About a year ago, after seeing anal beads used on a woman in a porn movie, I was very curious about trying some. I had no idea about quality products or body safe materials at the time. All I knew was that I wanted to try some anal beads. So I picked these up at a sex toy shop and we gave them a try. Unfortunately I learned the hard way, what was wrong with these beads and what I needed to look for in the next strand.

The Anal Beads by California Exotics are very basic. There are 5 medium sized, hard plastic beads about 1/2 inch in diameter strung on 10 inches of nylon cord. Each bead is knotted on both sides to keep them in place. The end bead is knotted and then has a bit of extra string protruding out from the end, which is either glued or singed to keep it from fraying. At the other end, the string is knotted around a somewhat small plastic ring.

The first thing I noticed that I didn't like about these is that piece of string that the strand starts with. It's actually quite sharp. And you can feel it the whole time the beads are being pushed into you. It was very uncomfortable and it felt like my whole anal track was being scratched up. Fortunately, once they were removed there were no lasting side effects from it. Otherwise they weren't too bad as far as doing what they were supposed to do. I was new to anal toys at the time, so the size of the beads was perfect. If I were to use them now, I think I would find them too small.

Another factor I hadn't considered when buying these, was germs. There is no way to get these completely clean. First plastic can't be sterilized. Then there is the fact that nylon cord is probably very absorbent. Then finally, there is no way to get inside where the beads are strung to clean that part out.

Well suffice to say, we only used these once. And actually I had forgotten all about them until recently, when I was going through my toys and found these tucked in the back of the drawer. I still really like the idea of anal beads and intend to get another set someday that is comfortable and body safe. But I'll wait until I do get some better ones, because these are going in the trash.

I still do not recommend these to anyone. I would never even think of using them again. So as I said in the review, I tossed them into the trash.