A few weeks ago we ran out of Maximus lube. As some of you may remember, Maximus is our preferred lube for anal play and when we open up the toy box. Sylk (our regular lube) just doesn't have the the staying power for long sessions with toys and we both prefer a thicker lube for anal. We used to get Maximus sent to us for free by a friend of ours in the States, who ran an adult shop over there, but since he closed the shop down our free source has dried up. So off to the local adult shop for us. Imagine our horror when they told us that Maximus is unavailable in Australia. What to do? We could buy from the US but the shipping (and three week wait for delivery) was a bit of a downer. No, we gritted our teeth, girded our loins and purchased a small bottle of pretty much everything water-based we could find to try to find a Maximus replacement.
That night, we played lucky dip with our bag of lubes and the first one to come out was Pjur Aqua. We had reviewed Pjur Silicone before with mixed results but the guy in the shop assured us that their water-based Aqua was the Rolls Royce of lubes. Actually, being German it should probably be the Mercedes Benz of lubes but anyway. This definitely had a Mercedes price tag. A small bottle was $20 ON SPECIAL! That's $1 per millilitre. ON SPECIAL! At that price it had better be good.
As usual with new lubes we ran it through our regular set of tests. First up, the regular sex test. The Aqua did pretty well for regular sex. It's fairly thin and very slippery. It lasts well and you don't need too much of it which is fortunate given the price. There were a couple of downers though - first, it did kind of hang around and leave us both a bit sticky/greasy the next morning, which wasn't so nice. The other thing was the packaging. Like all Pjur products this come in a very stylish bottle with a screw cap. "So what?" you say. Well, you try opening a screw cap to add a little more lube when you hands are already slippery. It's not easy. While we could leave the lid off, the lube is thin enough that if the bottle fell over it would go everywhere. A flip top or pump would be so much better. Still it gets a solid 7/10 for regular sex.
Solo was next. We both lubed up and went for it. On Mrs Dave it worked really well. Lasted well. Did the job. On me it worked pretty well too, though it did need re-applying a few times. I think Mrs Dave's natural lube helps keep things moist while I tend to dry out as I'm waving around in the air. Again, left us sticky the next morning and the packaging really makes it hard to re-apply. 6/10.
Toys next. We lubed up Mrs Dave's old wooden dildo and went for it. Being a thinner lube it did tend to run off the toy a bit. It didn't stay where it was put so Mrs Dave, the dildo, our hands and everything else got pretty slippery. It also needed re-applying a few times and again, the packaging made it hard for us. Did the job though and scored 6/10.
Finally the anal test. This is the reason we were after water-based lubes as pretty much all of our anal toys are silicone and they do not play well with silicone lubes. We tried a finger and our Small Butty Vibe on Mrs Dave and while the Aqua was slippery enough to do the job, we needed quite a bit of it. We also find that a thicker lube for anal play tends to be more comfortable as it seems to smooth things out. Adequate but not great. 5/10.
All up, the Aqua is a pretty good all round lube. It's not the Maximus replacement that we were hoping for but it's a good lube nonetheless. It is let down badly though, by its inconvenient packaging. It's also super expensive. There are other lubes out there that perform just as well (or better) and cost much less. Sylk is less than half the price, is organic, and does a better job than the Aqua. Best we can give this one overall is a 6/10.
