Shore is a scale that lets you know how hard or soft a silicone material is. This is a guide to silicone shore ratings.
Here at Godemiche we use a range of silicone from a 00-30 to 40A, so let’s take a closer look at what items are what shore and why.
40A is the firmest silicone we have, in terms of feel it’s slightly flexible and quite like a rubber erasure you use to rub out pencil.
The Plug B, Apprentice and Peg are all made in a 40A silicone. The reason we make them in a firmer silicone is because inserting a toy that has a firmness to it is a far more pleasurable experience and also more likely to be successful than something too soft. Also pegging with a soft and floppy toy is also problematic as the soft toy can bend and flex while being used and result in the toy popping out.
These toys were designed to give people their best first experience of anal play and the firm silicone makes these items perfect for that.
15A is the silicone most used at Godemiche. It’s used for all of our dildos, ball gags, floggers and even some butt plugs.
Although all of our dildos are all made using the same silicone each one will feel a little bit different and this is to do with the circumference of the toy. The best way to explain this, is if you take a pencil on its own its easy to snap but if you take 10 pencils it’s much more difficult to snap. A sex toys example of this would be the Ambit has a thinner shaft to the Hercules and so because there is less of it it’s more flexible and feels softer even though it’s the same silicone.
We use a 15A in our dildos because it results in a wonderful inbetween of soft and hard. The Ambit is perfect in a 15A because it’s slightly flexible for the body to enjoy but it’s also firm enough for the curve to still actually be curvy and press against the G-spot or prostate. If the silicone is to soft then the curve just doesn’t do anything and there’s no point having a curved toy.
Texture also benefits from 15A silicone, toys like the XI that have a beautiful texture, that requires some resistance when being used.
00-50 is a soft ‘life like’ feeling silicone and although it’s a small step down from a 15A silicone it’s noticeably different. We make some of our dildos in 00-50, Adam and Hercules are the main toys made in this soft silicone.
The Adam is a girth toy designed to give a ‘stretched, full feeling’ in the 00-50 silicone the toy has a much more ‘life like’ feel to it with more squish. It’s also still firm enough to be used in a strap on harness without being too floppy.
The Hercules is noticeably different in a 00-50 silicone, its more flexible but you also still feel the texture on the shaft.
00-30 is the softest silicone we currently use. It’s a very very soft silicone that’s best compared to jelly or gummy sweets.
The 00-30 is a very soft and very flexible silicone that’s perfect for masturbators and also for very soft, packing toys.
The OffBeat is made using 00-30 because, it’s very soft and squishy for texture to enjoyable stimulate and it’s also very flexible allowing it to stretch around various size penis.
Although silicone is graded on a shore scale it’s not 100% accurate. Manufacturing tolerances are wild and a 40A silicone can be as low as 32A or as high 49A and still be considered 40A. Viscosity and cure time can also affect the final shore of a silicone. A less viscous silicone with a long cure time is going to be softer than a less viscous silicone with a short cure time and that’s going to be softer to a thicker viscous silicone with a short cure time.
Shore is a guide and there to help you make decisions it’s not an exact or perfect science.
We hope this helps to demystify silicone shore.
