French sensual body product and lubricants maker Exsens is a brand with a plan: to provide and empower women with a sexy, superior experience in the bedroom and bathroom. After emerging on the pleasure scene in 2014, Exsens quickly turned heads with its line of luxury massage oils, flavored lubes and arousal gels, and other scented, body-safe care products with a sexy focus.
Since its inception, Exsens has continually delivered high-quality body care and sexual wellness offerings with minimal, 100% vegan ingredients and elegant, BPA-free packaging.
We have already made our packaging as easily recyclable as possible.
Rebecca Pinette-Dorin leads the Exsens brand as North American sales director, a role in which she oversees a small U.S. team. Exsens’ mainstream success means that Pinette-Dorin is constantly busy.
“Sometimes I feel like an octopus with my tentacles wrapped around sales, marketing, product development, team management, strategy, customer service and education,” she reveals, adding, “I should probably ask for a title change!”
As Pinette-Dorin explained to XBIZ Premiere in the company’s 2016 debut feature, Exsens’ creative helm, Laboratoire Kemesys, had already been crafting a full catalog of all-natural skin care goods and cosmetics and offering private label services since 2003. When the company sold to chemical engineering corporation Technic in 2013, new owner David Weisberg decided on a new direction that highlighted the pleasure products space.
Now retitled Laboratoire Néo Cosmétique but still based in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France, the company develops pure, body-safe formulas using proprietary water filtration processes and natural ingredients sourced partly from organic farms.
“We concluded, well ahead of the curve, that sexual wellness and self-care are one and the same,” says Pinette-Dorin. “We branched out into pure body care with our organic body oils a few years ago, and it is really satisfying to see the corresponding market trend today as established body care brands bridge the gap from the other side and add ‘love oils’ and vaginal moisturizers to their offer.”
Surprisingly — or maybe not, considering the circumstances of home lockdowns — Pinette-Dorin recalls 2020 through the present day as a successful period.
“We did very well during the pandemic,” she says. “It was tough emotionally, and keeping the team positive was a constant effort, but sales boomed. We were able to maintain production, something a lot of our competitors could not do. Everyone was trapped at home, masturbating like crazy and totally ready to try new things.”
A few slip-ups managed to sneak through the cracks, however, as Pinette-Dorin explains that “shipping was a nightmare, and it still is!”
All in all, though, Pinette-Dorin says that Exsens excelled by bringing on new team members and streamlining its marketing process, leaving her more room to strategize and steer the company’s brand direction.
She even says a little friendly competition isn’t of concern to the manufacturer, now well-established with a customer base that consistently returns for quality and attention to detail.
“At Exsens, we have always tried to use only the best,” says Pinette-Dorin. “We are constantly working on improving our formulas to make them better, more hypoallergenic, and more eco-friendly, not just because we know what customers want and worry about, but because we use these products ourselves!”
“I can’t finish off this question without mentioning the importance of making our products as ecologically friendly as possible,” she adds.
“We have already made our packaging as easily recyclable as possible, but we are working on adding biodegradable and recycled plastics to our packaging in the near future,” says Pinette-Dorin. “Sourcing our ingredients and packaging within the EU whenever possible also reduces our carbon footprint.”
Pinette-Dorin and her team are constantly surveying the market, and she’s noticed that customers are demanding such assurances more and more. Perhaps even more importantly, Exsens salutes them for it in its marketing messages and new product releases.
Most recently, the company debuted several new additions to some of Exsens’ lines. An appletini-flavored lubricant and coconut-flavored Hot Kiss arousal gel are the latest bottles to hit retail shelves.
Appletini lube is a water-based, paraben- and GMO-free formula that brings the delicious flavor of — what else? — apple martini to oral sex. FDA-cleared and safe for sex toys and penetrative sex, Appletini rounds out a collection that includes raspberry lubricant, a pure and simple water-based lube, and a soothing aloe vera lube.
Coconut Hot Kiss is a gel-based, sugar-free lip gloss that, Exsens says. offers users a gentle warming, buzzing-type sensation upon application, a cooling tingling sensation just seconds later, and a coconut flavor on the lips or anywhere else you might decide to kiss a partner. In the intimate-care niche, the brand has debuted Intime Balance Intimate Cleansing Gel, a gentle, soap-free, pH-balanced intimate cleanser made with organic aloe vera.
Pinette-Dorin also points out the completely updated packaging on the brand’s Coco Shea Body Oil, an intimate moisturizer that also functions as a daily moisturizer for dry skin. Lastly, she says Exsens is most excited for the launch of the brand’s first couples’ kit.
“After a lot of demand from clients, we also released our first kit, the Exsens Escape. It has everything you need for a sexy getaway, including condoms, because safe sex is the best sex,” says Pinette-Dorin. “It comes in a super-cute vanity bag that can be used for future trips as well. I suspect it will do very well this summer. Everyone is desperate to get away!”
Next up, Exsens has its sales sights set on the markets just south of the U.S., with Pinette-Dorin leading the way through meetings and plenty of red tape. Luckily for her, business travel to new cultures and warmer climates is never a hard sell.
“I am pretty excited about heading into the Central and South American markets this year. We have had a lot of demand, and even some sellers, but we want to do it right, and that requires brand registration and even certification in some cases,” she foresees. “It’s going to be a big enterprise, but I’m actually really looking forward to traveling there for meetings. Who can blame me?”
As Pinette-Dorin looks ahead to a year full of new product releases, new marketing content and resources for retailers, and a big leap into an entirely new market, she already feels primed for success by Exsens’ brand values.
“Our quality and attention to ingredients are really what keeps customers coming back, both in our lubricants, but also in our other products,” she concludes. “Giving customers a choice and bringing their sexual wellness products into their mainstream are both positives we can take advantage of.
“‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ is my personal motto,” she adds, “and I have made it the goal behind everything I do and push for at Exsens as well.”
