Ello,
TLDR:
- China trade show happened. It was... fine. We have opinions.
- Design A Grinder II voting is live and you need to vote (we'll explain)
- New toys incoming from the Goblin II creator, a new grinder, and some things I'm not allowed to discuss yet
So we just got back from China.
The plan was to come back with a travel blog style deep dive, loads of photos, a very impressive writeup about all the innovation happening in the industry. Very professional. Very content-marketingy.
Turns out the world's biggest sex toy trade show is mostly just... walls. Walls and walls and walls of the exact same vibrator in slightly different colours. You know those soulless toys you find on Amazon and the big faceless sex toy websites that all look the same? Yeah. We saw where those come from now. Mystery solved.
The fantasy space was basically nonexistent. We did spot the Nothasaurs stand (floor 3 of 3, tucked in a corner) with some interesting designs, but genuine fantasy toys were genuinely rare. Which was equal parts disappointing and quietly reassuring, because apparently we're still doing something most people aren't.
The trip was not a total wash though. Shanghai is brilliant and we absolutely used "business trip" to justify running around it like we lived there. We did not spend an evening discussing the pros and cons of socialism with a 28 year old Chinese banker we randomly met until genuinely quite late. That did not happen. Definitely no downtime.
Right. Design A Grinder II.
We already emailed you about voting this week so yes, we're aware this is a lot. But I read something about people needing to see something 7 times before it sticks. We're not sending 7 emails about this. That would be insane. So instead:
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE.
Done. That's seven. You're welcome. Go vote. It takes about 40 seconds and a real human worked really hard on that design and deserves your click.
Also. Things are happening.
- We're working on some new toys with the creator behind the Goblin II (who is, frankly, talented) and we're very close to launching something new from them. More on that very soon - probably next week.
- There's also a new grinder in the pipeline that I'm personally intrigued by, which is either a great sign or a sign that I need to get out more.
- Alex and Zoli are currently messing around with gemstones and something else I'm not allowed to mention. So I won't mention it. But it's good. You'll like it.
- Oh and our mates over at Sinnovator are developing a realistic dildo toy with a pornstar, which I should clarify is a professional collaboration. (Full disclosure, we own Sinnovator by the way. You should absolutely buy from them too. But mainly from us. Someone watches the numbers and I need those numbers to be good.)
- One more thing: we're tweaking the Tentacle Knot II. Slightly easier knot, no more bubble issues in the pours. It is now officially the Tentacle Knot II 2.0 _final_final version - we'll drop this next week as I've run out of time to get it all live today.
More news soon.
Goodbye forever.
Chief Dildo Officer