From concept to creation: The artist behind our high-quality silicone gag balls
Dear readers,
It is a great pleasure for me to contribute this guest post to the penumbra blog. I am Anja – creator and owner of the silicone manufactory SelfDelve in Dresden, Germany. My colleagues and I have been enchanting the world with cheerful, colorful toys for 18 years now.
I have been working with Lena for years in an inspired bond. We are both passionate craftswomen and pursue the same mission. We want to delight you and enrich your love life with tasteful, charming, artistic, compatible, harmless and solid accessories. BDSM does not have to look only red or black.
Design and style are important, but my top priority is your safety when playing and the compatibility of the materials. Our mucous membranes are permeable to molecules and thus the gateway into our bodies. That is why the choice of raw materials is so enormously important.
Every year, the responsible authority also checks our products, the manufactory and the raw materials – so far always without any complaints. We only use the purest, odorless silicone and harmless pigments. We get the tested raw materials directly from the manufacturers and process them in-house. This gives us full control over every step of the process and we can guarantee the quality of the gag balls and all other toys. Pigments and glitter are embedded in the silicone and cannot escape back to the outside.
As we handle the complete production of all items ourselves, we can indulge in colors to our heart’s content, conjure up designs with special effects (for example, glow in the dark), use a variety of techniques (painting, writing, marbling …) and also fulfill individual wishes. I love that!
We work with precise molds in several sizes so that we can make small (38 mm) to huge (70 mm) gag balls. Depending on the task of the day, we color and mix the necessary amount of silicone. The mass is about as thick as honey. Therefore, in the next step, any air that has been stirred in is removed using negative pressure. The surface of the gag balls should be flawless and shiny and smooth. After the still liquid silicone has been distributed on the molds, it has to stand for a few hours and cure (= become solid). Now we open the molds and take out the gag balls. There are usually around 20 at a time per run. Where the halves of the mold meet, there is still a small piece of silicone. We patiently cut this off with a small pair of scissors for each gag ball. This is sometimes quite comfortable when an audio book is playing in the background.
This is how the single-colored gags are made. There are also the more imaginatively designed gags. Many customers have already had their very own creation made. Sometimes we just feel like marbling, new colors, glitter, pearl shimmer, metallic effects and then we just do it and offer it in the online shop. So it never gets boring, because the possibilities are almost limitless.
Maybe you already know the dildos from the “Garden of Eden”. These are fruit and vegetable toys, such as bananas, cucumbers, corn… and there are also matching gag balls: the strawberry and the apricot. The balls are cast in one color and then decorated with a brush and airbrush with different colored silicone. Each one is pretty, but each one is also a little different.
II could tell you so much more. Come and browse and marvel at the SelfDelve website. We would be delighted!
Best wishes from Dresden, Anja and the SelfDelve team!