Bathmate Hydrodouche

I was asked if I would review this product for Lovehoney, and of course, I said yes, despite having looked at a picture of it and going “What in the world?”. But that’s me, I love a challenge.

Douching is something of a controversial subject – many don’t believe it’s necessary, others feel they cannot enjoy anal sex/toys without it. I guess I sit somewhere in the middle (look for my article on Douching soon). Whilst I’m happy to just have a shower before I play on my own, when I’m with my OH, I feel I need to go the extra mile, even if it’s just to save face. Previously, I’ve just been using the Lovehoney BASICS douche, to wonderful effect.

The Bathmate Hydrodouche Advanced Shower System promises a deeper sense of clean, that will become part of your standard personal grooming routine. Well, I personally wouldn’t go *quite* that far, but it does its job nicely, even if it is initially a bit of a song and dance.

First impressions

The packaging is somewhat ‘erotic’ in the sense there is a fully naked man on the box, six pack and all, posing somewhat provocatively with the Hydrodouche. It’s tasteful though, and not coarse or crude. I think I’m just jealous that I don’t look that way. Inside the box, the douche is packaged in pieces. On first laying them all out on the kitchen worktop, my first thought was “Blimey, you need an engineering degree to sort this out”. Thankfully, it’s actually quite simple to set up. It’s a simple case of clip this on here, screw this on there – I was able to put it all together in under 5 minutes.

The Hydrodouche consists of a large ‘bullet-proof’ plastic chamber (so at least you know it’s durable), a plastic bracket which holds both the chamber and the douching wand, a long clear pipe, a ‘flow’ constrictor and the adjustable attachment strap. You also receive a handy travel bag and a small sample of lube. The Travel Bag has yet to be used, because in all honesty, I have such a small bathroom, I have no where to really store it – so it’s permanently hanging up in the shower.

The insertable part of the douche is 9 inches long, meaning you can clean as deeply as you feel you need to. It has 3 little holes in the rounded tip to ensure total 360 degree cleansing. The douche (and all its components) are all made from skin-safe medical-grade materials and they feel top quality. The Hydrodouche comes with a life-time warranty as well. Already, I’m feeling a bit apprehensive – I’ve never used anything quite like this – but I must persevere in the name of science!

How to use

This is where it gets a little bit tricky. As I discovered once I put this together, my shower cubicle (or rather the actual shower fittings themselves) are not arranged in the most convenient way, so finding somewhere to actually attach the douche to the shower using the clip was a bit awkward. Eventually, I found a way to ‘hook’ it in and hoped for the best. This did mean that the actual chamber was resting at a slight angle, but I hoped that it would still work.

The douche relies on simple physics to work as this system relies on gravity. For optimum results, you’ll need to position the chamber quite high. I had mine almost at the top of the shower pole.

What will happen as you lower the wand down to your ‘special area’, is the water will begin to flow. As you raise it back up again, it will stop. Attached to the clear plastic tube, there is a  clip which controls the flow of water. Completely close it and it stops the flow of water all together. As you gradually open it up, it increases the pressure of the water. You will initially want to keep this closed until you have positioned the douche inside and then open it up (otherwise you’ll lose all the water).

So, here is how I got on:

Step One

Make sure the temperature of your shower is set correctly. If you like your showers hot, you are definitely going to want to turn it down a little bit. I normally shower at about 40 degrees, but internally, that’s too much, so I lowered it to about 35 degrees, and that seemed the most comfortable.

Step Two

Fill the chamber with water until it is over-flowing (you can also position the chamber under the shower head, if you have the ability to do so).

Step Three

Ensuring the flow constrictor is closed, remove the wand from the holder and apply the lube to the wand and to yourself.

Step Four

Insert the douche, and begin to unclip the flow restrictor. You can experiment with the flow to find one that is most comfortable (I actually found it completely open to be perfectly fine).

Step Five

Expel as soon as you feel comfortable, remembering to raise the wand high when you pull it out (or simply close the restrictor before you pull out) so you don’t lose too much water. I found this can be a little tricky when having to hop out of the shower to the toilet (on more than one occasion, I nearly tripped stepping out of the shower – that could have been a disaster!)

Repeat as necessary.

Now in my experiences with the Hydrodouche, it was a little trial and error getting into the right position, both myself and the actual douche, to get the best results. I don’t have the biggest shower cubicle in the world, and this just would not work using the over-bath shower I have in our main bathroom.

After a bit of trial and error, I got it to work and it worked really well. The pressure was enough to clean me out, but not so much that it felt uncomfortable, or produced any adverse side-effects. In fact, I felt cleaner after just two expulsions, whereas it could take as much as 4 or 5 expulsions using the smaller bulb douche, before I would feel completely comfortable that I was clean. The wand can penetrate quite deeply for a full clean, and it certainly made me feel more confident to play anally that night.

I found personally, that the best way of doing this, was having the douche flow at half capacity – at full capacity, I found myself filling up rather quickly, and it did give me a slightly uncomfortable “oh my god, I feel like I’m going to explode” feeling – however, I’m sure over time, I can teach my body to get used to that sensation – but initially it was a bit overwhelming.

Clean-up and maintenance

Clean-up is a bit of a challenge. You will definitely want to give the insertable wand a good through clean with some anti-bacterial toy cleaner, and then give a good rinse and dry. Cleaning the ‘pipe’ was a little trickier, however flushing some water through it did enough for me. The chamber itself, I just rinsed out and once it was dry, I just wiped it over with a toy wipe just to get rid of any water spots.

If you want to, you can store the Hydrodouche in the provided storage bag – for me, it was just easier to leave it hanging in the shower. It actually works well that way as it encourages me to use it.

Summary

I’m unsure where I stand with this. It’s a well-made, good quality product, that works really well and left me feeling cleaner and more confident than a standard bulb douche. The problem is, that it can be quite a lot of fuss, and certainly requires a bit of planning before use, unlike a regular bulb douche. I don’t know what sort of shower they expect people to have, but if it’s anything like mine, then finding a place to attach it can be very awkward, but not impossible.

It’s certainly not something I would consider using each and every time I showered, but whenever I’m up for some bum fun, I will most likely hop in the shower and give this a spin. This is definitely a douche for more advanced anal players. The slightly tricky set-up would certainly deter me if I had never used anything like this before, and the large insertable wand may have a few people second guessing. Patience and Practice. That’s all I’ll say.

This product has now been discontinued.

Note: This was sent to me by Lovehoney in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects the decision or outcome of the product review. All opinions expressed in these reviews is 100% honest. There are affiliate links and non-affiliate links within this post.