New London-based digital retailer ILOH is on a mission to destigmatize female pleasure with its edit of intimate wellness products.
‘It’s about feeling confident and shame free using products that not only feel right but look great,' says founder Jemma Sawyer, who set up the company in 2020, to provide an online platform that is fun, safe, and guiltless. An entrepreneur with years of experience in fashion and communications, Sawyer set out to explore the intersection of femtech and female design.
Designer Ti Chang’s ‘Crave’ necklace doubles as a vibrator
For ILOH – the first UK-based platform of its kind – Sawyer scoured the globe to discover the very best products that support her vision for an inclusive and empowering wellness experience, created exclusively by womxn. Crucially, everything must be aesthetically pleasing, too. A big part of her mission is to elevate the sex object from its bedside drawer, to become a publicly displayed sculptural object. For instance, the Buffer Rings by OHNUT (a company kickstarted in 2018 by founder Emily Sauer) are intimate wearables that aim to redefine painful sex. They are also ornate, and marble-esque, so as not to look out of place on your dressing table.
As well as toys, ILOH also offers a stylish take on contraceptives and lubricant. Founders of HANX – Farah Kabir and Sarah Welsh – have rethought the often lurid contemporary packaging of condoms, and transformed it into something discreet, minimalist and elegant; more akin to make-up or skincare branding, with its copper-toned, sustainably-made packaging. (They're vegan too!)
We also love the fearlessness of Ti Chang's ‘Crave' necklace, which doubles as a vibrator. Chang wants to ‘change the way womxn experience sex toys', so reads the ILOH website, with a firm belief that ‘sexual pleasure, intimacy and satisfaction are at the core of being human, and that delight and flirtation provide the vital sparks for everyday life.'
Of course, beautifully designed sex objects are nothing new to Wallpaper* readers, who will recall the ‘forest of sex toys', created by artist Douglas Coupland and London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture, as featured in our Handmade Exhibition in 2019.
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