Unsafe Lubricants – 53 Popular Lubes Tested for pH & Osmolality

What if a product that’s meant to bring extra comfort to sex, actually hurts your intimate tissues?! Sadly, many personal lubricants’ ingredients both disrupt vaginal flora and correlate with anal tearing and infection risk. In contrast, the best 💦 lubricants are pH balanced (to either the vagina or the butt); & iso-osmotic, meaning they don’t demolish your vaginal / anal cell structures (which protect against bad bacteria & viruses!). After I endured a painful 😧 vaginal infection this year, I’d had enough—it was time to find the whole truth about lubricant safety. This guide details lubricant osmolality & lubricant pH, with exact measurements!

I took scientific measurements on 53 commercial lubricants, so you don’t have to buy expensive lab equipment! Skip ahead here to the quick recap. Water-based lubricants require care to choose a safe, balanced option. Meanwhile, silicone and oil-based lubes don’t have either pH or osmolality: But do carry other potential issues.

This balanced sex lubricant guide will recap the pros & cons of water-based, hybrid, silicone, and oil-based lubricants. I’ll explain, “What is ‘osmolality,’ and why does lubricant pH matter?,” then I’ll give my independent pH and osmolality ratings for the aqueous lubes, talk about coconut oil safety, and how to choose an anal lubricant too!

Safest Sex Lubricants, by Type

After months of in-depth research and scientific testing, I recommend the following lubricants as the best way to safeguard your vaginal microbiome or your rectum. It’s not all bad news, either: Good lube (1) safeguards your tissues against the friction of sex, especially large or fast penetration; and (2) makes sex toys feel much more cushy. See my list of medical studies for a detailed dive. Note: The vagina and the rectum have different healthy pH levels, so it’s impossible to find a water-based lube that’s pH matched to both holes at once. See these icons below to mean: 🌺=vulva & vagina-friendly, 🍑for anal use, & 🍆for the penis by itself:

• 🌺Best vaginal lubricants in most sex toy stores: Sliquid Silk is fantastic padding, safe with silicone toys and cuts the friction. Or, Sliquid H2O for easiest cleanup off air pulse “clit suction” toy mouths.
• 🌺Drugstores & Walmart: best water-based lubricant for vaginal use: Almost Naked (thicker aloe base; strong vanilla scent) or BioNude (unscented, runnier) by Good Clean Love.
• 🍑Safest anal lubricants: Pure oil-based like Coconu or coconut oil; or silicone if silicone toys aren’t being used. X-Lube powder (mix ur own!) is also very popular and slippery.

There are four types of lubricants, with these pros & cons:

• Water-based lubricants:
  • ✅Can feel the most “natural,” imitating natural wetness.
  • ✅Easiest to clean up.
  • ❌Shop carefully: These lubes require preservatives and thickeners; the wrong ingredients can damage your protective cell barriers and/or disrupt pH.
  • ⭕Rarely pH-balanced for anal play.
• Hybrid lubricants:
  • ✅Added silicone makes a hybrid’s water base last longer.
  • ✅It sticks to toys better, and is great for high-texture sex toys like fantasy dildos.
  • ✅Easier cleanup than oil-based and silicone lubes, and doesn’t stain sheets.
  • ✅Won’t affect silicone toys.
  • ❌Also has the same issues with preservatives, etc. that can be disruptive depending on a particular lube’s ingredients.
  • ⭕Also usually pH-balanced for vaginas, not for anal sex.
• Oil-based lubricants:
  • ✅The longest-lasting slickness.
  • ✅Great for anal stretching & jerking off: or any high-friction play.
  • ❌Can stain sheets. (Put down a towel or waterproof blanket.)
  • ❌Don’t use with latex or polyisoprene condoms.
  • ❓No 100% consensus that coconut oil is totally safe for vaginal use.
• Silicone lubricants:
  • ✅Also quite long-lasting, and less greasy than oil.
  • ✅Has no pH nor osmolality, so it won’t disrupt either the anal or vaginal microbiome.
  • ✅Safe with all condoms.
  • ⭕May harm some silicone sex toys. A pain to clean off them.
  • ❓Might take longer for the vagina to self-clean this lube out, so don’t apply huge amounts vaginally.

Read why Amazon-bought lubes may be unsafe here. I’d like to give a huge thanks to Peepshow Toys🎉 for donating most of the lubricants tested: For science!!!

Lubricant pH & Osmolality – Why Do We Care?

The vagina and rectum both have their own natural balance: they’re separate microbiomes, mini “ecosystems” within the human body. And the vast majority of commercial lubes are not correctly formulated to match one or both of: pH and osmolality, for either the vagina or the rectum/anal canal. Generally, glycerin in lube, propylene glycol in lube, and propanediol in lube aren’t optimal.

Hybrid and water-based lubricants can hurt your body when:

• They force your tissues to push out water.¹ This happens with high osmolality (hyperosmolal / hyperosmotic) lubricants. These concentrated lubes separate or “slough off” the protective epithelial barriers, “caus[ing] the cells to shrink and shrivel.”

Imagine it like this: The 4 layers of the vaginal epithelium (protective skin barrier) are made of different substances: sticks, straw, and bricks.² But, the Big Bad Wolf coming to knock down these building materials is actually a force of wind and water too: a hurricane, if you will.

The more hyperosmolal a lubricant is, the higher the “wind speed” produced by this aqueous assault. As a range of studies have shown,³ deeper-tissue damage correlates strongly with high osmolality. And also see Fuchs et al.’s info⁴ on how high-osmolal lubes hurt during anal application:

Now, while I think “colonic crypts” would be a great goth-metal band name, I wouldn’t want those exposed inside my body!

So how do we avoid harmful lube effects? Let’s look at lubricant safety guidelines the World Health Organization released a decade ago, in re optimal lubricant osmolality and pH for water-based lubes:

• “Ideally, the osmolality of a personal lubricant should not exceed 380 mOsm/Kg to minimize any risk of epithelial damage. Given that most commercial lubricants significantly exceed this value,… it is therefore recommended on an interim basis that [sexual health] procurement agencies should source lubricants with osmolalities of not greater than 1200 mOm/kg.”
• “The pH of the healthy vagina is normally in the range 3.8–4.5. The pH of the rectum is closer to neutral (pH 7). High vaginal pH can lead to an increase in the risk of bacterial vaginosis. High pH is also more supportive of HIV survival. Ideally therefore a vaginal lubricant should have a pH of about 4.5 and a rectal lubricant of about 5.5 to 7. It is unfortunate that these optimum requirements cannot be bridged in a single lubricant.”

It’s a problem because for decades, water-based personal lubes have been based on hyper (high)-concentration ingredients. As my test results below show, 98% of the time it’s bad news when any of the following 3 chemicals is a main lubricant ingredient:

• Glycerin or glycerol, a sugar alcohol.
• Propylene glycol (1,2-propanediol).
• Propanediol (1,3-propanediol), propylene glycol’s close relative. (Both have two alcohol groups in their chemical structures.)

So why are problematic lubes still sold?! Well, lubricant safety is a science that’s boomed over the last 20 years. In the past, the FDA has required lube toxicity testing on rabbit and/or guinea pig vaginas, which are very different from human ones; while safety trials on real-live human beings may be regarded as unethical. Plus, “hyperosmolal lubricants cause little or no obvious pain or discomfort to most users. But they cause marked toxicity to the human colorectal epithelium,… increase susceptibility to genital herpes (HSV) infections… and they cause obvious toxic effects in the slug mucosal model.”⁵

Scientists who discuss lubricant safety point to the case of nonoxynol-9: a spermicide allowed in lubricants for almost 50 years until researchers realized that frequent nonoxynol-9 users were twice as likely to acquire HIV.⁶ Yikes!!!

pH & Osmolality Lubricant Ratings

This list applies to water-based lubricants mainly, with some hybrid (water-based + silicone) lubricants appearing too. Silicone lubricants and oil-based lubricants don’t pose pH balance or concentration safety issues, and they don’t usually contain harmful additives like the parabens some water-based lubes still use. (Read more on the downside of silicone lube here & oil+condom incompatibility here.)

Hit the arrows on the right side, or [2] or [3], to see all the unbalanced lubricant options. Or, see this note for a full list of lubes included.⁷

Find a full list of each lube’s ingredients, and discussion of problem ingredients, in this post.

All lubricants were either: (1) donated by the body-safe retailer Peepshow Toys; (2) purchased by myself; (3) donated by an awesome friend of mine: thanks, K.! (Planned Parenthood lube, Jo lubes, and the We-Vibe Pjur sample pack I’ve always thrown away in the past); or (4) (for Good Clean Love Hybrid & Liquid only) sent to me by Good Clean Love. And I, Phallophile (a.k.a. Felicity), purchased an Advanced Instruments 3320 scientific-grade osmometer, sampler tips for said osmometer,⁸ an electronic pH tester kit, and other pH test strips because I believe we have the right to know exactly what we are putting in our bodies. You shouldn’t have to pay $1,000 to know whether your sex lube is safe.

If you’d like to support my research, please donate to Phallophile Reviews on Ko-Fi, as I’d be happy to add other lubricants people are curious about. Lubricant osmolality tests were rerun 3 to 5 times for lubes with strange results, like Sliquid Sassy being higher than expected, Trojan’s glycerin lube being lower than expected, and Slippery Stuff slippery-ing all over the sampler tip.

VAGINAL & VULVA LUBES: Top Choices

Sliquid Silk: Best-Balanced Friction Eliminator

Sliquid Silk and Sliquid Sassy are my go-to lubes today, after 10 years personal lubricant usage. All Sliquid lubes are pH-balanced for vaginal use & to ward off microbes!

• Sliquid’s new formula Silk as of 2024 is now very close to the normal osmolality range for human tissues (275–295), and is as padded as ever. It lasts; it does not dry so fast like many water-based lubricants. I use this one for vaginal thrusting, sex machine use, vaginal stretching, and textured fantasy dildos.
• Sliquid H2O is drippier, but lasts well enough for external clitoral play. Plus: H2O lubricant is simpler to clean out of the mouth of air pulse (Satisfyer, Womanizer, Melt, Rose toy) & sucking sex toys.

Another good contender is Sliquid Naturals Organics Gel, with its natural phytoestrogens (plant estrogens)—green tea extract + flax—that may help peri- through post-menopausal vagina-havers benefit from a small estrogen boost. This one is between the thickness of Sliquid Silk and H2O.

Back in 2022, Sliquid Sassy scored at 763 mOsm/kg median value —roughly twice as osmotically-pressure-full as vaginal tissue would naturally experience. However, Sliquid seems to be heeding new data on osmolality and reformulating for better balance: I’m about to pick up a new sample & retest for 2024. In the past, Sassy lube was much more of a thick gel, vs. H2O’s more watery consistency; and I’m certain it’s still thicker.

Good Clean Love Lubes Compared

Good Clean Love (GCL) is widely found in U.S. drugstores and Walmart; at least the original Almost Naked vanilla-scented aloe formula, and sometimes the Hybrid.

• Almost Naked is the original, and the most-studied for safety. It’s an organic aloe vera base that’s thicker. It includes vanilla scent, which you might either love (my partner does), or be put off by. (It started to annoy me after 6 months use.) It does feel more “gel-like,” and is very padded when you start moving a toy. It absorbs a bit faster than Sliquid Silk now IMO.
• BioNude is based on plant cellulose and carrageenan (refined seaweed). It’s a little thinner, more in line with “normal” lubes. Least commonly in drugstores.
• Hybrid is a silky water+silicone blend. This creamy water+silicone blend manages to include (less than 1%) of both propanediol and glycerin, yet maintains an osmolality of 367 mOsm/kg. If you are uber-sensitive to glycerin, you might still opt for Silk.
• Liquid does have propanediol as its 4th ingredient, but remains in a safe osmotic range. It feels very similar to BioNude, but with slightly more longevity; coats toys well. Vs. BioNude, Liquid adds hyaluronic acid, which human skin tissue contains naturally; this synthetic version is here for more slickness.

Silicone Lube (Uberlube, etc.): For Penetrative Sex

Uberlube is a favorite silicone lube: 2 pure silicone ingredients, plus vitamin E (which adds shine to the skin). All pure silicone lubes require no preservatives, nor do they have osmolality or pH problems. They all have a 3 to 5 year shelf life.

A few drops make sex much slicker, and a bottle can easily last 6 months to a couple years. (5-year shelf life plus!) I would use silicone lube for everything *if* it didn’t interact with silicone sex toys (more on that, next), so now I just use it for long rides when my partner’s up for it, or with glass sex toys.

Only problem with silicone lubricant: It’s tough to clean off silicone sex toys (lots of scrubbing 🧼🤲), and in the case of silicone-coated vibrators, it can alter the surface of the material or void the warranty; details here.

Aloe Cadabra

Aloe Cadabra is a lovely, thick aloe product with vitamin E. It does tend to glob up more as you move toys around, so reapplication is encouraged. However, it’s more expensive for a 2.5-ounce tube than you’d pay for a 4-ouncer of GCL Almost Naked, and Aloe Cadabra seems to absorb faster.

ANAL LUBES: Top Choices

So slicker is definitely better for anal play, especially when it includes thrusting. The rectum may be even tighter (than the vagina), so you want to pad the tissues to avoid “micro-tears”—tiny cuts to the tissues inside your asshole, ouch!

For serious anal, non-water-based options tend to be more popular, since (1) water-based will dry out faster and (2) water-based lubes usually are acidic, so they don’t match the rectum’s pH and might sting if you’re sensitive. So that leaves us with these thick anal lubricants:

• Oil-based lube is best for long-term butt plug wear. And popular with silicone sex toys overall, since it won’t affect silicone. Very, very slick, so it’s ideal for stretching, minimizing friction during pegging, and more. Top picks: Coconu for easier, less-messy application; or virgin coconut oil from the grocery store for lots of slide for cheap.
• Silicone lubricant makes sense for penis-in-anus sex; for non-silicone toys like the Pure Wand, an intense prostate tool; and for any anal sex involving condom use. Silicone lube is oily in a good way, moisturing, and a little goes a long way. Top pick: Oxlube, 3 silicone ingredients, real smooth & U.S.-made for the butt!
• PEO-based lubes like Bad Dragon lubes (premixed) & X-Lube / J-Lube / K-Lube are very popular for anal because they are so slick & just stick, stick, stick: the polyethylene oxide (PEO) is the reason. For powder lubes, choose X-Lube over J-Lube to avoid sugars added. Mix these powders slowly, into warmer water, to avoid clumps. (Just dumping into a bottle of room temp. water will getchu a big mess.) Dispose of a mixed X-Lube batch by 2 weeks after mixing, since it doesn’t contain preservatives and mold can grow. Do not use Bad Dragon Cum Lube or X-Lube, etc. for vaginal use, the pH is too high.

Coconu Oil-Based: Anal & Stroking Lube

Coconu advantages over non-liquid coconut oil:

• Squeezes on, doesn’t drip on. You don’t need to dig out a spoon to apply Coconu, like you need a clean spoon to dip into a jar of coconut oil kept at room temp. This makes Coconu faster “in the heat of the moment.”
• I thought it was a little easier to clean up, too. Coconut oil can get into toy cracks and such, but we used it on my bf’s new rumbly butt plug recently, and he washed the Coconu right off, no streaks or anything left behind. I didn’t expect that!

So my boyfriend definitely likes Coconu’s feel better than coconut oil. He thinks Coconu feels “silky” on the skin, even after he washed his hands; vs. coconut oil having “a gummy feeling after a while.” I found that the Coconu lasted well for a short but hard stroking session; and then after we moved on to me, it needed a small additional squeeze-dollop for him to continue the slick-stroking later. (We also tried an oil blend by Ah Yes!, with less enthusiastic feedback!)

Oil-Based Lubricants Cleanup

Oil is popular because it lasts… which also means it sticks around more when you’re washing a toy off: Though I’ve found silicone lube on silicone toys the worst to clean up, coconut oil is a close second. (If you have bedsheets you’re fond of, also definitely put down a towel or waterproof blanket when applying coconut oil via spoon.) Do wash your coconut-oiled-up toys really well after you’re done with them, scrub with soap and water for several minutes! Coconut oil’s lipids really stick. Leading to potential storage issues: If a silicone toy was used with coconut oil (but some oil remains on the surface), and then the toy is stored in a warm storage locker, which then cools to freezing temps, a chrystalline structure can form on the silicone. People who use coconut oil on their toys, clean them, and then put them in a storage locker for months will then find this white stuff on the toys and be like, “What is this? I thought silicone didn’t mold???” (Because they interpret the coconut crystals as a strange fungus of some sort.) Nope, just wash it better!

Bad Dragon Cum Lube vs. X-Lube, J-Lube, etc.: Polyethylene Oxide!

Two final, popular choices for anal: 1) Bad Dragon’s Cum Lube, vs. 2) X-Lube and its friends J-Lube and K-Lube. I’m grouping these together since they’re all based on water added to polyethylene oxide (PEO).

I’d advise against large quantities of very hypo-osmolal lubes since that could act like an enema, flushing out beneficial bacteria and impairing immune response to pathogenic microbes in the colorectal region.

Unlike almost all other water-based lubes, Cum Lubes (and all PEO lubes I’ve tested!) are the same pH as the rectum! They’re not acidic.

So, you’d probably want to use a premixed Bad Dragon Cum Lube within a couple months (acidity leads to better preservation), but they won’t sting upon application. I recommend Clear Cum Lube first, though: it’s got a lower osmolality but doesn’t contain titanium oxide: the scientific jury is out on whether titanium dioxide, ingested, can cause DNA damage or increased risk of cancer; there’s enough concern that the European Commission began banning it as an additive in 2022. See titanium dioxide in my ingredients of concern section for more.

That’s versus X-Lube, J-Lube, and K-Lube, widely used for big anal / hardcore anal because they are so damn slick. They hang around, too: Hard to cleanup and wash off!!! X-Lube is pure PEO, while J-Lube has sucrose added, and K-Lube has some kind of undisclosed preservative.

More Lubricant Safety Notes 🛑

• Don’t buy your lubes off Amazon. Case in point: I bought two bottles of Sliquid Sea this year off Amazon, for the fast delivery. I thought, “I definitely wouldn’t buy sex toys off Amazon, but the lubes might be OK….” And, NOPE. The concentrations of these Amazon-bought lubricants were vastly different than the one I received from an authorized distributor (thanks, Peepshow Toys!). The Sliquid Sea distributor lube tested at 93 mOsm/kg, like Sliquid Organics Natural lube and close to Sliquid H2O; while the Amazon bottles tested at 54 and 765 mOsm/kg, respectively. What a difference! I threw those two Amazon bottles away after I saw how extra-concentrated one of them was; the storage conditions must be really bad.
• “Natural ingredients” doesn’t necessarily mean “better.” Watch out for BS marketing here: Companies who want you to assume their high-concentration lubes are healthy because of “plant derived glycerin,” “botanical source[s],” “all natural,” or “with aloe” when aloe is waaaay down the ingredients list, etc. Now, organic aloe-vera gel is an awesome, safe lubricant base.⁹ But beyond that, there’s no reason to include a laundry list of plant extracts in a sex lube. Why? Because the vagina didn’t evolve to absorb an array of plant stuffs:

Is Coconut Oil Safe for Vaginal Use?

As a best practice, I can recommend (virgin) coconut oil for anal play, but I will not use it vaginally. The literature is inconclusive about whether the lipids (fats) from coconut oil can be easily cleaned out by the vagina; and whether coconut oil’s antimicrobial properties affect the vaginal microbiome either negatively or positively when used regularly as a sex lube.¹⁰

We just don’t know on a wide scale if coconut oil will mess up vaginal health—and, as always, some people will be more susceptible to infections (bacterial pathogens [as in BV], urinary tract infection, yeast, etc.) than other people. Anecdotal reports will definitely have some people with vaginas, even ones prone to yeast infection, who don’t feel bothered by coconut oil. So, you may choose to use coconut oil vaginally, based on your risk-aversity level. Coconut oil as a lubricant is safer than vaseline and petroleum oils, at least!

NOTES

First, I’d like to apologize for all the times I promoted Sliquid Sassy, and then Wicked Simply lubricants, over the past 5 years—assuming, because of their “natural” labeling and lack of glycerin, that they’d be very safe.

1. In an effort to correct for the over-concentrated solution outside.
2. The inner layer, the basal layer, is the most “block like,” and crucial for health because it generates new cells. Latent viruses like HPV take advantage of that fact by integrating into the basal cells after the “superficial” or “apical” cell layers are broken through.
3. See especially Fig. 2 in Ayehunie, Seyoum, et al., “Hyperosmolal vaginal lubricants markedly reduce epithelial barrier properties…,” in Toxicology Reports 5 (2018): 134–140.
4. Figure 3 from Fuchs, Edward J., et al., “Hyperosmolar sexual lubricant causes epithelial damage in the distal colon…” in Journal of Infectious Diseases 195, no. 5 (March 2007): 703–10.
5. Emphases added. Quotation from Ayehunie et al., “Hyperosmolal vaginal lubricants markedly reduce epithelial barrier properties…,” in Toxicology Reports 5 (2018): 134–140; this is a fantastic intro to lube safety from a very conclusive study. See my list of top science to read about lube osmolality here.
6. See in particular Happel, Anna-Ursula, et al., “Considerations for Choosing Soluble Immune Markers to Determine Safety of Novel Vaginal Products,” in Gynecology, a section of Frontiers in Reproductive Health (May 2022), section “The Cautionary Tale of Nonoxynol-9.”
7. Good Clean Love Almost Naked osmolality and pH; Good Clean Love BioNude lubricant osmolality and pH; Good Clean Love Liquid osmolality and pH; Good Clean Love Hybrid osmolality and pH; Yes! WB lubricant osmolality and pH; Aloe Cadabra osmolality and pH; Sliquid H2O osmolality and pH; Good Vibrations Please Gel osmolality and pH; Good Clean Love Restore moisturizer osmolality and pH; Ah Yes! VM osmolality and pH; Sliquid Sea osmolality and pH; Sliquid Organics Natural osmolality and pH; Sliquid Silk osmolality and pH; Sliquid Sassy osmolality and pH; Trojan H2O Closer osmolality and pH; Good Vibrations Please Cream lubricant osmolality and pH; KY Jelly Classic osmolality and pH; Wicked Simply Aqua osmolality and pH; Durex Massage & Play Aloe osmolality and pH; LubeLife osmolality and pH; Shibari Ultrasmooth Personal Lubricant osmolality and pH; Sutil Luxe lubricant osmolality and pH; Walgreens Lubricating Jelly osmolality and pH; Jo Agape osmolality and pH; Lola personal lubricant osmolality and pH; Sensuva Hybrid lubricant osmolality and pH; Durex Massage & Play Ylang-Ylang lubricant osmolality and pH; Cake Toy Wonder lubricant osmolality and pH; Wicked Mojo Water-based lubricant osmolality and pH; We-Vibe Lube osmolality and pH; Wicked Simply Aqua Jelle osmolality and pH; Wicked Simply Hybrid Jelle osmolality and pH; Wicked Simply Hybrid osmolality and pH; Intimate Earth Hydra osmolality and pH; Equate Personal Lubricant osmolality and pH; Shibari Aloe aloe-based lubricant osmolality and pH; Jo Gelato flavored lubricant osmolality and pH; Pjur Med Repair osmolality and pH; Jo Classic Hybrid lubricant osmolality and pH; Astroglide Gel osmolality and pH; Astroglide Water-Based Liquid osmolality and pH; Planned Parenthood Aqua Lube; Gun Oil H2O osmolality and pH; ID Glide lubricant osmolality and pH; Jo H2O osmolality and pH; Wicked Aqua Sensitive osmolality and pH; Slippery Stuff osmolality and pH; Bad Dragon Cum Lube osmolality and pH; Bad Dragon Clear Cum Lube osmolality and pH; Liquid Silk osmolality and pH; J-Jelly osmolality and osmolality and pH; X-Lube powder osmolality and pH, may apply to J-Lube and K-Lube osmolality and pH too; Swiss Navy Water Based Lubricant osmolality and pH; WaterSlide lubricant osmolality & pH.
8. It’s crazy how much these little pieces of plastic go for, y’all.
9. The aloe vera should be in the lubricant’s first two or three ingredients, in that case.
10. At least one research study has found, “Virgin coconut oil might be used as an alternative to antibiotics” [which kill bacteria; not a great thing for healthy vaginas, where Lactobacillus bacteria dominance is critical to well-being]. Overall, as with too many gynecological topics, we don’t have wide-ranging controlled studies on actual people; so we’ll see some gynecologists firmly say to avoid coconut oil because it will disrupt vaginal flora, while others will opine that coconut oil might help with yeast infection—although there are no double-blind controlled studies showing effectiveness for coconut oil vs. the widely-accepted yeast infection prescription fluconazole.