Most guides on this site are researched — built carefully from manufacturer specs, public material and safety information, and how products compare on paper. That's clearly labeled ("Researched by Clove") and it's most of what we publish. A smaller, growing set is different: products we've personally bought and used ourselves, marked "Tested by the Clove founders." This page is what that actually involves.
Who's testing
Right now, testing is just the two of us — my wife and I. We're not a lab, and we're not pretending to be one; we're two people with a real, if biased, sense of what makes a toy actually good to use. We may add more testers down the line, and if we do, this page gets updated to say so.
The four things we actually check
- Material and build quality. Does it match what the listing claims — body-safe silicone, ABS plastic, glass, whatever the material is supposed to be? We check for a body-safe finish (no obvious porousness or seams that would trap bacteria), and whether the build feels like it'll hold up, not just look good in a photo.
- Performance. For anything with a motor, does it deliver what the spec sheet promises — actual vibration strength and pattern variety, suction consistency, or whatever the toy is designed to do? Marketing copy and lived experience don't always match, and this is where that gap shows up.
- Noise level. A toy that's whisper-quiet on a spec sheet and audible through a closed door in practice is a real, common gap — we listen for it directly rather than trusting a decibel claim we can't verify ourselves.
- Ease of use and cleaning. How intuitive the controls actually are without needing the manual, how charging works day to day, and — often skipped in other reviews — how easy or annoying the thing is to actually clean and store afterward.
What "tested" doesn't mean
It doesn't mean a formal, standardized lab process with instruments and scoring sheets — it means genuine personal use, described honestly. It also doesn't mean every claim in a tested review is something we independently verified beyond our own experience (we're not testing material composition in a chemistry lab) — for safety claims like body-safe certification, we still rely on the manufacturer's own disclosure, the same as any researched guide would.
How to tell which is which
Every tested review says "Tested by the Clove founders" directly in the byline, right where "Researched by Clove" would otherwise appear — it's never ambiguous on the page itself. The complete, current list also lives on our what we actually own page, which only grows when something genuinely joins the collection.
Frequently asked questions
Who actually does the testing?
Nick and his wife, the Clove founders, for now — every product marked "Tested by the Clove founders" is something they personally bought and used, not a review sample or a research summary. The collection is small and grows slowly because it's genuinely limited to what they've actually tried.
Does Clove accept free products from brands in exchange for a review?
Every product currently marked as tested was personally purchased. If that changes in the future, it will be disclosed plainly on the specific review, in line with FTC guidance — see our affiliate disclosure page.
How is a tested review different from a researched one?
A researched guide is built from manufacturer specs, publicly available material and safety information, and category comparisons — useful and fact-checked, but not a hands-on account. A tested review adds direct, personal experience with the specific unit on top of that: material feel, real-world performance, noise, and cleanup, not just what the spec sheet claims.