Vivid lubricated - male condom discontinued by Ansell - review by Jul!a

The rundown: Near as I've been able to tell, there's really nothing special about these condoms other than there being extra lubrication. And extra lubrication may be stretching it a bit, because yes there was definitely enough, but nowhere on the package does it say "extra" or anything like that.

The packaging: Wasn't anything super special, just a small box that held three condoms inside of it. The sides were glued down and a bit of a pain (in my opinion) to open. Inside the box there were the usual disclaimers and instructions that come with condoms, along with the pack of three. The wrappers themselves weren't overly fragile but you should still take care when separating to avoid opening more than one that you might not need.

The boring specs: The "average" condom is about 7.5" long, 2" wide at the base and along the shaft and in the head, and .0027" thick. Statistics online have listed this as pretty much exactly on par with average, and have also listed it as being 7" long and .0019" thick. I can't work a micrometer quite as well as I should to be able to judge that one, but based on measuring one out of my own collection, I come up with about 7.5" long and 2" wide. I really do think they'll fit just about everybody comfortably, but use your best judgment on this one. If it starts to hurt or leave a mark, take it off. My husband is about 5" long and about 5" around and it fit him very well, there was room to spare but it wasn't in the way at all.

The exciting "what it was like" part: Right out of the package the first thing that I noticed was that it did definitely have a latex smell. It wasn't overpowering like some condoms I've experienced, but it was enough for me to notice until we started going at it. I normally add extra lube most of the time, but my experience with condoms specifically advertised as "lubricated" is that there's generally enough to go around and this time was no exception. To the touch it was smooth and silky, with just a hint of greasy mixed in. After sex though, I didn't really feel gross. I cleaned up just fine with a wipe and moved on to the rest of my night. It didn't feel much different than a regular condom for us, rather than being "in the way" it was just sort of there if that makes sense. My husband wouldn't be able to tell this condom from any other average condom.

The important safety stuff: Ok, real quick let's talk about things you should and shouldn't do with condoms. Do add more lube if you feel like you're drying out. Lack of lube can cause increase friction and cause the condom to break. Don't add an oil based product (either an oil based lube, Vaseline, body lotion, etc) for lube. The oil base can degrade the latex and also cause breakage. Use a water or silicone based lube instead. Do keep your condoms in a cool, dry location. Don't keep them in your glove box, in the wallet you sit on all day, and at the bottom of your purse are not good places for condoms. In the purse it could get punctured, and being in all that heat can also degrade the latex which is again, not good.

I recently made the decision to stop taking my birth control pill. This leaves us with one form of birth control that we know we can reliably use; condoms. We've never been on the quest for "the perfect condom" instead preferring to just try out as many as we can. The problem with this and the fact that we're both super laid back about pretty much everything is that it's hard to stand out one way or the other. This can be a good thing for a less than great condom, or a bad thing for a condom that's almost fantastic but not quite, since they all get lumped into the "wait, which one was that again?" category. That's where this one is inevitably doomed. I liked that it did have enough lube to keep going the whole time we were going at it (about 15-20 minutes) with enough to have kept going if we wanted to, but that's the only thing that sets this one apart to me. We like them, but we don't love them, so while we'll probably order more in the future we're not going to go out of our way to get more until we're out of condoms again.

Long story short: good, reliable condom that has extra lube.