The Art of Dildo Design - Chakrubs, featured on Playboy

Playboy did a feature on Chakrubs and the Art of Dildo Design with our Founder, Vanessa Cuccia

Written by Allie Volpe
Photography by Natalia Mantini

Read full article here!

Founded in 2011 when Cuccia returned to New York, Chakrubs products don’t simply get you off, but using them can also be an emotionally freeing practice. The entrepreneur says the properties of the crystals help users harness the spiritual and healing energy of the chakra system. Rose Quartz—one of Chakrubs’ most popular toys— speaks to the heart chakra, believed to emit love and compassion. It’s soft pink in hue, sleek, wand-like, and about one pound in weight, possessing a striking physicality that balances the otherworldliness of the lines’ mission.

Like the fairy tales she loved as a child, Cuccia aims to take something amorphous like sexuality, spirituality, arousal and even magic, and make it tangible. That this crystal, this physical manifestation of earth science, can help users channel their energy into sexual empowerment and emotional clarity became its own kind of magic, she says. But Cuccia knew there was more to her practice, something more ethereal, but still sensual and awakening.

The Forest Line, a new collection of Chakrubs crafted from wood naturally dyed with pigment from flowers, captures the whimsy of fables and their wooded settings while playing with a new medium. Available now, the Forest Line sees Cuccia collaborating with woodworker Kevin Itwaru to bring her designs to life, and Cara Marie Piazza, a natural textile dyer who uses frozen eucalyptus, rose, and indigo exposed to vinegar to dye the wood. Piazza then steams, sands and coats in a body-safe finish. The combination of flowers and wood, Cuccia says, evokes a different kind of verve, one that is more subtle. “The energy differs between crystals and flowers because crystals take thousands of years to form,” she explains. “With the flower essences and the wood, it’s a little bit more of a transient energy. Because they’re here for just a short amount of time, the flowers wilt. It’s acknowledging that type of energy which is more soft.”