Why You Should Design Your Own Bondage Accessories

November 4th, 2014

Wearing collars, cuffs or ankle restraints is often an expression of your style and personality if you’re into the bondage scene. Not everyone wants to wear spikes or plain black leather, however; some wearers like different colors or ornaments that reflect their personality or even make a comment about their BDSM relationship.

Unfortunately, not everyone is blessed with leather or metalworking skills to customize their leather goods. Purchasing these personal accessories generally means taking whatever happens to be in vogue or available, new or used, even if those items don’t necessarily reflect their personal style.

Fortunately, there are other options when it comes to custom leather gear. Many people want personalized gear that they have personally designed.  Traditionally, craftspeople often accepted custom orders like this, but costs can be prohibitive and quality varies widely among merchants. Refunds or replacements are often hard to obtain from craft fair merchants, leaving customers wondering where quality merchandise can be found, if ever.

Merchants specializing in custom orders and guaranteeing professional quality do exist, however. Designing your own restraints using a company like thecollarshop.com gives you the freedom to choose exactly what you want. For example, you can choose from several different widths, colors, materials, linings, decorations and so on for your leather gear. Professional artisans produce exactly what you request and ship it directly to you discreetly.

The company produces a variety of leather goods, including collars, cuffs, leashes and belts. They also offer advice on the various types of items you may need and the appropriate settings for them if you’re new to bondage. The company has beautiful stock accessories for customers not looking for custom work at the moment. Stock pieces make great gifts for your special friend(s).

This post brought to you by a partner with Of Sex and Love who wants to provide you customized yet affordable bondage gear!

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Categories: Shopping

Nick Hawk GIGOLO Keyless Cuffs

June 8th, 2013

Nick Hawk GIGOLO Keyless Cuffs

Nick Hawk GIGOLO Keyless Cuffs

While these specific cuffs are no longer available, you can find similar sliding styles on rope cuffs.

Let me preface this by saying, WTF “Gigolo?” That’s not sexy. That’s not a selling point. What is wrong with the branding here?

And then I’ll say something nice, like, I really enjoy the look of these cuffs. The chain rope that connects them and the leather appearance are different, and it’s just different. The chain that connects them is a tube of chainmail, while the cuffs themselves are a braided rope. The braid is thick and tight, and the material is softer on your skin than metal cuffs, even with something soft around them. However, the material is pretty stiff, and that’s a difference I noticed between my cuffs and the product image. The keyless cuffs look quite round by default, but they’re not. They are folded in half in the box, and the crease remains in the cuffs as you can see in my photo.

However, they’re really made for form and not function, unfortunately. These are the type of cuffs you’d keep around for a photo shoot, but they’re not the cuffs you’re going to reach for in the heat of the moment. I’ll tell you why.

Rather than band-type cuffs that connect via snaps or an O-ring or metal cuffs, with which I’m sure you’re all familiar, these are two loops that do not open. Instead, there’s a small faux-leather strap on each cuff. The strap is permanently attached to the one side, while you wrap it around the other side and fasten a snap to secure it. You slide the leather enclosure up and down the cuff to make it tighter. Ideally, this design would work for both wrists and ankles because it’s adjustable.

However, it just doesn’t work very well. When the snap is fastened, you can’t move the strap up and down the cuffs. So, to adjust, put on or remove them you must completely undo the strap and then re-wrap it around the cuff. The strap really is quite tight. In fact, I can barely put this one with two hands let alone one.

What this means is that I would have to spend a lot of time just getting this on or off or in the right position, which could be a real downer when it comes to the mood. It’s much too much effort, and while it might loosen up a bit over time, I don’t have the patience to deal with it. I can’t imagine many people would.

When it comes to specs, these keyless cuffs has a circumference of about 12″ each, so they should work for ankles as well as wrists. There’s no minimum, really. I guess you could lock someone’s finger up in this. Because the strap is so tight, I cannot get out of these cuffs even though it’s just a single snap securing them. There is a little less than 4.5″ of slack between the cuffs, thanks to the chain and hardware. This is more than the tiger striped cuffs that I have, so this design, if it worked better, might be good if you’re not so flexible or have short arms like I do.

The connectors between the chains use a “swivel design.” This means added flexibility because you don’t need to keep your wrists in a single position. You can squirm as it were.

Maintenance is, well, iffy. I would consider these porous, and the braining provides lots of nooks and crannies for liquids to get into. You can wipe them down to preserve their appearance, but I wouldn’t share them with non-fluid bonded partners.

CEN Sexpert

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Categories: BDSM, Reviews

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Sportsheets Thigh & Wrist Cuffs Set

December 1st, 2010

THIGH & WRIST CUFFS SET

THIGH & WRIST CUFFS SET
$51.69 from Of Sex and Love Store

I have long wanted a set of thigh cuffs for a unique reason. I want to train myself not to clench my thighs shut during orgasm. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to do so, what with moving and all. Fortunately, Sportsheets Thigh and Wrist Cuffs Set will do the trick just fine.

I was expecting something similar to the cuffs that come with the Under the Bed Restraints but these are a bit higher quality in my opinion. The cuffs are made of some sort of Neoprene and feature a song lining on the inside. The outside has a slightly rubbery feel to it and the material has give and stretch to aid in comfort during use.

A backpack-like strap runs the length of the cuffs and there is a single O ring (like a keychain) sewn into the strap for attaching to other cuffs, restraints, etc. The stitching is reinforced around the loops where the ring is attached and feels secure. The strap extends past the edge of the wrist cuffs, where a piece of velcro is sewn to the back of the strap. The velcro is not sewn on as neatly as it could be but I’m nitpicking.

The straps are each variable in length with the wrist straps ranging from six to 15 inches in diameter while the length of the thigh straps is between 14 inches and 25 inches. You can potentially use the wrist cuffs on a person with smaller wrists by overlapping them but the design of the thigh cuffs does not allow this. The thigh cuffs are also wider than those for the wrists by about 1/4″. This isn’t problematic for the thigh cuffs but I do find the wrist cuffs to be just wide enough to slightly hinder movement.

The thigh cuffs also differ in that you can adjust the width of the cuffs. Again, it uses a hard plastic adjuster similar to what you would find on a backpack. A single tug on the strap tightens while you have to lift up the plastic tab to loosen the cuffs, making it impossible for the cuffed to break free. This offers an extra ten or so inches; however, it won’t look as neat as a thinner thigh, where the edges of the cuffs can touch or overlap. The end of the strap is hemmed so that it cannot completely slip through the plastic adjuster, making it a full loop, unlike the wrist cuffs, which can come open fully. Thus, you will need to slip the thigh cuffs on over a foot.

Each thigh cuff has a snap type hook attached to the O-ring. Because it is keychain style, you can remove the hook and replace one of your own but I hate removing keys so I probably wouldn’t. The wrist cuffs didn’t get as nice of treatment: only one cuff has a clasp to attach to the other. If you want to attach the cuffs to anything else but the matching cuff, you would have to buy another clasp and slide it onto the ring.

Now, for my personal thoughts. The velcro enclosures of the wrist cuffs are less than ideal and become less effective if your wrists are larger because there is less velcro overlap to secure the cuffs. With a bit of effort, I could pop open the cuffs when they were more widely secured. However, this was not the case when I had the cuff as tight as comfortable so that more velcro secured it. I much prefer the adjuster on the thigh cuffs. It’s easy to take off if need be, and just as easy to tighten.

The foamy Neoprene is thicker than the other Sportsheets cuffs I have and offers a bit more padding if you’re the struggling type.

The included clasps are super functional, but I know that sometimes snap hooks loosen over time, so the keychain-style rings are great if you ever need to replace them. The hardware setup does offer a limited range of motion, of course. The bound person will have between 2-3 inches of movement when both wrists are in the cuffs and attached to one another. The thigh cuffs offer around 5″ of movement. If you want to bind someone’s thighs to their wrists or separately bind the thighs and wrists, respectively, you can. Anything fancier will require the addition of hardware such as a chain.

One thing that really bothers me is the lack of a fourth clasp. You could hog-tie someone, if they’re limber enough, without a chain, but the 3-clasp setup makes it asymmetrical and will unevenly stress the body. The body wouldn’t stress if you bind each wrist to the corresponding thigh, but the hardware will be of differing lengths for each side, and that totally bugs the perfectionist in me. Again, it’s easy to fix but I don’t see why Sportsheets couldn’t just throw in an extra clasp with this set.

Minus that and my general dislike to velcro, the Thigh and Wrist Cuffs Set is one that I see being extremely useful for my future bondage.

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Categories: BDSM, Reviews

Kinklab leather wrist cuffs – black

October 23rd, 2009

Kinklab leather wrist cuffs - black

Kinklab leather wrist cuffs - black
$35.95 from Store.OfSexAndLove.com

I recently reviewed the Kinklab Padded Leather Blindfold. Aside from some minor pinching and slipping, it was a good piece, basic but functional. That’s pretty much how I’d sum up their leather wrist cuffs as well. They arrived in a similar plastic tube, from which I had to pry off the cap and on which is an image of the cuffs in use (but it’s not obscene).

Out of the tube, I saw that these cuffs do not have the common belt buckle style closure, which Kinklab calls “self keeping.” Rather, when you wrap it around your wrist, the bottom layer has a pseudo-D ring that slips through the slit of your choice on the overlapping piece. Then, a thin strip of leather is pulled through that D-ring, over the hole to secure it in place. Given enough space, you could potentially loop the strap through other holes for extra security. It’s not foolproof; if that is your goal, you can slip a padlock or something similar through the ring. On the other side is another ring that can be used to attach the cuffs to restraints or each other.

Of course, no locks or connectors are included. This was easily remedied with a trip to Lowe’s and, eventually, Walmart. It doesn’t mean the cuffs are bad per se, but that would be nice, especially because the staples are not like other D-rings or O-rings I’ve experienced. In fact, they’re not really rings are all but are open and shaped something like the Greek Omega with longer feet. Because of this unique shape, these staples are definitely smaller than I am used to, and some hardware may not fit.

The staples and the leather strap are all fastened with metal rivets which seem quite secure. In fact, these cuffs look pretty unassuming and weren’t quite as pleasing to the eye as I might have liked, but I was surprised at how well they held up while I had my husband restrained. Despite much thrashing and movement, the rivets stayed secure, and the cuffs never came open. However, we played probably just over an hour, and the thin leather straps were definitely coming loose. Eventually, the cuffs would have given way. Still, I’m surprised by how well they did hold without using a lock. Of course, some people would find this design a positive because it can easily be undone by fingers, teeth or even toes.

Over this time, he never complained of any discomfort, either. The edges are blunt, and the leather itself is malleable enough to wear comfortably, but they’re also not buttery soft as I have heard some leather described. The outside is shiny and smooth, while the inside of the cuffs are unfinished but relatively soft. The cuffs fit him well, on the third hole or so, with a bit of room to spare. They are cut to fit a range of 5.5″ to 7″, which is right in the middle, but those with smaller or larger wrists will be out of luck. Kinklab’s black leather wrist cuffs are just not meant to accommodate everyone.

Yet, they even surpassed my husband’s expectations. He expected to have bruises in the morning; however, there were none to be found. I don’t think there were any marks to be found, even immediately after playing, and this definitely eases his mind.

For less than $40, the quality and performance of the Kinklab leather wrist cuffs are absolutely acceptable. I would recommend them to anyone just starting out when it comes to bondage or anyone who finds themselves needing a bit more than the “kinky kits” usually contain. I would eventually like to make more of an investment, but, for now, these are great.

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Categories: BDSM, Reviews

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Image © MisterUnlucky; used with permission.