Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese silk rope - sex toy by Pipedream - review by Vaccinium

Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese silk rope - sex toy Sex toy by Pipedream
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Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese silk rope

Restraints by Pipedream

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Our Price:$11.99

 
 
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Fit to be tied? Well . . .

In terms of its performance, this rope is wonderful as it does everything a novice to an intermediate bondage enthusiast would want it to do. Yet the quality control on the product is poor, with mid-rope frays and poorly sealed ends mucking things up. These issues don't seem to affect the performance, fortunately, but they could cause problems for some users.
Published: March 14, 2011
Pros:
Soft, Strong, Good price, Holds knots, Easily cleaned
Cons:
Frayed in the middle of the rope, Silver tape at ends is cheap and poorly applied
Rating by reviewer:
4
extremely useful review

Use

I’m really not sure how to approach this review. For one thing, I’ve been trying hard to find a humorous angle for the review like many of my recent ones. Unfortunately, nothing has really jumped out at me. For another thing, rarely have I come across a product that I like so much yet which has some really obvious, glaring flaws. Such is the issue with Pipedream’s Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese Silk Rope.

What is any rope used for? Tying it to something or tying up something, of course. Specifically, this rope is meant for Shibari-style bondage. It is not necessarily designed for advanced BDSM or bondage practitioners, but it should be more than sufficient for those wanting to dabble in vanilla BDSM/bondage as well as more intermediate BDSM/bondage practitioners. The rope’s length (35 feet/10.5 meters) and diameter (1/4 inches/6.35 millimeters) is more than sufficient for most uses. In fact, some people might find this length to be too much. The rope can be cut, but it will fray unless the ends are somehow treated.

Although this rope is not meant for suspension play -- Pipedream is pretty adamant about that -– I decided to test whether it could be used for such a purpose. For this test, I hung the rope from a joist on our second-story deck and tied it to make a harness like a mountain climber or rapeller might do. I weigh 185 pounds (84 kilograms), and it supported my weight with no problem for a few minutes before I decided the test was a success. After seeing me straddling a purple rope hanging from my deck, the neighbors now know I’m a bit of a freak, but I think they suspected that anyway. Mind you, I’m not necessarily recommending that you use it for suspension play nor doing so within sight of your neighbors, but I'm rather just mentioning what my rope was minimally capable of supporting.
  • Who / How / What
    [ ? ]
    Who might this product be best for? How is it best used? What are the best circumstances or situations for using this product?
    • Bdsm
    • Light restraint
  • Where
    [ ? ]
    Where / what types of places can this product be used?
    • Anywhere

Design / Craftsmanship / Material / Size / Fit

I’m not sure why Pipedream calls this rope's material “silk,” as I can’t imagine there is much silk in it. Silk rope exists, of course, and it is a highly regarded rope in bondage circles. It is, however, quite expensive -- much more so than the price at which Pipedream sells theirs. Instead, it seems to be a very soft cotton. So, if you are a devotee of 100% silk rope, don’t get taken in by the low price and the “silk” moniker attached to this rope. Regardless of the exact material used in its fabrication, it seems pretty benign, as it has caused no rashes, and it has neither a discernible taste nor odor.

The quality control on this product is pretty bad. I’m not saying this specifically because of my rope, although it is the case, but many reviews on the Pipedream Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese Silk Rope have had the same issues. First, there was a spot on the rope where it looks frayed. It’s the type of fraying you expect to see at the end of a rope, but this was in the middle of the rope. I’ve made rope before, and I can tell you exactly why it is there. Rope is made up of numerous strands of material, and each strand is fed into the rope at different points to keep the length of the rope going indefinitely. The fraying is where one strand got fed into the rope but punched through to the outside. It doesn’t appear to affect the rope’s integrity, but it shows shoddy QA/QC. Secondly, the ends of the rope are enclosed in a cheap silver tape. If this was a properly applied, high quality, strong tape, I might be fine with it. It wasn’t. The tape was placed on rather loosely, is misaligned, and isn’t even particularly sticky. Even after washing it once, the tape has loosened considerably. I’ll shortly be super-gluing the ends to prevent fraying. Despite these QA/QC issues, I doubt they will affect the long-term use of this rope. I fully expect this rope to last many years.

Performance

First off, it is really soft. It feels very nice on the skin, and because of it, the chances of rope burn and chafing are much reduced with normal use. I’m sure some people who read this review will raise an eyebrow with my use of “normal” in describing rope used to bind a human body, but it’s all a matter of perspective.

Softness is nice, but considering this is meant for bondage, what is really important is how well it holds a knot. We have used all sorts of ropes in the past for this purpose, from natural products to your standard hardware store synthetics. I’d have to say that Pipedream’s Fetish Fantasy Series Japanese Silk Rope held a knot better than any of the others. Let me clarify. All ropes are capable of holding a knot, but the question is how tight the rope needs to be pulled to maintain this knot. This rope required relatively little tightness to hold the knot. This is important for getting the rope off quickly in the case of an emergency.

This rope also had an unexpected positive, as it decreased the amount of bruising that was evident in the days after the rope was removed. This was the case on wrists, ankles, breasts, and the back. It is likely due to the combination of the softness and its ability to hold a knot. Admittedly, some people like post-bondage bruising as a sort of badge of honor, but that doesn’t really suit us.
    • Comfortable during use
    • Holds up to use well

Care and Maintenance

Should your rope get dirty (and that's entirely possible, considering how well it absorbs liquids), cleaning this rope is fairly straightforward. The best news is that, for at least the purple version of the rope, the color doesn’t bleed. This is, of course, important should you decide to wash it with other clothes. That said, washing rope in the washing machine is prone to problems, as you usually end up with a huge knot of rope, even if you place it in a hosiery bag. As such, hand-washing is probably your best bet, as is hang-drying, for the same reason.

The rope is a bit on the fuzzy side, especially after it gets washed, so it will attract dust, lint, hair, etc. As such, storing it in a plastic bag is a good idea.
    • Easy to clean
    • Easy to store

Packaging

The rope itself is fairly discreet, although anyone with even the slightest kinky leanings could guess the use of a purple rope. The box it came in, on the other hand, is hilariously indiscreet. Plastered over the entire surface of the box, excepting the bottom, are various photos of a lovely woman wearing panties and nothing else bound in various positions. The front photo is especially nice, with a blatant crotch shot below the word “FETISH” in huge lettering. If you are not inclined to have everyone know your bedroom perversions, dispose of it discreetly. If, however, you are a prankster like me, consider keeping the box and leaving it out at a friend’s house the next time he/she has a party. Hilarity will ensue. In fact, I’ll tell you from experience that boxes from anal toys make especially great jokes. If you don't want to embarrass your friends, please recycle the box with your cardboard. Cutting it, turning it inside out, and placing it inside another collapsed cardboard box should provide all the discretion you need.

There are no directions that come along with this rope. On the one hand, that doesn't sound like a big deal considering it should be plainly obvious what you should do with bondage rope. On the other hand, this rope is clearly aimed at bondage/BDSM novices, and some words about how not to use rope would be nice. If you are reading this review and don't have much experience in using rope for bondage, please read up on how to properly use it so you don't cut off circulation or otherwise harm your partner.
    • Not discreet
    • Recyclable

Personal comments

I would like to thank EdenFantasys for allowing me to receive this item for free as part of their review program. It is a great program that really helps the entire community decide which items best suit their needs.
This product was provided free of charge to the reviewer. This review is in compliance with the FTC guidelines.
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About author
Vaccinium
Reviewed by Vaccinium (Eden Advanced reviewer) Heretic
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5.6
wrote 15 reviews
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Comments
*Ashley* (verified)

Thanks for the review!

03/14/2011
danellejohns (verified)

Thanks for this review. My husband and I have been kicking the idea of buying this around for a while now. I was hesitant because of just the end pieces, i thought it would unravel, for a first time couple I didn't want our experience to be disappointing. I guess we will be skipping on this one.

03/14/2011
Vaccinium (verified)

@danellejohns: I'd definitely suggest looking into rope like this, although not necessarily from Pipedream. Fixing the ends of the rope isn't going to present a problem, but it should have been better from the get-go.

Thanks for the comment!

03/14/2011
liilii080 (verified)

I would love this without the fraying. Awesome review!

03/14/2011
Alys (verified)

I, and I'm sure the rest of the Eden community thank you for your thoroughness, your neighbors... may not

Awesome review, most of it made me smile, the bit about your neighbors made me laugh

03/14/2011
tammyandy69 (verified)

thanks..good review

03/14/2011
Vaccinium (verified)

Just wait until you read my Sliquid Sassy Booty Gel review, Alys.

03/14/2011
BadgersRose (verified)

Fantastic review. Very thorough and complete. This rope seems like a nice product except for the small flaws. Overall though I think it's still a great product that can lead to a lot of fun.

03/28/2011
Vaccinium (verified)

Thank you for the kind words. It is a good product, and certainly fun to use. The flaws aren't fatal, but just plain shouldn't be there.

03/28/2011

Great Review, I have found mine to be a bit sub par as well.

03/28/2011
ShadowKitten (verified)

thanks for the review, although from the looks of it I'd much rather stick with good old solid braided nylon from the hardware store (I wonder how much of the stuff kinksters buy yearly at such places hahaha) not just because of the cheapness (30-40 cents a foot) but the stability and the fact I recently got to feel some 'silk bondage rope' at a gathering I attended and I much rather liked the nylon to this stuff :\

05/03/2011
Ivy Wilde (verified)

Though not as humorous as some of your other reviews, it was still fun to read and, as usual, very informative. BTW, you can test what a material is made of by doing a "burn test".

06/28/2011
Lady Dream Kitten (verified)

great review.

Feb 13, 2:02 pm
DreamWolf (verified)

Great review, I can't wait to grab a few of them!

Mar 1, 10:39 pm
Master DarkWolf (verified)

Good review...

Mar 4, 9:39 pm
Forum
  • "fetish fantasy series japanese silk rope" -- not silk
    • LazyNinja
      link manufacturers page states that this rope is actually made out of cotton.

      Talk about a misleading/lying branding system. Is Japanese Silk a trademark of theirs that they make out of chinese cotton?

      link
    • Thank you for bringing this to our attention, the product information is being updated. If you see anything like this in the future, you can send me an email at:

      stormy@edenfantasys.co m

      or

      JR at almon@edenfantasys.com

      or

      Gary at gary@edenfantasys.com

      We will be able to respond to it quickly and get it taken care of! :D
    • Quote: link manufacturers page states that this rope is actually made out of cotton.

      Talk about a misleading/lying branding system. Is Japanese Silk a trademark of theirs that they make out of chinese cotton?

      link
      I mentioned this a few days ago. Yay, glad that EF is fixing the product page!
    4 posts Read all
    Read all  4 posts  
    Category: Toys and Equipment 
  • diameter
    • How this is the rope?
    • lisasharrer
      Quote: How this is the rope?
      what is it
    • Quote: How this is the rope?
      It's wound up....you have to unroll it.
    4 posts Read all
    Read all  4 posts  
    Category: Toys and Equipment 
  • 'Silk' bondage rope listed under 'suspension kits'
    • Hey, Eden? I would like to respectfully suggest you remove this from the 'suspension kits' category. This type of rope is *not* safe for suspension. It's not real silk (Pipedream has confirmed it is actually a cotton/polyester blend), so can fray easily, stretch, and is just a poor idea if you don't want to risk dropping your submissive on their head.
    • Quote: Hey, Eden? I would like to respectfully suggest you remove this from the 'suspension kits' category. This type of rope is *not* safe for suspension. It's not real silk (Pipedream has confirmed it is actually a cotton/polyester blend), so can fray easily, stretch, and is just a poor idea if you don't want to risk dropping your submissive on their head.
      I agree. I made sure to put in my review that the rope is not intended for suspension or partail suspension
    • Oh my goodness that's scary misinformation...;O
    7 posts Read all
    Read all  7 posts  
    Category: Other Toys 
  • green
    • what are they made of
    • This is a question that could easily be answered by reading the product page! If you just scan it really quickly you can see that hey, these silk ropes are made of rope! It also gives you a link explaining the care of the materials, which is this link! A lot of these questions are better left off of the forums! :)
      link
    • Quote: This is a question that could easily be answered by reading the product page! If you just scan it really quickly you can see that hey, these silk ropes are made of rope! It also gives you a link explaining the care of the materials, which is this link! A lot of these questions are better left off of the forums! :)
      link
      Rope is typically made of hemp, linen, cotton or (as in this case) silk. To say that rope is made of rope is a bit redundant. :D

      But yeah, materials are always listed on the product's page, billybobtoy. It'll always be to the left of the product's picture, and it'll link to some basic care instructions. Though if you need more in-depth information, don't hesitate to ask.
    8 posts Read all
    Read all  8 posts  
    Category: Green Sex Toys 
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