Leather hood - hood discontinued by Spartacus - review by Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)

The Spartacus leather hood is just that - a black leather hood that covers your entire head, with eye holes, nostril holes and a mouth hole. It's made from real leather and features laces along the back, so you can tighten it snugly around practically any head.

How do you use it? Well, that's entirely up to you! Sex wise, it's very dehumanizing and it's an intense sensual experience to wear it when you're submissive. For subs, the sight of their dom in an intimidating hood is brutally erotic - the black leather hides all emotion and the simple sight of a hood-clad dom cocking their head to one side is enough to make anybody quiver (in the best possible way.)

But it also has other practical applications.

1: Disguising yourself when you rob a bank.
2: Hiding your identity when you film homemade porn to sell on the Internet.
3: Keeping your face warm during those harsh North Eastern winters.
4: Reenacting the 'gimp' scene from Pulp Fiction.
5: A perfect way to cover up during a 'bad hair day.'

This is simply a beautiful product - the leather is soft, supple and smells delightful. The eye holes and mouth hole are stitched professionally. Metal rings hold open the nostril holes. Elegant black laces let you tighten the mask perfectly, even on yourself. Compared to other, cheaper products, this mask is just BETTER.

Obviously, you pay a premium - but it's worth it. After all, if you're going to cover your head and engage in wild, kinky, debauched sex and bondage, you don't want to look cheap while you do it! Compared to pleather or vinyl masks, or ones closed with a zipper, this leather hood is just in a league of it's own.

The laces are especially good, because it allows the mask to close tightly on just about ANY head. Obviously the eye, nose and mouth holes are in a fixed position, but both my wife and I could wear it snugly, so it's pretty much a 'one size fits all' deal unless you happen to resemble John Merrick (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

This mask exceeded my expectations. I love a good bit of leather. I own more leather jackets, boots and belts than I can mention - so when I saw the quality and craftsmanship of this hood I was pretty impressed. The leather's thinner than say, a jacket - but that's good because it's lighter and molds around the shape of your head more easily.

Leather's a tough one - you can't just sling it in the washing machine. But the outside of the mask is, of course, sheen and slick and you can wipe off pretty much anything that splatter across it with a wet cloth. In the interests of science, we experimented with:

1: Cum
2: Spit
3: Whipped cream
4: Red wine (that last one was actually unintentional. Don't leave a half finished glass of Shiraz on the headboard if you're going to wind up banging your head into it repeatedly.)

The inside of the mask is porous. If you sweat profusely while wearing it (and, let's be honest, we all hope we will) there's the chance it might go a bit stinky. In all honesty, though, hanging up a mask in a well-ventilated area to dry is probably all you need to do. If people wear leather trousers, after all, I think the stink-potential of a leather hood is minor in comparison.

To keep the leather looking nice, saddle-soap (available from all good equestrian stores) and leather cleaner is the best bet. You don't need to do this that often, but it will keep the leather soft, supple and shiny practically indefinitely.

I got the leather good in a simple, clear plastic bag - and that was fine. There were no instructions included, but I guess we hope that using a hood is pretty self-explanatory. Just in case it's not:

1: The hood is intended to be worn on the head. Customers may find their experience unsatisfactory and unintentionally hilarious if they attempt to wear it on any other part of their body.

2: The two holes at the top are 'eye holes' and should be positioned corresponding to your eyes. If you cannot see out of the mask while wearing it, it's possible you have not lined up the eye holes correctly. Failing that, open your eyes or turn on the light.

3: The single hole at the bottom is the 'mouth hole' and should be positioned corresponding to your mouth. If you find difficulty breathing, it's possible you have not lined up the mouth hole correctly. Failing that, tell your partner to stop choking you quite so hard.

4: The laces at the back can be tightened like shoelaces to make the mask fit more snugly on your head. Tighten by pulling the laces at the bottom. Stop tightening them when you feel pressure or hear a sound like a giant eggshell breaking. That might be your skull.

5: Tie the laces with an easy-to-release knot once you've tightened the mask sufficiently. Do not use a granny knot or anything else difficult to untie. If you are unable to untie the mask, you can cut the laces with scissors to release your head (and replace the laces with normal shoelaces.) Alternatively, you can keep the mask on and go about your daily business - hoping that nobody notices.

My wife and I both enjoyed trying on this mask.

While I was wearing it, she found me pretty damn intimidating. The mask totally hides all emotion, so it's much easier to get into a dominant head-space while you're wearing it (and my wife was similarly far more submissive). It's pretty intoxicating, actually - it takes you out of yourself and lowers your inhibitions. Let's just say my spanks were a little harder than night.

Later, my wife wore it as a 'gimp'. Although her long hair tailed out of the back, the problem with the mask was that it stopped-up one of my favorite orifices. My cock is pretty thick, so I found it impossible to squeeze through the mouth-hole satisfactorily, and that meant my wife wasn't able to suck me like we planned.

However, she could stick her tongue through the slot and lick slavishly, which was actually really sexy to watch, especially as I slid by cock across the black leather and smeared her saliva (and shortly afterward, my cum) around her leather-clad chin.