If you watch television for any amount of time, it is difficult to avoid seeing a commercial for K-Y Yours and Mine. The commercials always feature a couple utterly blown away by the sensations achieved through sex while using this lubricant. It's on the pricey side for a lubricant, but hey, it's got to be worth it, right? In the real world: not so much.

As a lubricant, my wife and I felt it worked just fine. Being water-based, there is always a risk of it drying out, but that was never the case with vaginal sex. Its water-based formulation also makes it appropriate for condom use, but then, that's kind of missing the point of the product. We also used it for anal sex where it was also effective. Given the limited natural lubrication of the anus, there would be some risk of drying out with time, but that never ended up being an issue for us. As opposed to the famous K-Y Jelly, K-Y Yours and Mine is fluid in consistency and pours out quickly. It does get sticky after a while which can make cleanup a bit of a challenge. Soap and water is your best bet for getting it off your skin.

Here's the problem: No one buys K-Y yours and mine because it is a simple lubricant. They buy it because the slick and well-produced television ads promise an extraordinary sexual experience because of the hot and cold sensations. When you put them together, well, something happens, but the commercials are kind of vague there. Truth be told, the menthol-scented "hers" lubricant does impart a slight cooling sensation, and the "his" lubricant also has a slight warming effect, but that's it - slight. Granted, the last thing your genitalia needs is something that feels like you dipped it in lava, but to achieve anything even remotely close to the euphoria displayed in the ads, there should be a more significant cooling and warming sensations. I will say that I rather enjoyed the taste of it.

It gets worse. Menthol can irritate a lot of people under normal circumstances, but for these people, placing it on their genitalia is a horrible sensation and can cause rashes. If that's not bad enough, looking at the ingredient lists (Yours for Him: glycerin, propylene glycol, maltodextrin, honey, methylparaben, sucralose; Mine for Her: water, propylene glycol, polysorbate 60, hydroxyethylcellulose, benzoic acid, menthyl lactate, methyl salicylate, fragrance, sodium hydroxide) you may notice glycerin, maltodextrin, and honey - all sugars - in the "Him" ingredients. One of the tried-and-true axioms of choosing a lubricant is that food products and sugars are absolute no-nos because they can promote yeast infections, and this product contains three. I suppose it would be all right as a masturbation lubricant for men (although it would dry out quickly if there is no other moisture source), but the whole point of slathering the stuff on a penis in the first place is to, soon after, place it in a vagina. I imagine similar issues could arise with infections if used as an anal lube. Fortunately, none of these problems reared their ugly heads for us, but it definitely bears mentioning.

Amazingly, it's not yet done getting worse. Ours leaked EVERYWHERE. Our entire toy box, and most the things in there, now smells like a menthol cough drop, and this is over six months since it first spilled. I tried everything to tighten the lids down properly, but they leak nonetheless. I couldn't even solve the problem by standing it upright as the rounded ends prevent this unless you lean it against something precariously or wedge it between two other objects.