At the ripe old age of 15, Jack Romanski was exposed to a grand parade of sexual ephemera while distributing advertising leaflets outside his parents’ sex shop in the U.K., but from his unique vantage point, the teenager noticed that customers were not too quick to pick up many of the novelties his folks sold because they only advertised short-term pleasure. Going on to earn two degrees in engineering and combining his theoretical knowledge and skills with a growing passion, Romanski set out to make real his vision of a toy that would help women experience new kinds of longer-lasting pleasure.
The idea for his innovative vibrator came to the budding inventor suddenly one night over dinner, as he hastily sketched his toy’s design on a napkin.
We are always ready to offer something modern, new and unique to our customers alongside quality assurance.
Roundly rejected by key players in the adult pleasure field when he revealed the designs for his prototype, Romanski spent a further eight months developing his massager. Fashioning his vibe into a high-tech ergonomic shape with three powerful motors and a rechargeable battery, Romanski enlisted the talents of a world-famous erotic artist to create his new toy’s packaging. He presented his “Gvibe” first edition in Las Vegas in September 2012.
Quickly recognized as an innovative sex aid and highly attuned to female sensuality and comfort, the Gvibe would be nominated for the Cannes Lions award and in product design categories for the XBIZ Awards.
About the company’s 10-year milestone, Mike Zuevskiy, who handles Gvibe’s international business development, boasts, “I believe it’s as much our unique patented shapes, as well as our materials, that make Gvibe attractive on the market.”
Indeed, the two flexible tips that spread apart once inside the vagina to create a sensation of fullness made the company’s first offering stand out in the marketplace. But it's the “materials” that Zuevskiy references that are another key to the company’s longevity and success. Specifically, the Gvibe’s proprietary Bioskin, a 100% waterproof, lifelike, body-safe medical-grade silicone.
“Bioskin feels and reacts as close to human skin as possible. It takes to the temperature of your body in a couple of seconds, and all the products made of it are always our top sellers,” Zuevskiy explains.
But great designs, a growing, glowing reputation, award-winning success and innovative materials are no sure protection against staff and material shortages and a worldwide supply chain shutdown. As Zuevskiy explained, Gvibe had to surf the pandemic just like everybody else.
“Well, the first three months of the shutdown were really good,” he said. “Customers were locked in their homes but supported financially by their governments, so moving ahead with solid sales seemed reasonable. The next three to four months, though, were a bit difficult when we saw a lot of staff reduction, no government support, no real prospects, and our sales dropping dramatically. Little by little, the more recent mobile working style and the Zoom era seems to have brought our sales numbers back.”
Those rising sales numbers are as much for the company’s current catalog of products as the new ones Gvibe commits to creating at a rate of two to three a year. Leading with the mission to be ever innovative by creating pleasure objects that haven’t existed before, the Gvibe team will be rolling out its first TPE reusable egg masturbator and also aims to meet the practical needs of its customers by manufacturing its own lube.
Still, it is the company’s stalwart resellers who built up the Gvibe customer base and have kept those customers returning time and again for the company’s “Orgasm delivery,” as promised by its slogan. Beyond the flagship namesake vibrator that gave the company its name, GVibe offers a wide range of other adult toys — all with product names starting with a “G” in honor of one of the most talked-about female erogenous points — that have earned their own loyal fan base. These include the GBalls, the GRabbit with its three motors, the realistic Greal dildo, which sits wagging and waiting on a suction cup, and the Gbulb pinpoint vibrator, which is especially great for nipple stimulation.
Fashioned in the shape of a pink light bulb, the Gbulb is regarded as an excellent example of Gvibe’s fun spirit, as it plays on the idea that the company’s toys are “ambisexual, suitable for the stimulation of various erogenous zones during foreplay as they are for pairing in erotic games.”
Especially considering the last few years of near soul-crushing, worldwide economic collapse, if an adult toy maker has managed to survive and indeed can reveal a consistent rollout of innovation and new products, it boosts confidence that said company, and perhaps the entire marketplace, is heading for a glorious future.
“Yes, the creation of the new products gives a positive signal to the market that the company is still alive and developing. We are always ready to offer something modern, new and unique to our customers alongside quality assurance,” Zuevskiy agrees.
Having made improvements on old gems, created shiny new ones over the past decade, and surfed the pandemic, Gvibe is hoping to keep customers in “top bliss” as the company’s website puts it. If Gvibe’s first decade is any indication, that is exactly what the company will be delivering for many years to come.