LIFE & CULTURE

I Tried The World’s First Shower Head Sex Toy. Here’s Everything You Need To Know.

Shower time?
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Lather up, ladies: a world-first shower head designed specifically for masturbation has officially launched.

Introducing the Womanizer Wave: a shower head with three jet settings tailored to get you clean off.

Women have been masturbating in the shower for aeons. (Surprise!) Now, someone has finally come to the party with a purpose-built shower product.

The Womanizer Wave appears to be like any hand-held shower, but it has secretly been tailored to your masturbatory needs.

As Womanizer Head of User Research, Elisabeth Neumann, explains: “The Womanizer Wave represents a significant step forward in the destigmatisation of masturbation, as it normalises and incorporates this healthy sexual practice into our daily lives.”

What’s better, is that it is designed in partnership with German bathware manufacturer hansgrohe–so, you know it’s a good investment for both pleasure and plumbing.

With a little personal inspection, here’s what we found out about the Wave.

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This world-first shower head incorporates pleasure into home design. (Credit: Getty)

What does the Womanizer Wave do?

The Womanizer Wave is designed to help you masturbate. It is also, however, a perfectly functional shower head with three jet stream settings.

Combining sleek bathroom design with sex toy functionality, it’s basically building pleasure directly into your home design. 

How does the Womanizer Wave work?

The main design principles that make this ‘regular shower head’ anything but, is its ergonomic ease and three jet stream styles. These are intended to stimulate the vulva and clitoris (or any other erogenous zone), with both focused and general settings.

The three jet streams are:

  • Pleasure Jet: A focused stream of water designed for constant, rhythmic stimulations
  • Pleasure Whirl: A system of three nozzles which move and spin, creating a pulsating sensation
  • Powder Rain: Covering the largest surface of a shower head, this offers a gentle constant flow.

Of course, there is an intensity slide within a thumb’s reach, so you can adjust the pressure of each setting easily and at will.  

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The ‘Power Whirl’ setting utilises three rotating jet streams. (Credit: Supplied)

Is the Womanizer Wave any good? A review

In a phrase, I’m obsessed. While this isn’t the kind of ‘toy’ that is going to have you climaxing in seconds, it’s an idyllic enabler for all sorts of fun.

The Powder Rain

The Powder Rain setting is a very good place to start. As the gentlest and least ‘localised’ setting, it provides a light, tickling sensation (which gets more intense if you toggle up the pressure). While the surface area was designed to cover almost exactly the breadth and width of a vulva, it can also be nice to try this (and all the settings) on other erogenous zones.

This is also the setting that is what one would use for a regular shower. 

The Pleasure Whirl

The whirl stream is most like a pulsing sensation, even though it’s just whirling jets of water. 

Reminder: given the order of the settings, you might want to remember to turn the intensity down between the Rain and the Whirl, as the Whirl is more likely to target the area directly on/around your clitoris when the head is positioned towards the vulva. 

The Pleasure Jet

Finally, the Pleasure Jet comes out hard and fast in a steady stream of water. 

At the shower head, the stream emerges from a five cent coin-sized jet, with water stream widening and dispersing the further you move it away. This allows for multiple levels of intensity as you move it closer to or further from your body. This is, of course, the setting with the highest intensity so it’s nice to have that control.

Each setting can also be focused on different areas, whether that be the back or neck (hello, massage).

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The ‘Pleasure Jet’ setting. (Credit: Supplied)

Ergonomics & Design

In Germany, the Womanizer Wave has won awards for its top-tier design.

The development of the Womanizer Wave took more than three years, two prototypes, nine research products, 60 interviews, 100 test samples and 4000 questionnaire responses. In other words, you’d hope that’s not all for nothing.  

I’m told by the Womanizer team that ergonomics were one of the biggest challenges in perfecting the Wave shower head. How can one hold it, position it to face the vagina, and have the intensity and jet settings within a reasonable distance so you don’t need to do a full-body reset every time you want to up (or down) the ante? Well, they figured it out and a user can easily hold the hand-held shower head, and toggle between the settings. 

Thanks to a well-positioned button, you can click through the settings in this order: Rain, Whirl, Jet. (Or Whirl, Jet, Rain or Jet, Rain, Whirl but never Jet, Whirl, Rain, you got me?)

Can you use the Womanizer Wave with a partner?

Hell yeah! Fun for all parties.

If you’re inviting other people–or toys–into the shower with penetration in mind, remember to use an oil based lubricant because water washes away moisture–and water based lubricants!

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(Credit: Womanizer Wave, $179.95)

SHOP HERE

A few words of advice…

This is definitely not an apparatus where you want to go in hard and fast. As with most sex toys, starting on the highest intensity can be a bit much, depending on the person and situation. But if you’re starting from ‘zero’, never go straight to ‘hero’. 

Good Vibes sex and relationships therapist, Christine Rafe, says it typically takes a vagina at least 17 minutes to be aroused and ready for penetration. Some vaginas may take up to 45 minutes from the first erotic stimuli (which could be anything from a gentle touch to a flirtatious text to a passing thought). So, don’t jump in a shower and expect miracles to happen.

This is probably also where I should remind anyone reading to be mindful of water temperature! While one of the perks of the Wave is an in-built ability for temperature play, we don’t want anything too hot where it shouldn’t be. (Ouch!)

Also, the shower head comes with instructions on the pamphlet, including advice NOT to aim water directly up and into the vagina. (Another reminder: douching is bad.)

Finally, a caveat that masturbation and pleasure, in general, is personal and tastes will always vary. What works for one may not work for the other.

Do you need a specific type of shower to install it?

Yes. This is the main con of the Womanizer Wave. Unless you already have a handheld shower and hose, you would need to install one. The shower head is just an attachment.

But, if you’re renovating your bathroom and looking at inexpensive, high-quality shower heads, why not consider one with, er, that little something extra?

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