Thermoplastic Rubber - now 7 on materials safety scale?

good eye...i'm curious too

Thanks for the update!

Hi Alan & Michele,
I just found this discussion today and would like to comment on the use of polycarbonate in 'Better than Chocolate', because your safety is on the top of our priorities list. Polycarbonate is among the best materials in the world in terms of consumer safety and performance, which is why we selected it for our products. It is commonly used in medical applications and for making e.g. reusable food containers. Same applies to the TPE which we selected for the outside of the 'Better than Chocolate'. I understand we did not get the 10/10 rating because EF reserves it for toys made from silicone. Please rest assured that you receive quality when you decide to purchase one of our products.
Yours,
Nomi

My concern (and I think this is what you were mentioning as well) with PC is the fact it contains, and freely leaches, BPA. Because of that we don't eat, drink or play with/from items made from PC unless they are wrapped in a condom just as I would wrap a cheap jelly toy if I were to use it. There is an argument posed by those that manufacture and/ or use products containing BPA that it is safe and call people like myself overly cautious but I'd just rather play it safe in this situation.

Hello Angel,

You are certainly right to be vigilant, and so are we. We carefully studied all available materials and decided to go for polycarbonate because of its ability to fit our specific requirements for the BTC while complying to the most modern consumer safety standards. Especially around our 100% watertight closing mechanism, other materials become brittle and may break over time. We want the BTC to have a very long lifetime. Our philosophy is that making quality products is an important contribution to actually lowering the amount of waste produced. The polycarbonate also gives the BTC a very high resistance to breakages when it is e.g. accidentally dropped to the floor.

So while the use of polycarbonate is nothing to be concerned about and has huge benefits for the final product, I also would like to point out that the part of the BTC that touches the sensitive intimate areas is in fact made from ultra-safe elastomer (the colored, soft part). The polycarbonate only makes up for the sturdy internal construction of the BTC and is overmolded by the elastomer.

I hope that this explanation does not go too much into detail, but I feel that this discussion is important and would like to address your concerns. We are consumers of our own products too and we want to play safe. We treasure every question and feedback that we receive from our customers.

Yours,

Nomi

Thank you so much for this clarification! I will edit my review accordingly. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about our material concerns, I really appreciate it, and I know a lot of other people do, too.

Thank you for stopping back in and addressing my post, I appreciate it very much.

While I disagree on your statement that polycarbonate is nothing to be concerned about I do like the fact you covered it with another material. PC does have some benefits, as you pointed out, namely shatter resistance and an overall long lifespan.

Thank you again for commenting as well as giving good explanation for your thoughts behind the use of your materials. Your explanation was not too in depth rather it sheds light on the way you look at things and your design process which, as a consumer, I enjoy learning about.

As one of the resident science geeks, I'd like to point out that it's really hard to get BPA to leach out of polycarbonate in quantities that are serious enough to begin to cause problems. We're talking letting water sit in a polycarbonate bottle for a year, minimum. (if you're using a lot of different PC products, the levels begin to add up, but it takes a lot more than most people think)

The primary concern with BPA is that it is a known teratogen (can cause developmental defects if it's present in high enough quantities at the right time). However, the levels needed for teratogenesis are really, really high compared to what will leach out of, say, a water-bottle in the time between filling it and drinking it, or the use of a sex toy. If you're not pregnant, and are over 18 (legal age in most places for buying a sex toy), the danger drops to the point where no two studies agree on the quantitative results.

It has not been conclusively shown that the average BPA exposure is a problem outside of infant and child development. I've looked into some of the studies on the cancerous effects of BPA (which is of course only a segment of all those out there). They have found cancerous effects only in high doses compared to what humans are exposed to, and almost all of those were for prenatal exposure. Once you're all grown up, average human BPA exposure has very little effect.

Bottom line? If you're pregnant or planning to become pregnant, feel free to avoid polycarbonate where you can. If you let your small children play with your sex toys enough for it to be a health hazard, get a shrink. Otherwise, you're safe.