FOU - clitoral vibrator discontinued by Fun Factory - review by PleasurableThings

Fou is made by the highly-respected German toy company Fun Factory. The word "fou" in French means crazy (it doesn't mean anything in German, to my knowledge), and this toy is indeed a little eccentric.

It's intended for pinpoint stimulation of small areas such as the clitoris and nipples, however, the fairly strong, buzzy vibrations can be felt throughout the toy. For this reason, the toy works equally well as a ball to roll over and around body areas (breasts, back, testicles, etc.). The cut-out design almost makes it the opposite of targeted stimulation, unless you can wedge the part you want to stimulate right into the cut-out. I found that nipples were the only part that were the right shape for this. It is possible to fold back the sides of the cut-out a bit in order to pinch in larger or flatter areas.

This toy is quite loud and therefore best used in situations where you don't mind if someone in the next room can hear it.

The main body is a slightly squishy and pliable silicone. It has some drag to it, but I consider that to be not a big issue for a non-insertable toy. The silicone does dampen the vibrations a little, but they are still strong.

The colour of the "red" Fou is a very pinky red. With so many pink vibrators in the world, it would be nice if this one had been a really strong cherry red instead.

The base is a hard plastic. Neither it nor the silicone had a discernible smell.

The round shape of this toy is certainly cute, modern, and non-intimidating. It can be comfortably cupped in the palm of the hand, as long as you're not bothered by the vibrations travelling throughout it.

As described above, the egg shape of the Fou really lends it to use as a massager that can roll over different parts of the body. The cut-out shape can go around small body areas, but for use on a very small area like the clitoris, a smaller shape or more of a tong-shape design would be more effective.

With three raised buttons in a triange around the charging point, the Fou can almost stand upright on its own, but not quite. Perhaps if the buttons were a little more pronounced or the charging point indented. Having the toy free-standing would be nice when you have it out ready to use (so that it’s not rolling away), when charging it, and also for storage for those who have a display-type toy storage container/cabinet.

The controls on the Fou are intuitive. You can turn it on by pressing either the plus button or the button with the sun shape on it, which is also the button for cycling through the patterns. The plus and minus buttons increase and decrease the intensity. To turn it off you can hold the minus button for a few seconds. The buttons are easy to press, even with slippery hands, but difficult to accidentally press.

I found the toy performed best on its highest setting, because of the way the vibrations get dispersed and weakened a bit throughout the silicone body. I also like that there are just four pattern settings - enough to add some variety, without having too many to scroll through.

Charging is easily done by clicking the magnetic charger to the Fun Factory logo on the base of the toy. It needs to be fully charged before the first use. It's supposed to take about 8 hours for a full charge, but I found that the red charge light was still on after 12 hours of charging, so just unplugged it at that point. We'll see how the battery holds up over time.

Fou can be used with water-based lube, and is easy to clean with soap and water. The fact that it's waterproof helps with a quick and thorough cleaning.

The surface of the toy does pick up dust pretty quickly, so storing it in the satin bag that it comes with is ideal.

Fou and its charger come packaged in attractive boxes with a picture of the product on the front. There are a few suggestions on where on the body to use the toy illustrated on the back of the box, but not a lot of detail in the user's manual inside the box. Some further details and suggestions would be useful as part of the manual.

Within its box, Fou is contained within two storage bags: one organza and one satin. To me having two bags seems unnecessary rather than luxurious. Better to have one nicely designed bag than two mis-matched ones. However, this way you do get one bag for storing the Fou and one for storing the charger.

The fou was fun to explore both solo and with my partner, trying out the various ways it could be used. However, the noise it made was loud and quickly became so annoying that we kept the experiment as short as possible. Also, the highly buzzy vibrations are not my favourite. They work, but only the surface of the body gets the benefit.