Tenga Egg Lovers Edition review: you have to be yolking, right?

If any name could approach being as synonymous with the male toy market as that of Fleshlight, it would be Tenga. The company makes some of the best sex toys for men, often opting for strokers built around wacky geometric designs which produce unusual and strong sensations for those who really want to challenge their sensitivity.

It also, perhaps more famously, makes Tenga Eggs, and this Lovers Edition is just one example of the huge selection available. They're available in all sorts of textures, so don't take our view on this particular version as Tenga Egg gospel – but if you're interested in trying an Egg and want to know what the deal is, read on. Just be warned that it might not be for you because, well, it wasn't really for us.

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Tenga Egg Lovers Edition review: design & features

The round-balled gatcha aesthetic may have taken over the mystery toy market recently, but the presentation of the Tenga Egg gives us serious vibes of an earlier time. Specifically, that weird clucking chicken machine that was legally mandated to be on every seaside pier in the mid- to late-1980s.

Imagine it now: you pop in your 10p, the chicken does its rudimentary animatronic dance, the music plays, and out pops your plastic egg. Only instead of cracking it open to find gone-off tamarind-flavour sweets, you get a weird and super-stretchy hollow translucent silicone egg-shaped... thing inside, packed with a teensy instruction book and a small sachet of lube.

Honestly, we don't like it one bit. But let's give that presentation a bit of context: this isn't some luxury investment. It's supposed to be an affordable and entirely disposable sex toy. A Tenga Egg doesn't fall into the same category as the Fleshlight Flight Pilots or Arcwave Ions of this world: it's cheap, and meant to be one (or, if you're careful, maybe three?) and done.

If that gives you slightly iffy environmental vibes, you can at least take solace in the fact that it's small. To give the Tenga Egg its due, that makes it very discrete. It's compact enough to fit into one's pocket, though be prepared for awkward questions about what's in there and why.

You don't use a Tenga Egg in the same way as more complicated toys, anyway. For many people, it's going to be barely big enough to fit over the glans: the idea is that you twist and stretch it in the course of more traditional masturbation to give yourself some different, heightened sensations. Given that this sort of use necessitates relatively soft, pliable and thin silicone, it's no wonder that it's not really built to last.

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Tenga Egg Lovers Edition review: does it work?

With our subjective head on, by golly, the experience of using a Tenga Egg might be just what you're looking for. If you're the kind of person who can't enjoy yourself without having the head of your penis strongly stimulated, this could be the ultimate toy. If you want full control over pressure and position, this offers it. It has its uses. The Lovers Edition might also give you some ideas about what to do with a partner, and its heart-shaped bumps can, now and then, feel OK.

Objective head re-engaged, though, this isn't the toy. The glans stimulation from its individual nodules is a little too strong for a start, to the point where this Tenga Egg quickly starts to be uncomfortable. There's absolutely nothing sexy about the toy itself, or (for us) the act of using it.

The Tenga Egg's gimmick, which is that you stretch it over your penis as you go to work, really isn't pleasant. In our review of the Fleshlight Ice Lady, we complained that pushing too far into it means meeting a narrow passage that's unwilling to yield; here, there's literally nowhere to go. We found it deeply uncomfortable, don't want to use it again, and wouldn't anyway because the silicone started to develop small tears and we're not entirely convinced it would be hygienic to do so.

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Tenga Egg Lovers Edition review: Verdict

It feels mean to criticise something that some specific users might love, but this is a review, and this reviewer really didn't get on well with the Tenga Egg from the moment it landed on his desk to the moment it landed in his bin - and the time between the two was honestly not particularly long.

This is cheap and is unlikely to make you very cheerful. You might even say it's... chafe-ful? If you're an Egg collector (by all means, you do you), this hearty texture might be your favourite of all time. We honestly couldn't tell. Even if the texture inside had been one of the other myriad different options available, in principle and in practice, we likely would have felt the same.

Tenga Egg Lovers Edition review: Alternatives to consider

While this is small and discrete, there are (less) compact toys which will give you a much better time. The Fleshlight Quickshot Vantage, for example, is a compact package that'll last a lot longer and, if you really must hit the end of something, you can leave one of its caps on.

Honestly, just get any other toy from our list of the best sex toys for men. Don't look at the Tenga Egg as a value proposition, because you'll get one or perhaps two uses out of it before the silicone degrades anyway; investing in enough eggs to match the amount of use you might get out of, say, the Arcwave Voy – itself on the higher end of manual toy pricing – would be folly.

Of course, you may already be dead set on the Tenga Egg as a concept, and love using them. If that's the case, shop around: there are absolutely loads of styles available, and Tenga often sells them in half-dozen egg boxes packed with a bunch of different styles.