I’m Not O-Fucking Kay: Betrayed by the Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo

The Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo by Icon Brands lured me in with the promise of a sex toy that finally catered to the emo aesthetic I have long celebrated. When I was waiting for the toy to arrive, I wrote the first few paragraphs of this review, which speak to my excitement and the overwhelmingly positive thoughts I was having before this dildo actually arrived in the mail to me. I’ve kept these paragraphs as originally written for the sake of taking you with me on my emo(tional) journey, but I want to make something perfectly clear to my readers:

This dildo is NOT body safe. I am NOT recommending this dildo under any circumstances, and I’m giving All That I’ve Got to make sure no one else buys it. In fact, the retailer who sent me this product for review promptly pulled the item from their store after hearing the alarming feedback myself and other bloggers shared about this toy.

However, this toy still tries to market itself as “body-safe” on other websites that haven’t yet been informed about its harmful nature. Additionally, the manufacturer, Icon Brands, is also still trying to market this toy as “body-safe.”

To you, my reader, if you were hoping for a body-safe dildo that celebrated the nostalgic emo and pop-punk glory days of the mid-2000s, I’m sad to say that you’ll be joining me in the disappointment corner. But, I’m hoping that by reading this review, you’ll at least be able to educate yourself about this dildo and save your money for something else, like a $1,956,000 ticket to the My Chemical Romance reunion tour (since that’s probably what the scammer bots on Ticketmaster are selling them for nowadays).

So now, I invite you to read my review and MakeDamnSure you don’t waste your money on this dildo.

This Dildo Hates Preps

Pride Month, perhaps more than any other month, is the time of the year where people are talking a lot about labels. Like many others, I’ve cycled through a host of different labels to describe myself throughout my life—from bi, to lesbian, to pan, to bi/pan, and finally back to lesbian again, in addition to adding in some variation of genderqueer/nonbinary/don’t ask me about my gender as my pronouns are Do/Not/Perceive/Me.

But throughout all of this, from my first inkling that I was into girls when I was 12 years old looking at anime boobs on Photobucket until now, there’s been one label I’ve used to describe myself that has never failed me.

Emo.

I am a person who is completely undeterred by the fact that it’s 2021. I am continuously, aggressively continuing to wear Tripp pants and blast My Chemical Romance at every possible opportunity. I don’t wear makeup often, but when I do, it’s haphazardly smeared red eyeshadow in the spirit of 2004 Revenge era Gerard Way. I text on an iPhone today, but in my heart, I’m texting on the T-Mobile Sidekick I never had. My parents didn’t let me have a Xanga or a LiveJournal or a MySpace, but that’s what notebooks and Sharpies were for.

In My Vagina, it’s 2005 All the Time

The Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo is brimming with the spirit of a Converse sneaker or a composition notebook owned by a 13 year old in 2006 (I am 100% referring to myself here). This dildo hates the town it lives in, and it really hates Mom and Dad. More than anything, this dildo hates preps. This dildo wears a lot of eyeliner and cool big black boots. When it sees the stupid preps wearing their Abercrombie and Fitch polo shirts in the hallway, it throws a look of disgust at them and proudly sticks its middle finger up in the air at them.

I don’t know how many other people hold this memory, but when I was 12, in 2005, I was really into Green Day (American Idiot era, of course). During this time, Green Day merchandise wasn’t limited to Hot Topic. You could also find it…at Claire’s, of all places. Claire’s doesn’t seem like the spot for black and red, punk, edgy merchandise when you think of it now, but 2005 was a different time. The accessories in there were still absolutely tailored for middle school age and younger girls, but in addition to all the glittery girly stuff, you also had the option of purchasing a “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” sign for your bedroom, a bracelet with black and red and white skull-shaped beads, or an edgy black and red clip-in hair extension.

This dildo, more than anything else, has the spirit of that 2005 pop-punk Claire’s. Looking at it for the first time, my first instinct was to laugh at how silly it looked. It reminded me of Avril Lavigne, my favorite musician when I was 9 years old and a singer whose name I initially believed was “Admiral Lavigne.” You can imagine my shock watching her during her 2002 Nickelodeon performance when she came out completely devoid of the Navy admiral hat I expected her to be wearing. Specifically, the dildo reminded me of the “hey hey you you I don’t like your GIRLFRIEND!” Avril Lavigne era, in that it has a certain unapologetic cheesiness/cringe factor attached to it.

But as much as this dildo made me laugh, I also realized it was yet another sex toy I couldn’t stop thinking about. It was simply meant to be—I had to own this dildo. I just had to! If I had the opportunity to own a dildo that proudly boasted the cringe pop punk aesthetic of my early teenage years, there was no excuse for me to do anything other than JUMP on that opportunity.

Dildo! at the Disco? Or Panic! at the Dildo?

Since, after all, this is a sex toy, I couldn’t just stick it on a shelf and look at it. I mean, I could, but that’s not what anyone is reading my blog for. People want the tools to help them make informed decisions about what a sex toy is going to feel like…I know, I know. So, when I was committing to inviting this Vampire Freak of a dildo into my home, I also considered how it would actually feel upon entering my cave of darkness and brooding, also known as my vagina.

The dildo is silicone (and body safe), and the flared silicone suction cup base makes it safe for anal and compatible with use in a strap-on harness. Looking at the measurements, it’s 7” long total, with the insertable/usable length coming in at 6.5”, and the width of it coming in at 1.5”. So, it’s a step up from the most recent (tiny!) dildo I reviewed, the Mint Mojito, but it’s still in my general comfort range, with a width similar to dildos like the Vixen Creations Mustang.

This dildo may be a “Goth Girl,” but the shape and texture of it reminded me of another “girl” in my life—my Hatsune Miku vibrator, or the Fun Factory Tiger. The Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo has a pronounced head (which I have been established to be a fan of), and then a body that swirls and twists like soft serve ice cream, with pronounced ridges of texture all the way down. It calls to mind another memory from 2005—the song “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. Of course, that’s prep music, and this dildo would never listen to a song like that.

Taking the Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo on our First Date:

When I was in middle school, I was bullied by preps a lot, and no amount of putting my middle finger up could deter them. When I transitioned to high school, I found that the kids I had the best chance of becoming friends with were the kids who wore emo/punk/goth clothes like I did. I trusted other alternative kids. Just like the way I trusted the actual goth girls in high school, I thought I would be able to trust the Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo.

But I was wrong.

Why’d You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated?

When I first took the Goth Girl out of its box, I wasn’t intending to actually use it for sex or masturbation. I was actually eating toasted ravioli on my couch, and was just casually observing the dildo as it came—straight out of the box, completely unsullied, and I was even eating my ravioli with a fork, so there wasn’t any threat of me getting pasta sauce all over it or anything either. I was just hanging out, looking at the Goth Girl…and then I noticed how many things were seriously, seriously wrong with it.

The Goth Girl was plagued in many places with a weird raised gritty texture. In the places I felt the texture abnormality, I noticed that visual abnormalities were present, too. There were thin, raised streaks and lines as well as random raised splatters of black…something? I can only assume the black raised texture was whatever paint or dye that was used when giving the Goth Girl its signature visual pattern.

My partner and I were both confused and quite put off by the (highly noticeable!) imperfections. The tip of the Goth Girl’s head was the worst offender—it was swirled unevenly like some kind of wrapper, with raised texture all over the head and an abundance of visual flaws. It’s hard to describe this in words, so I’ve included a lot of images for this section. My partner, who is more knowledgable about certain art and manufacturing techniques than me, suggested that the dildo must have been hydrodipped. But hydrodipping didn’t quite make sense.

Spanning the entire body of the dildo, there is a very noticeable raised seam. If the dildo had been hydrodipped, the pattern wouldn’t be affected by the seam (if the seam was just part of the dildo itself). But instead, the seam on the dildo more resembled two pieces of wrapping paper that had been cut at different points and then taped together. The idea of strangely applied wrapping paper also lined up with the imperfections I noticed on the head—it’s exactly like some kind of decal or wrapper was hastily applied or plastered around the body of the dildo.

What The Hell?

Curious, I scratched gently with my fingernail at one of the raised imperfections on the dildo. For reference, my fingernails are very short and not at all sharp. To my horror, the pattern on the dildo started flaking away beneath my fingers like cheap nail polish. Now, I haven’t worn nail polish regularly since my teenage mall rat days, but memories of endless hours spent picking away nail polish while bored in math class were still stuck in the back of my brain.

Horrified, I jumped into the sex toy blogger Discord I’m fortunate to be a part of, and sent the group a panicked message about my experience. Queer Earthling quickly responded, having been sent the same Goth Girl as me (great minds think alike) and having noticed the same weird issues with texture. Queer Earthling said the pattern on her Goth Girl also looked “folded over” and had a lot of “weird overlap stuff going on.” She also mentioned that when her partner tested the dildo, it felt “sandpapery” within them.

In between chatting in the Discord server, I continued to pick a little bit at the Goth Girl’s pattern.

Dildoodler: Ok sorry I’m continuing to pick at this dildo and the paint layer is COMING OFF
Not like in huge chunks but I should not be able to erode it with my fingernail! That’s bad!!!!

Everyone in the Discord server was horrified and puzzled by the saga of the peeling Goth Girl. Mxed Reviews suggested the problem may have been silicone delamination, which is when individual layers of silicone start to separate from each other. However, since Icon Brands provides zero information about their manufacturing process for this dildo, saying it’s “proprietary information,” there was no way of knowing for sure. All Icon Brands says on their website is that the pattern is “tattooed right onto the silicone” and that the pattern/coloration is “Phthalate-Free Body-Safe “Tattoos”. The color specification only says “Body-Safe Printing.”

Lying Is The Most Fun A Dildo Can Have Without Taking Its Skin Off

While the packaging and online descriptions for this toy don’t offer direct information as to the manufacturing process, they do provide some unusual care directions. With all the other silicone dildos I have, the care instructions have never been unusual. I’ve always been told that they can be boiled, they can be washed with any kind of soap, that I can do just about anything with them aside from use silicone lube. The Goth Girl, however, was oddly specific. I’ll copy the text from the back of the box here directly:

“The care and cleaning of Collage: Enjoy Collage by itself, or with a gentle water-based lubricant, but never one with alcohol. Your collage should be washed with a gentle soap and warm water, but not an alcohol-based soap. Alcohol is not color friendly.”

Reading this immediately made me suspicious. What kind of sex toy coloring is so fragile that something as simple as a little alcohol in dish soap would ruin its pattern? Clearly, it was already fragile enough that my blunt fingernails could erode the pattern, but it was still baffling me.

Witch of the Wands received a dildo from the same Collage series (in a different color) for review, and before testing the toy they disinfected it with hot water and dawn soap. They and Queer Earthling both followed up with the retailer all of us are working with in reviewing the Collage dildos, who then followed up with the manufacturer. The manufacturer stated there must have been an incompatibility with the dish soap used to wash the dildo, effectively blaming Witch of the Wands for the severe flaking and deterioration they observed on their dildo. But my experience was a quick counter to this initial email—unlike Witch of the Wands, I hadn’t yet washed my dildo. I hadn’t even run it under hot water yet! They only thing it had come into contact with was my hands, and yet it was still flaking to the same degree, if not even worse, than what Witch of the Wands was observing on their dildo.

My Proprietary Chemical Romance:

Witch of the Wands reached out directly to the manufacturer, inquiring about the exact materials and manufacturing process involved with making this dildo. They were told that the “printing process is proprietary” and only that “the coloring is body-safe, in the same class as food coloring or tattoo ink.” The company also said that the toy was “inert” and could not transfer or flake off to the user with “normal use” “provided the user follows the cleaning instructions.” To me, this email read like a sly attempt to scold and put blame on the user as opposed to the product.

The email also said that a “sharp fingernail” could “disrupt the surface,” but that it wouldn’t cause color transfer. I suppose it’s true that the color wouldn’t “transfer” in the sense that like, blue candy turns your tongue blue, but if a layer of the dildo is flaking off, that’s still a problem. The email seemed to imply that any silicone could be damaged by a sharp fingernail and like, yeah, obviously it COULD, in the same way that I can cut a silicone dildo in half with a knife, but there’s a difference between actually tearing or cutting a dildo and just being able to scrape off a flaky color layer.

I found it very frustrating that the manufacturer didn’t even provide Witch of the Wands with a general list of chemicals. Like, okay sure recipes are proprietary, but if you go to a restaurant and ask if the fried chicken breading has garlic powder in it, they can’t just tell you “sorry it’s proprietary” because there’s the risk of you getting really sick if you’re allergic to garlic! Allergies to dyes exist, too! Witch of the Wands pointed out that they personally are allergic to Red 40, which would be a legitimate concern given that the Goth Girl specifically has a LOT of red involved.

Because I’m a problematic demon, I chose to deliberately go against the directions to not use any alcohol based soap on this dildo. In fact, I took it a step further by soaking a Q-tip in rubbing alcohol and doing a patch test on a spot near the base of the dildo. With just a little rubbing, the pattern came right off, revealing the plain white silicone underneath. The underside/base of this dildo, for reference, is also just plain white.

Inspired by Queer Earthling mentioning that it reminded her of a Silence of the Lambs joke, I contributed:

Dildoodler: it puts the proprietary food coloring on its skin or else it gets the rubbing alcohol again

Temporary t.A.T.u. Revelation

While none of us had any real information at this point, we at least had one more clue: whatever the pattern was made of, it was a substance that could directly be dissolved by rubbing alcohol. As I said in the Discord chat, I prefer my sex toys to be a little more resilient than a Sharpie marker. There’s an irony to be found here, as this dildo was beginning to look like it had the exact same integrity as the Sharpie song lyrics I wrote onto my Converse when I was in 10th grade.

As I sat at my laptop, pondering what the dildo could possibly be made of, the little knowledge I had turning over my head, I suddenly had a revelation.

WHAT IF THE PRINTING ON THIS DILDO IS MADE OF TEMPORARY TATTOO INK?

The thought struck my mind like lightning, but it quickly began to add up. It explained the strange wrapping I had observed—a temporary tattoo is on that piece of plastic that you then transfer to your skin, after all. Temporary tattoos are definitely body safe, as the most popular audience for them is children under the age of 12. And, most critically: one of the most common ways to remove a temporary tattoo is by taking a cotton ball soaked in alcohol to your skin and rubbing it off.

As I recalled my memories of being an emo teenager with an “ironic” My Little Pony temporary tattoo, I quickly began to remember how in the process of it deteriorating, it flaked off my skin. A temporary tattoo will of course degrade as skin cells are shed and the skin’s natural oils do whatever they do, but a temporary tattoo left on its transfer paper will remain immaculate and undisturbed.

To me, there was only one thing to do. I was going to get some temporary tattoos and do a little experiment.

Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down (To the Dollar Tree):

On my lunch break from work, I scuttled around Wal-Mart in a flurry as I searched the birthday party aisle for temporary tattoos. I couldn’t find any $1 temporary tattoos for children (which was my budget for this project), but I did see an “INKED” temporary tattoo kit for tweenagers in the makeup section of the Wal-Mart (at a costly $8.99, so I didn’t get it). On the packaging of this kit, I read:
“Did you know? You can apply INKED to any hard surface for unlimited D.I.Y. fun!”

This only fueled my suspicions that Icon Brands had been having a little “D.I.Y. fun” when designing the Collage series of dildos. I refused to give up on my experiment, so I crossed the street to visit the Dollar Tree, where I was immediately able to snag a pack of temporary tattoos for a sweet, sweet $1.09 (including tax). I impatiently pushed through the rest of my work day and my commute home, where I then immediately took the Goth Girl to my bathroom, cut out a kawaii hot dog temporary tattoo, and slapped it right on the plain white underside of the Goth Girl’s base.

While Icon Brands undoubtedly uses a better process than a wet washcloth and a dollar store temporary tattoo for children, I immediately noticed some similarities with what I had experienced with the Goth Girl’s pattern. The temporary tattoo, when scratched with my finger, seemed to flake off in a similar way, and had a similar gritty texture. When I soaked a Q-tip in alcohol and rubbed the temporary tattoo away, it also resembled the way the pattern on the Goth Girl was rubbed away. While the Goth Girl should have a more stable composition than a dollar store temporary tattoo, it took the same amount of rubbing alcohol and the same amount of pressure applied to erode the Goth Girl’s surface as it did the cheap temporary tattoo.

While Queer Earthling unfortunately lives very far away from me, our hearts and brains are connected with cursed and chaotic energy (and genius ideas). She and her partner took to the streets and did a temporary tattoo hunt of their own, and instead of applying the tattoos to the Goth Girl, the two of them instead applied it to some of their solidly colored silicone sex toys in an attempt to replicate the wrapping pattern we all observed on the Goth Girl. As you can see in the below pictures, Queer Earthling was able to replicate the same kind of wrinkled texture that I observed on the tip of my Goth Girl.

While the similarities between our experiences with temporary tattoos and the Goth Girl dildos can’t solidly prove anything in terms of what material or method Icon Brands is actually using in their dildos, it was thought provoking if nothing else. Because temporary tattoos are “body safe” and because we noticed so many similarities in the process—from the wrinkling, to the wrapping, to the flaking—it’s at least possible that there might be some deeper similarities between temporary tattoos and whatever Icon Brands is doing to produce their Collage dildos.

I do know at least one thing: I don’t want a temporary tattoo or a dildo with a flaky mystery substance going anywhere near any of my orifices.

Famous Last Words:

When I first requested to review this dildo, I was drawn to it because of the nostalgic joy it evoked in me, taking me back to the days of being a baby mall goth/emo. But unfortunately, the Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo wound up reminding me of my teenage trips to the mall in the worst way. Just like the cheap jewelry and accessories I bought at Claire’s and Hot Topic, this dildo was poorly made and sacrificed quality for aesthetic. The best thing I can compare it to is a $10 necklace I had that turned my skin green every time I wore it—this dildo simply isn’t something I trust to be in contact with my body for any extended period of time.

The Collage Goth Girl Twisted Silicone Dildo is covered in a mystery material that tries to say it’s “body safe,” but is clearly not suitable for use as a sex toy. Even if the material is technically “body safe,” it cannot tolerate boiling, it cannot tolerate alcohol, it cannot tolerate bleach, and it can’t even tolerate dish soap, for fuck’s sake. A sex toy that can’t be sterilized in between uses is NOT a safe sex toy. Even if you’re intending to use it in the most low-risk way (vaginally only, not coming into contact with an anus, only using it by yourself), the fact that you can’t simply WASH IT IN YOUR SiNK means that it is fundamentally unsafe. Sex toys should not enter your body without being washed first, but as Witch of the Wands’s experience illuminates, the Goth Girl can’t even stand up to a simple, standard cleaning procedure.

A toy with material flaking off of its surface should NOT enter your body.

A toy that cannot be properly sterilized should NOT enter your body.

A toy that’s purposely evasive about the materials it’s made of SHOULD NOT ENTER YOUR BODY.

I wanted to write sins, but instead I only wound up writing tragedies with this review. I do want to give a huge shout out to the team at Betty’s Toy Box for how supportive they’ve been in the process of evaluating this toy. After reading the feedback they received, the Betty’s team quickly pulled this toy from their shelves. This is really the whole purpose of sex toy reviewers—retailers and online storefronts can’t test every toy themselves, so it’s up to reviewers and bloggers to do the investigative work and alert retailers about harmful sex toys.

On that same note, if you see a store that’s still carrying this product, the best thing you can do is send an e-mail to them linking to my review, Queer Earthling’s review, or online statements from other retailers about taking this toy off their shelves. If a store is still carrying Collage dildos, that store isn’t necessarily bad, they’re likely just uninformed. Most importantly, if you see someone considering buying a Collage dildo, PLEASE let them know that it’s an unsafe toy and steer them towards something else.

Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be in the corner listening to an emo breakup playlist as I reflect on how badly the Goth Girl betrayed me.

Thanks to Betty’s Toy Box for giving me the opportunity to review this toy and for pulling this harmful dildo from your shelves in response to blogger feedback!