The Neoplaisir shop offered us the chance to test some wooden sextoys Made In France, made by a brand we had never heard of: Le Sensation and Le Rêveur, from La Tulipe.
After a few online searches, I managed to find the official website of the brand La Tulipe.
This website, with its ‘homemade’ look, intrigued me. You learn that La Tulipe is a very new artisanal business. Yet it already offers a wide range of wooden erotic accessories: numerous dildos, anal plugs, geisha balls, and even strap-on dildos.
Before I set about testing the Sensation and the Rêveur, I wanted to know more about how they were made.
So I sent a mini-interview via the contact address I found on the site. Christine, who designs and develops La Tulipe’s sextoys with her husband, kindly answered my questions in detail.
Discovering La Tulipe’s sextoys
La Tulipe is a business run by a couple that handcrafts sextoys in wood, in La Caillère-Saint-Hilaire, in the Vendée.
On La Tulipe’s website, I came across a link to a rather unconventional feature (NSFW)… on Jacquie et Michel TV.
In this video, two porn actresses interview Christine and Didier, the creators of La Tulipe’s sextoys, about the dildos they make. (Three-quarters of the video is the interview. There is just a bit of sex at the end, so that the two reporters can try the “made-to-measure” toy to match their desires).
Christine and Didier in their workshop (source: screenshot of the feature in question, Jacquie et Michel TV)
Interview with Christine, who handcrafts La Tulipe’s sextoys
Intrigued, I wanted to know more. So I contacted Christine and Didier to ask them a few questions. Christine was the one who replied.
How did you come up with the idea of making and selling wooden sex toys?
Christine: I started this adventure about 3 months ago, and it all came from a little anecdote.
My husband and I were self-employed in the building trade. Given the various upcoming bills, we had to change direction.
We then thought long and hard about what we were going to do. The idea came to us of making wooden toys. But real ones, for children, wooden cars, planes, trains, well, toys, that’s it!
One day, a friend, named Mélanie, came to see us with her partner and asked us what we had decided to do about our future. I told her we were going to make wooden toys. It was her next question that started everything off: “But, erm, toys for children, or for adults?”. Then, my husband and I looked at each other, and I think we had exactly the same idea. “Toys for adults, but yes, but of course”. (Incidentally, a complete range of creations carries her name: the Mélanie range.)
How did you launch your project?
Christine: We did a lot of research on existing products, we are three or four in France to do it, so you just have to take the plunge and give it a go. A craft business, everything is made by us in our workshops, deep in the heart of Vendée: real French craftsmanship guaranteed!
And so, today, La Tulipe exists and is growing little by little. We have a few partners who believe in our products and our future. Ariane Carera from Luxor (a renowned X actress), the libertine club Le Domaine in Auzay, the Jacquie et Michel team (they came to see us for a feature on their website). I’m sure I’m leaving some out, but all these people support us with their kindness and give us the desire to move forward.
Here, in a few words, is the story of this small business that is going to grow, grow, grow.
How do you go about designing and making them?
Christine: As for making the products, I imagined each model, I sketched them one after the other and my husband and I made them.
Then we needed to assess their effectiveness. So we asked several women and men who use sex toys. We asked them to try them and to give us their opinions, without taboo or restraint. This allowed us to correct any flaws in each product.
A partnership with four actresses allowed us to create the Star range. This range is very special, because it combines wood and metal, byembedding small steel balls into the wood. These products, the “Ariane Carera”, the “Julie Valmont”, the “Juliana” and the “Marlène”, are our very latest creations and are very popular with their users.
We have also decided to offer custom work. In other words, you can ask us for a sex toy of the length you want, of the diameter you want, and in all possible and imaginable shapes. This is very popular.
Thank you to Christine from La Tulipe for agreeing to answer my questions.
The reviews of La Tulipe’s wooden sex toys “Le Sensation” and “Le Rêveur” will be online very soon.
