Chained leather ankle cuffs by Zado - review by herdisleah

This is designed and perfect for all levels of restraint in BDSM. They're sturdy enough for medium to rough play, but not suspension play. They are designed to be used as ankle cuffs but they work perfectly fine on my wrists as well - although I will punch another hole at a smaller space to enhance this.

The main construction of this is the leather. The leather is 1/8th inch/3mm thick. The main cuff is 11"/28 cm long, by 2.5"/6cm wide. At the smallest these fit a 7"/18cm circumference wrist or ankle. On my wrists at this setting, they're just a little bit big. The buckle adjustments are every 2cm/.75". At the most this will fit a 12" circumference ankle or wrist, but this does leave a fairly large gap between the wider straps, rather than just the buckle.

The leather construction on this is great. The leather is nice as tough, and the straps are tough enough to put up to a decent amount of abuse. The top and bottom edges of the leather are rolled over, creating the raised edge. Along the whole of the cuff, a neoprene lining is sewn to the leather. This in my opinion is its biggest downfall. The neoprene is very absorbent, porous and not the softest for skin. The edges of the neoprene are unfinished and just left open. They're probably not going to fray or disintegrate at all, but finishing the edge would have been a huge improvement. The closest thing I can compare this to is perhaps a leather strap for a backpack - with the load-carrying strap on top, and a very squishy foam pad sewn into the underside of the strap for padding.

The performance on these cuffs are actually quite impressive. The steel is all of high quality, and the rivets have no seams or raw edges to scratch. The rolled edges are nice so that the leather doesn't cut into the skin. The neoprene lining unfortunately is not the most comfortable. I also experienced that it rather absorbed sweat, and unfortunately I suspect that over time it may get a lot dirtier than other cuffs simply because of that super absorbent lining. As it stands the cuffs are comfortable enough for now, but we'll have to see while I put them through the paces.

The chain supplied with the cuffs could definitely be shorter. As it stands, the chain is so long it doesn't restrict my movement when walking at all really, especially if I'm wearing a pair of sexy heels in the first place.

The leather should be wiped off or spot cleaned, and then conditioned using leather conditioner. Unfortunately I have no clue how to clean or wash the neoprene lining. Submersing the whole thing would be a bad idea due to the leather. Eden's page suggests that the foam closed-cell structure resists anything penetrating into the foam but I'm skeptical.

The accompanying literature with the cuffs suggests using a smooth and moist cloth to spot remove and wipe down with a perfume-free soap. It gives a few other tips for cleaning the leather and storing it (such as not keeping leather in plastic bags, as it causes mildew). Unfortunately it has nothing to offer to care for the neoprene.

The packaging was definitely not subtle - a cardboard container with a picture of someone with the ankle cuffs on. Inside the cuffs were each in a plastic bag. Its pretty basic packaging, and comes with a packet of literature. There's not a lot to read, but they do list in half a dozen languages.