Gen Z Is Shopping for Vibrators the Way Millennials Shopped for Glossier |
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Gen Z Is Shopping for Vibrators the Way Millennials Shopped for Glossier
From “shelfies” to luxury lubes and sculptural vibrators, sexual wellness is going through a rebrand.
By Gigi Fong | Reviewed by Ysolt Usigan
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As a sex and wellness editor, I’ve noticed a new trend across every PR package… Everything looks like it belongs in the millennial-coded Glossier era. You know, clean lines, pops of earthy and/or feminine colors, and messaging that screams “for you.” That era became synonymous with the “shelfie,” aka the iconic photos of your beauty cabinet that reveal everything you use daily. Glossier’s founder, Emily Weiss, brought the brand to its popularity by revealing the products that It girls swore by, but via shelfie.
I first noticed it with Necessarie’s The Sex Gel, laced with the viral moisturizer, hyaluronic acid. Before I realized it, my sex toy shelf started looking more like a beauty fridge and less like a BDSM-dungeon with the whips and 6-inch Demonia platforms to match. How TF did we get here?
Hiding in Plain Sight
Sex is still technically taboo, but somewhere along the way, every intimate wellness brand got the same memo: hide in plain sight. The internal design question seems to be: could this sit next to a $48 setting spray? Could it hold its own next to Topicals or First Aid Beauty? It’s a far cry from the novelty sex stores of our collective memory. The ones stocked with edible panties, bachelorette party dice games, and those iconic dildo party favors from every rom-com ever.
It seems like every brand simultaneously got the drop to hide in plain sight, versus designing cheeky products that have to be hidden.
The Sex Gel with Hyaluronic Acid (opens in a new window)
A New Era of Pleasure Branding
Australian pleasure brand LBDO’s Rush is a good example of where things are heading. It’s a luxury clit suction toy with a glass base that doubles as a sculptural resting........