Cancel your Friday night plans: Introducing Chakrubs, a line of healing crystal sex toys

Date March 27, 2015

Do you wear healing crystals? Maybe on a necklace, a ring or just a loose stone that you carry in your purse for good luck? I do (all of the above!) and the one closest to my heart—physically and emotionally—is a Titanium Quartz stone necklace to help unleash creative juices, cure writer’s block and assist in reading the energies of people around me. Not to mention the fact that it’s crazy-pretty. So while I’m no stranger to the world of crystals, I was a stranger to the concept of crystal sex toys. And not to be presumptuous but I’ll go ahead and assume you are, too.

Enter Chakrubs, a sex toy company founded by Vanessa Cuccia, who came up with the idea when she was studying crystals while working at a sex shop, and decided to put the two together. “[While working] at a sex shop and handling these gadgets and toys, I just wasn’t [feeling] compelled to buy any of the items,” she explains. “Crystals are obviously gorgeous and with all their metaphysical benefits, it really made sense. They also hold temperature really well, so if you wanted to use them warm, you’d just run them under warm tap water.”

Chakrubs currently sells a handful of different types of crystals—green aventurine, black onyx, rose quartz, orange aventurine, white jade—which are sourced from all around the world. “We find the mother stone (which is a really big chunk of crystal), and after that, it gets broken down into smaller pieces,” explains Cuccia. “Then they’re hand-polished, so there [are] no chemicals, no dyes or anything. When they come to me, they’re polished and shaped [by lapidaries] and I cleanse them energetically. I have music playing and I sage and then they get put into hand-sewn pouches and wrapped up in tissue paper, then it goes out with a love letter and information sheet.”

So how are the crystals chosen? Why isn’t there a diamond Chakrub? “[It depends on] if we can get the mother stone in a large size. A lot of crystals you can’t get in a large enough size to be broken down into these shapes. It also has to do with what I feel would be beneficial to someone.” Each crystal serves a different purpose, so the best way to choose the one for you is to read up on the crystal’s healing properties and figure out what you need, well, healed. “The black onyx is my favourite because it’s good for removing blocks and transforming negative energy into something positive,” says Cuccia. This is the same one that helps with getting over past relationships, FYI.

The most popular is the Heart Chakrub, which is made of 100% rose quartz and is easily the prettiest thing that will ever live on your bedside table. It comes in a shade so perfectly pink it might as well be an Essie nail polish—something from the bridal collections. It works to cleanse your heart chakra and “opens you up to all kinds of love.” Cuccia tells me that she has plans to expand to a larger range of crystals in the near future. Next up? “Carnelian, for sure, which is a red crystal for the root chakra. It has to do with love and passion.”

“I read [negative] comments. A lot of people say that it’s placebo. That’s definitely something that I face and will face more for sure. Even if that is true, even if we discover none of this is [real], it’s still just a beautiful sex toy,” says Cuccia.

More than that, Chakrubs also help in seriously amazing ways, like being part of the Crime Victims Unit at Mt. Sinai Hospital. “The [staff] holds meditation sessions with groups of patients who have had sexual traumas. They said they didn’t have anything that would help [their patients] become accepting to the idea of penetration again, but because [Chakrubs] is therapeutic and because of the philosophy behind it […] this could be very beneficial to them. I know there’s a lot of shock factor right now because it’s a crystal sex toy, but my goal is to reach communities where there’s oppression or sexual violence, and misunderstanding about love and sex.”

“It’s funny, I don’t actually think about the orgasm part of it much. It really is more about the practice that comes with it. But yes, I know what I’m doing is putting out sex toys,” she laughs.

Browse the gallery of Chakrubs below. You can also check them out at The Shop at The Standard, High Line.