What does it take to develop something new in the world of personal lubricants, a category in the adult industry that has exploded in the past several years with endless choices for consumers? How can a company distinguish itself with ingredients never before used for intimate purposes? Why did a chemist develop something never before attempted and come up with a product that’s sure to shake up the industry?
The answers, my friends, lie with Simply Slick, a new personal lubricant recently released to the market that is like no other available. Not the same ingredients, not the same packaging, not the same reason why it was developed and introduced. So what did it take for Simply Slick to get into the hands and nether regions of women in the U.S. and Canada?
We are looking forward to becoming a major player in the personal lubricant industry by using purely natural ingredients that are body compatible. -John Goepfert Founder and CEO, Simply Slick
In a recent revealing interview with John Goepfert, Simply Slick CEO and founder and developer, said all it took was a basic “Boy Meets Girl” story.
“I’m a physics guy and I needed to go buy a personal lubricant for my girlfriend. I went to the drugstore and picked up a long-time available and well-known personal lubricant and decided to scan the ingredients list to see what was in it. I was stunned to find out the ingredients and it got me to thinking why those ingredients would be in something used to put inside the body. It just didn’t make sense to me.”
So he began his research into all of the ingredients in commercially available lubricants and how they interact with the body. Since he was already familiar with them, it didn’t take long for Goepfert to figure out what ingredients were exactly needed in a lubricant and begin to formulate what was to become Simply Slick.
The ingredients in many available lubricants will surprise even the most well-informed lubricant buyer. Goepfert cited several ingredients, listing them off one by one: Sodium hydroxide, used as a preservative in lubricants, is a very strong chemical that is also known as lye. Lye — as in what we pour down drains to unclog them. “By using their chemical names instead of their commonly used names, the manufacturers are basically fooling the consumer as to what the ingredient actually is,” John mentioned. “Take propylene glycol, a common ingredient in many lubes that is a cell membrane inhibitor and is used as a carrier agent to deliver products through your skin and also creates a slippery sensation. It’s also used in antifreeze and while a small amount of it is non-toxic, should you really include that in something that’s going to be used in your body? I don’t think so.”
“The group of ingredients that really shock me is the rampant use of parabens. They are preservatives and there are at least four different, commonly used ones. Parabens have been linked to cancer in many studies yet they continue to use it in personal lubricants? It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Goepfert continued.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we don’t talk freely about sex and therefore anything that has to do with it is never researched and people just go about accepting whatever is given to them — in this case, exactly what’s in their lube. It’s not regulated at all by the FDA unless you’re going for a 510k medical device certification and even in that case, they never point out that any particular ingredient can be harmful to the user. I was raised Catholic and while I was walking down the aisle in the drugstore looking for lubricants, it dawned on me that I never really learned anything about sex growing up! I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we just accept what is in lubricants without really researching what is in them and what we are putting into our bodies.”
So Goepfert began his quest to create a lubricant that not only has natural ingredients but would be as safe in your body as water.
Goepfert’s father is a real, well-regarded rocket scientist and they decided to put their scientific brains together and collaborate on developing a formula that made sense to use in the body. Looking at current ingredients, they decided to avoid using aloe vera, which is absorbed into the body too quickly and breaks down rapidly therefore decreasing the actual lubricating properties it was meant to provide. Goepfert’s father quickly pointed out that silicone was initially made for lubricating machining and cutting machines. Goepfert’s response was “just because it does that well doesn’t mean we want it in us.”
Their familiarity with chemicals and what they were looking for went into overdrive. Goepfert and his father started researching an ingredient that has been around for centuries and has been known for its analgesic and medicinal properties. That ingredient? Castor oil. Yes, castor oil. The oil that harkens back to grandma days when she’d spoon it into the mouth of her protesting child. The oil that was used during WWI to put on to wounded soldiers. The oil that planes ran on in WWI because there wasn’t enough gasoline to keep them running; the oil that well-known Castrol Motor Oil was named after. Castor oil, the natural anti-microbial which can kill staph and E-coli bacteria and is thought to also kill candida albicans, the critters known causing pesky yeast infections. Castor oil — that would be the secret ingredient in Simply Slick.
But what about the general belief that oil will break down and destroy condoms? Turns out, as with plastics and rubbers, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different chemical makeups with oils. The most important distinguishing factor is that castor oil is one that will not break down condoms since it is a plantbased oil and not a petroleum-based oil.
In keeping with their science backgrounds, Goepfert and his father decided to confirm their steadfast beliefs about non-breakage by having an independent laboratory research their claim by testing Simply Slick and latex condoms. Using the ASTM D7661standard for “Determining Compatibility of Personal Lubricants with Natural Rubber Latex Condoms” (for you science geeks out there, ASTM is the blanket organization, American Society for Testing and Materials, which sets international testing standards for thousands of products), the breakage results were practically the same for an uncoated condom and one coated with Simply Slick. In other words, Simply Slick doesn’t mess around.
But they didn’t stop at releasing just a bottle of castor oil. Castor oil needed another ingredient to let it keep its slick properties and not get absorbed into the skin because “the whole point of a lubricant is to stay on the skin and not get absorbed into it so it can retain its lubricating properties,” Goepfert pointed out. “So we looked at adding jojoba oil which is actually a wax, basically it’s the same type your body produces” (have you looked into your ears lately?). The jojoba oil creates an artificial barrier without having the castor oil being absorbed and the two ingredients work seamlessly together and the resulting Simply Slick formula easily wipes off with hardly any water.
The seven ingredients in Simply Slick include certified organic castor oil, water, certified organic jojoba oil, certified organic glycerine, pectin, stevia, Optiflo H370, which is a body-friendly preservative.
Simply Slick has even researched the type of bottles it is packaged in and made sure even the materials the bottles are non-leeching and non-toxic to containing this precious lubricant. The three-ounce bottles are also in packaging that distinguishes from other bottles of lubricants making it look more like a cosmetic product and appealing to their target demographic of 33 to 55-year-old women — the main consumers of personal lubricants.
“We are looking forward to becoming a major player in the personal lubricant industry by using purely natural ingredients that are body compatible. We have lots of other products in the pipeline all keeping with the Simply Slick philosophy of honestly providing only the best ingredients in the best products,” Goepfert added. “Basically, we really give a shit about everything we make.”
For sales information, contact Rob Leary at (608) 563-5556 or by email at robl@simplyslick.com.
