Or as Alexandra Fine, co-founder and CEO of Dame, put it: “Each time somebody puts us in their store, especially a major player like Sephora, it makes it easier for other people to put in their store, easier for investors to invest in us and easier for customers to buy us.”
Maude and Dame have several things in common. Both startups have their headquarters in New York and both are founded and led by women; Maude, which began selling products in 2018, has raised more than US$10 million in funding, while Dame, founded in 2014, has raised more than $5 million.
For many years, products like vibrators have been associated with adult stores, often portrayed as seedy or male-oriented, or otherwise found in the fluorescent aisles of drugstores or chains like Walmart. Maude and Dame have sought to elevate the retail experience, incorporating more approachable language and design. Celebrities have also gotten involved: Actor Dakota Johnson works with Maude as an investor and co-creative director, while singers Demi Lovato and Lily Allen have released sex toys with other big brands.
Lisa Finn, a brand manager and sex educator for Babeland, a decades-old feminist adult products emporium with stores in Seattle and New York, said that conversations about sex toys became more “normalized” during the pandemic as people were suddenly isolated either alone or with their partners. She has increasingly seen them referred to as “pleasure products” or “sexual wellness tools.”
“This takes some of this idea that sex toys are dirty or kinky,” she said. “And though they absolutely can be, for a lot of folks, these are tools.” That shift “does allow for them to exist in the mainstream,” she said.
Tyler Aldridge, director of product at Maude, said that the brand was “trying to blend this idea of beauty, wellness and sexual wellness”. Retailers have liked those terms, along with phrases like “sexual health” or “intimate care,” Goicochea said, adding that Maude was more about “intimacy and romance than explicit sex”. These terms have the benefit of sounding healthy but stopping short of making any kind of medical claim.
So while Maude sells US$49 vibrators in muted colors, it also sells amber-hued bottles of US$25 aloe- and water-based lubricant, US$35 unscented massage oil and US$18 mineral bath salts. The products’ minimalist design and limited colour palette are perhaps no surprise given that Goicochea previously worked at Everlane, a clothing brand that prioritizes a similar design aesthetic. Maude’s office in New York similarly boasts plenty of natural light, soaring ceilings, light wooden shelves and desks, as well as lots of clean white text on dark backgrounds. Clean lines abound.
While Dame is more focused on devices, it also carries a US$30 “arousal serum”, an $18 aloe-based lubricant and a US$95 adult-oriented pillow called, much in keeping with startup parlance, “Pillo.”
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