I had high hopes for the Heart's Desire Warming Massager. I've had several similar massagers by other companies, and I pretty much rely on them in the winter to stay remotely warm. I huddle under a million blankets with my little heart heat packs and I bask in the glow of the warmth - for a couple hours, at least. This particular brand of massager did let me down a bit, but more on that later.

For starters, the packaging these come in is really nice. They come in a white box that has a sleeve that goes on top of the box that gives you instructions on how to care for your heart and other information about the product. The sleeve does have "Hearts Desire" and "Warming Body Massager" written on it, but you could remove this sleeve so that you could still give this to someone without them knowing it came from a sex toy store. The heart does not need to be used in a sexual way, but it definitely can be.

The heart is similar to others of its kind. It contains a supersaturated salt solution, and clicking the metal disk inside causes a chemical reaction which turns the heart solid. I've had other brands which were similar, so I knew what to expect with this one. I noticed right away that this particular heart warmer is very difficult to activate. Other brands have a thinner disk, but the disk in this one was so hard to activate, that it hurts my hands to do it! Sometimes I even need to get my husband to help me! What a pain!

After you manage to activate the disk though, you can watch as the heart fills up quickly and becomes solid. If you rub the heart a little after it becomes more solid, it will be a bit more liquid at first, and as the heart loses its heat it will become stiffer.

How hot does it get? That depends on your own personal heat tolerance, I suppose. I have seem other people say theirs barely gets warm, but mine is so hot for the first thirty minutes or so that I can't place it directly on skin, and I've got to keep a blanket between me and it or I could get burned. I wouldn't recommend sleeping with this, or putting it on a baby or someone else who is incapable of removing it if it gets too hot. How long it lasts also depends on how you treat it. I have found that if I keep this under a blanket it will last a lot longer than if I use it for massage or keep it uncovered. If I'm using it for massage, it will probably last one hour. If I keep it under a blanket, it sometimes will still be warm after three hours!

One big downfall to using this? It smells. It smells like phthalates. Gross. The box doesn't say whether or not it has phthalates, but due to the strong smell, I can only assume it does. If you need to avoid phthalates, then I don't recommend getting this heart. Better safe than sorry.

The one really good thing about the heart is that is is reusable! All you need to do is to wrap it in a dish towel, and then put it in a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes. Make certain all the crystals have become liquid again or else you're going to "break" your heart. If you don't melt all the crystals, then there's a good chance when you try to activate your heart again, it won't work. I know. It's happened to me.

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You will also want to make sure that you do not reactivate the heart until it has cooled down completely to room temperature after being boiled. If you don't, it will not reactivate properly and this will also break it.

I also found that the material this heart is made from is a lot thicker than other branks I've tried, but unfortunately, when you boil it, it dimples along the edges. While the big red heart on the front of the warmer is pretty, I really wish that it was made with higher quality materials. It's not the worst item I've ever had, but I don't think it will last as long as I'd like.

If you're buying this because you want to do massage with it, it's pretty good for that purpose. You can use it as is to glide across the skin providing soothing heat to your partner. You can also rub a bit of massage oil on it, and then wash it up in the sink with soap and water. It will last about an hour this way, and is very comforting. The heart is about 5" long and 5" wide, and I find that it fits comfortably in my (small) hands. Larger hands may find it to be a bit of a pain to use as a massage tool.

You don't have to use the heart for massage though. It's great when you have a small injury (hurt shoulder or elbow?), menstrual cramps, or even when (like me) you're just trying to stay warm. Given the choice between this and other brands? I would probably pass this one up. The phthalate odor is worrysome to me, and I really dislike how hard this is to activate. Overall it does its job though, and does stay warm for a long time.