10.01.2023 - 22:05 / glamour.com
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is undergoing a renaissance and, truthfully, it's about time. For decades, our perception of lube has been restricted to sexist stereotypes: at best, it was a nondescript bottle tucked away in your bedside table.
At worst, it was a sign of insufficiency in the bedroom—a last resort for women unable to do what our body is “supposed to” during sex. Now, these stereotypes are being broken down by a new generation of sexual wellness founders, who are transforming lube’s reputation from shameful to sexy, or at least stylish. Aesthetically-minded brands like , , , , and have emerged during the last few years, designing packaging and formulas that you’d be proud (or at least not monumentally embarrassed) to display in your night table or keep front and center in your medicine cabinet. (which owns and ), there's been a 200% increase in lube sales in 2020, and sex expert and founder says sales of sexual wellness items on her website jumped dramatically during the pandemic in April 2020, the point at which many of us were sitting around twiddling our thumbs and thinking, well, how can I entertain myself while stuck inside? (Hint: the answer was to twiddle something else entirely). “The pandemic gave us a green light to explore pleasure in different ways because we were all at home, and conversation around lube was expanded to include people that used pleasure tools,” she says.The sexual wellness market is estimated to reach a , which makes sense considering we were all collectively a lot hornier in 2022.