here to help!

Sex toys have come a LOOOONG way, baby! From the hard, cream colored, ribbed vibrators from Back In The Day, to now ones requiring powders, battery packs, plugs, and special lubes! It can be very, very confusing as to what to do with your sex toys.

Back In The Day, all that was required was a strong arm (cuz you KNOW those cream colored straight vibes took C's), and a drawer to store them in. Yes, life was a tad simplier back then, but, how boring it was compared to NOW! It is VERY important to store your toys appropriately! With all of the new materials, your expensive play thing can turn to expensive puddles of mush if not propery used, cleaned, and stored.

Personally, I like to keep the original packaging the toys come in. True, space is limited in many houses, including mine, but, with my ever-growing collection, I know the importance of proper storage! Some packaging is just impossible to reuse, where others, like the boxes, and molded plastics, are designed not only to display your toy in the stores, but to store them in your house, keeping their structural integrity intact. Structural integrity? Sex Toys? Yes, even sex toys.

For example, with jelly & rubber toys (usually flexible, and has a strong rubbery odor to it), they usually come wrapped in plastic baggies, inside a box. Why? Because if jelly toys rested JUST in plastic baggies, against each other, the slightest temperature increase can make the jelly "dent", and therefore making your toy look like it got slammed into a door a few times. Humorous to think about, but not to have happen to one of your toys.

Battery operated toys should ALWAYS have their batteries removed after each use. Why is that? Well, have you ever found a child's toy, or even a flashlight, say, under the couch, and you take of the cover to see what batteries you need to refill it, only to find that rust stuff oxidized onto the batteries and all over the inside of said item? Same thing can happen with sex toys. Plus, you wash them and USE them in wet areas. "Waterproof" or not, moisture is a possibility. I put "Waterproof" in quotes because, let's be honest, there is NO real such thing as WATERPROOF. Water-RESISTANT, yes, waterproof with things that unscrew? Not hardly. At a certain depth, things like this will leak. Though I am not going to go snorkling with my favorite battery operated dual action, bathtubs, hot tubs, and at the shallower parts of a pool, you should be ok. Be sure that your battery operated toy is COMPLETELY dry when storing it away. Again, condensation/water can corrode the workings. If the toy is covered in jelly, rubber, or silicone, these materials should be stored in their original packaging. Again, to prevent denting, warping, or melting onto another surface/toy.

Cyberskin/UR3/RealSkin are all basically the same thing. They're materials designed to feel like, well, real skin!! And, of course, most of the time, silicone lubes are NOT recommended for this sort of toy. Now, storing THESE in their packages is very important. This is because the silicone in the toys can react to each other, just like they would with silicone lubes, creating mush, dents, bubbles, and mutations of your toy. Not a pretty picture. PLUS, most will recommend using corn starch powder on them after use, to help keep them soft & supple. I found that great product called Cyberskin RENEW. This stuff is great, works, and is specially made FOR sex toys.

Glass toys are solid, really sturdy (since they're usually made from Pyrex), easy to care for/clean, and bacterial-resistant, they CAN be placed in a drawer, not in their original packaging. Thankfully, many glass sex toys now come with either padded, or just a made out of a sheet of satin, with a drawstring, so you can keep it shiny, safe, and scratch-free. Though hard to do, you can scratch & even chip glass sex toys without proper care. After all, they ARE made of glass. Scratched glass sex toys can be dangerous due to harboring bacteria or causing cuts and/or abrassions up inside of you (OWIIIIIEEEE). So, it's best to find something to place your glass toys in. I've found those purple Crown Royal soft drawstring bags come in REAL handy for sex toys! They're soft, with the drawstring, kind of thick, and, of course my favorite: PURPLE!!! LOL

Hard plastic toys ARE still around, are relatively inexpensive, and are getting more and more technical & fun. Placed in a drawer alone would be fine, but, again, scratching is possible, so it's best to store it into something.

Before I was able to acquire some of the pouches, I got some of those cheap washclothes that come like 5 for $5 or something like that, and wrapped my toys in those. Some things I put into those plastic bags with zip closings at the top. You can also make your own drawstring pouches for your sex toys, to your taste.

The hard plastic packages can usually have some of the top, where they have that lip that they can hang it up to display on a wall, trimmed down, which can help fit them into a drawer a lot better.

Toys with cords and/or remotes can be tricky. What I have learned is to store each one individually, either in a baggie, or in a pouch. That way, I'm not fumbling around with cords. I usually don't end up getting them back in their original packaging, unless it's a small box, because of the cord. You can't wrap the cord around anything, because that can damage the wiring inside the cord. So, please try & store those seperately.

As for WHAT to put your boxed/bagged/wrapped toys IN, well, that's up to you. A trunk, drawer, plastic covered container, sidetable-drawer, or sex toy box, they can go almost anywhere.....anywhere that's temperature controlled that is. Too cold an area isn't usually a problem (though can be quite shocking at first touch), however, places that get too cold, can also get too hot, and too much heat, no matter WHAT you've got your toys stored in, can cause many materials to melt. So, no leaving your bendable toys in the car during the heat of summer, or they could melt into something important. Imagine pulling out your registration & proof of insurance to a cop, with a melted vibrator on the top of it all!

I HAD my toys stored in one of those 18 gal. sized storage tubs. But, as my collection grew, as did my knowledge on how to store them, and I sacrificed a small chest of drawers to my sex toys, as well as the covered storage tub. Now, I'm using the storage tub for something else, and I have 2 sets of drawers for all of my toys.

I am a bit "OCD", where I have my sex toys not only stored in their packaging, but if it's the clear packaging, I will write the material they're made of, just so I won't mess up & use the wrong lube. I also have them organized by type (dual action, clit stimulators, glass and other dildos). But that's ME, and what I like to do. It does make finding a toy that much easier, if you have the room to do it.

Going thru your toys is also important. If you DO come across one you forgot to take the batteries out, and there is corrossion on the inside, throw it away ASAP. Don't risk a painful burn due to battery acid coming in contact with your inner self! Also, if your toys are scratched, knicked, chipped, or even just cracked, whether it's your favorite or not, your health and safety should come first. Besides, you clear out a space for something NEW and sometimes even BETTER!!!

So, please remember, your sex toys are there for YOUR pleasure. You've probably spent a lot of money, as well as TIME searching for the one(s) that work the best for your particular tastes. Don't they deserve to be stored with care?

[ladylove]

Great article Tyger. Now knowing I'm suppose to go through all my toys to take out the batteries......way to much work . I too have my toys organized and categorize. Never shall to categories mix......

[Tyger]

Thanks!!!