Dear LifeStyles, after much boasting about your ordinarily fine products, you may have finally let me down. Your latex Ultra Lubricated condom is certainly not the cream of the condom crop. I’m ultra disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong-- the thin, totally transparent and super smooth material this condom is made from is great. It’s exceptionally stretchy, durable and very soft to the touch. Seriously though, when I say it’s see-through, I mean it. I could read a novel through both layers of this sucker.

I also heartily endorse it's flared shape, which is more comfortable and anatomically shaped than straight fit (traditional) or lightbulb-shaped condoms. This extra head room shape lends itself very well to reverse traffic cone-shaped penises, as in, the base is much smaller than the tip.

And, the Ultra Lubricated fits a condom size niche which can increase the likelihood of the condom staying where it needs to be, instead of slipping off inside your partner. For the less than average girth man, who is a bit too girthy for snugger fit condoms, these are ideal. At 7.87” (199.89mm) long and with a 3.8” (98.42mm) circumference, these condoms are slightly wider than Caution Wear Iron Grips (3.5’ circumference) and slightly less wide than Trojan Enz (4” circumference) condoms.

Even so, all of these fine attributes did not make up for the fact that the self-professed ultra lube on these otherwise dandy condoms is just awful. What a shame. I haven’t felt anything so greasy since my days of restoring 70's muscle cars. If you want your grease gun to successfully shoot a load, you may want to stick with one of LifeStyles’ slicker feeling condoms, like the five star rated LifeStyles Ultra Sensitives.

Another viable option would be to simply slather the outside of this condom with enough high quality lubricant to negate the ultra sucky lubricant that covers this condom. It probably goes without saying at this point, but I employed my favorite ID Millennium lube-- which much like craft beer, somehow makes everything better.

For the sake of science and for those with sensitive skin, I tried to find out exactly what this Ultra Lubricant is made from, but even the packaging and the LifeStyles website had no additional information on its ingredients. It’s not tacky like water-based lubes, but it’s also not slippery like silicone-based lubes. So, as far as what makes this lube so thick and oily feeling, it’s unknown. Information-wise, I’m at a loss here. I do know that I had to use spray soap in order to wash off the lube from my skin, which indicates that it is not water-soluble.

Overall Rating: 2 Stars

Final Verdict:

LifeStyles Ultra Lubricated condoms are my least favorite in the LifeStyles product line, thus far-- but only due to the unsatisfactory lube. Their material, size and shape are sublime. Pity.