Lubricants for Receivers

Since liner material is latex, it only makes sense to use latex safe lubricants for receivers. Lubrication is essential to proper working. Things you would not want to use include:

	Soap -- Even the gentlest soap is too irritating in such a use.
	Mineral Oil -- Bad for the latex, you will be replacing a lot of liners.
	Petroleum Jelly -- Way too thick and also very bad for the latex.
	Baby Oil -- Just horrible for the latex.
	Hand Lotion -- Or other lanolin based products are also very bad for the latex.

What you do want is the same kind of lubricant you might use with any latex condom, classic condom safe lubricant. It makes some sense, condoms are typically latex, just like the liner material. Now here is the rub (pun).

Lubricants can be quite expensive! Some lubricants are extremely proud of themselves. You tend to use up a lot of lubricant with the Venus receivers. What I have found best is "house brands". Whatever your local chain store drug outlet is, I bet it has a house brand similar to KY Jelly with a much cheaper price. Called something generic like "Personal Lubricant" and sold in a quite plain box. You can probably locate it near the condoms. It will specifically say "latex safe" or "condom safe" and likely be a clear gel in a large tube. Simple, effective and cheap are the "buy-words" here. It adds up over time and the $2.50 a tube stuff will probably work just fine.

If you find the gel type too thick, you can experiment with adding just a little bit of water. You can get plastic squeeze bottles which can be used for holding the slightly diluted gel. One of the few things you might use besides water to dilute lubricating gel is glycerin from a drug store. The glycerin does not dry rapidly like water diluted gel. For use with the Venus 2000 system the gel type that is often the cheap house brand available can be too thick, and a mixture of water and glycerin is quite effective in thinning it out. Plus being safe for the latex as well. Getting the right consistency for this particular use can greatly cut down on the amount of lubricant used, along with cap valve clogging. Places that sell supplies for camping or travel often have assortments of plastic squeeze bottles with nice dispensing tops, like on the left in one of the above photo.

The Glycerin Question - Good or Bad?

Glycerin is a kind of sugar so it can encourage microbe growth. Glycerin containing personal lubricants are said to encourage infections in some women that use them. They also tend to make for lubricants that are sticky and messy, though effective and relatively long lasting. Some people avoid the glycerin containing or based lubricants for some of these reasons.

 All of these lubricants are basically the same types of chemicals with minor variations. One such variation being the "glycerin based" vs. the "glycerin free" categories. Of course, you may be a connoisseur of fancy lubricants and if a fancy spread does it for you, by all means enjoy. The components listed on this box of KY Jelly are given in this table.

 Rinse out the receiver after every use, taking care to scrub any lubricant from the cap vent valve with a brush of some kind. You do not want lubricant to dry in the valve. I like to leave a receiver standing on the edge of the sink vertical with its mouth down so it can drain any lubricant hiding up in the cap area.

You really should remove the top cap during such cleanings, it can be hard to effectively clean the area around the edge of the inside of the top cap effectively without removing the cap each time. If your lubricant contains glycerin it is probably even more important to wash the receiver out well after each use. Also take care not to get water inside the housing, that is between the latex liner and the receiver housing's inner wall. There are tiny black caps supplied that are supposed to be used for sealing up the hose tubulation during cleaning. Mine keep disappearing, so I am just careful to keep my thumb over the tubulation opening while washing up.