Lube
Natural lube: the word is unregulated, so read the ingredients
A lubricant can be labelled natural with any ingredient list at all. The useful questions are about osmolality, pH and a short list of specific ingredients.
Natural, clean and organic have no agreed meaning on a personal lubricant. Organic has a legal definition for agricultural ingredients in several jurisdictions, which is why a product can be certified organic for one plant extract while the rest of the formula is conventional. Natural has no definition anywhere.
That is not a reason to dismiss the category. The products marketed this way are often genuinely better formulated, with shorter ingredient lists and without glycerine. It is a reason to read the back of the bottle rather than the front, because the front is marketing and the back is a formula.
The questions that actually matter
- Osmolality. The one that matters most and is published least. A lubricant far more concentrated than body fluids draws water out of mucosal tissue, which damages the surface layer. The World Health Organization has published a guidance figure for personal lubricants, and the honest brands publish their own number against it. A thick, very sweet product with a long sugar-alcohol list is the profile to be wary of.
- pH. Vaginal tissue sits around 3.8 to 4.5, rectal tissue around 7. A lubricant matched to one is not matched to the other, and brands that take formulation seriously state which they are matched to.
- Glycerine. A sugar alcohol, and associated with yeast overgrowth in people who are prone to it. Its absence is one of the real and checkable differences in this category.
- Preservatives, and the trade they represent. A water-based lubricant without preservatives has a short open life and needs refrigeration or single-use packaging. Parabens get removed for marketing reasons rather than evidence ones, and what replaces them is sometimes more irritating. A preservative is not a failure of naturalness; an unpreserved water-based product in a pump bottle is a microbiology problem.
- Aloe and plant extracts. Usually fine, occasionally allergenic. Aloe-based formulas are among the better water-based products, and the extract list is also where an unexpected reaction tends to come from.
- Anything oil-based. Coconut oil, shea, cocoa butter. These destroy latex condoms, soak permanently into porous toys, and in some people disturb vaginal flora. Natural is irrelevant to all three facts.
One example of a formula that publishes its numbers
- 1
The transparent formula
Good Clean LoveGood Clean Love Almost Naked
An aloe-based water lubricant without glycerine, from a brand that publishes its osmolality and pH rather than leaving them to be inferred. It is here as an example of what a readable label looks like, not because it is the only good one.
- Strengths
- Published osmolality and pH, which almost nobody in this category does
- No glycerine
- Aloe base rather than a thickened sugar syrup
- Compatible with every toy material and every condom material
- Limitations
- Thinner than a glycerine-thickened lubricant, so it needs reapplying more often
- A faint taste and smell from the aloe and the preservative system
- Good Clean Love has no official brand store in our affiliate programme, so there is no purchase button on this page and we earn nothing from it
- Best for
- Anyone who reacts to glycerine, or who wants a product whose numbers can be checked.
See it at the Good Clean Love store: Good Clean Love Almost Naked
Questions people ask
- Is natural lube better for you?
- Often, and not because of the word. The products marketed this way tend to omit glycerine and keep ingredient lists short, both of which are real improvements. A product labelled natural with a long sugar-alcohol list is not better than a plain unlabelled one without.
- Is organic lube certified?
- The agricultural ingredients can be, and the finished product generally is not. A certified organic aloe in a conventional formula is a common and legitimate arrangement, and it is narrower than the label implies.
- Can I use coconut oil?
- Not with a latex condom, not with a porous toy, and with caution otherwise. It is the single most recommended natural lubricant online and it has the most specific list of things it breaks.
- What should I actually buy?
- A water-based lubricant without glycerine, with a published osmolality if you can find one, and with a short ingredient list. That describes most of the good products in this category and several outside it.