pjur vs Eros: which lubricant is worth the money

Lubricant is the one product in this shop where almost nobody comparison shops, and it is the product where comparison shopping pays best. Two bottles of the same brand, the same product line and the same formula can differ several times over in what a millilitre costs you, and nothing on either label tells you that. We sell both of these brands, so we can do the arithmetic that neither of them publishes.

pjur is a German specialist that has spent its whole existence making lubricant and little else. Eros is the other German specialist, and it is the broader of the two at the cheap end. On a shelf they look like the same product at two prices. In our catalog they are two different propositions, and the difference is not the one the packaging suggests.

If You Only Have 30 Seconds

• You just want the cheapest sensible option: Eros. Its median product costs €13.75 per 100 ml against €20.95 for pjur, and it goes lower at the bottom than pjur goes anywhere.
• You want the widest choice of formula: Eros again. It declares four different bases across its range; pjur declares two.
• You want to know exactly what you are putting on your body: pjur, narrowly. It lists ingredients on a larger share of its catalog, and its medical line is built around short ingredient lists.
• You own silicone toys: read the compatibility section before you buy anything from either brand. This is the one mistake here that destroys something you already paid for, and both brands are quiet about it.
• You buy lubricant more than twice a year: stop buying the small bottle. The format, not the brand, is what decides your cost, and the gap is larger than any brand difference on this page.

Uncomfortable truth: the most expensive thing in this comparison is not a premium formula, it is a small bottle. The dearest product per 100 ml in our pjur range costs €179.69 for that volume and the cheapest costs €6.19, and they are the same brand. You are mostly buying packaging and the convenience of not thinking about it, which is a fine thing to buy as long as you know that is what you are doing.

A note on method, because it changes how to read every number below. None of these figures come from brand websites. We counted, product by product, what each item in our own live catalog states in its own product information: the base of the formula, the format in millilitres, the ingredient list, the compatibility notes. Where a brand does not state something, the table says so instead of filling the hole. And the price per 100 ml is not published by anybody: we calculate it from the declared format, which is why that row only covers the products that declare one.

Stock counts and coverage measured on 02-09-2026 across our live catalogue. In brackets, how many products of each brand publish that figure. Price per 100 ml is calculated by us from the declared format: neither brand publishes it, and the calculation leaves out perfumes and cleaners, which are sold by the millilitre but are not lubricant. What is not published, we say so: an honest gap beats an invented number.

The Two Houses of Lubricant

Both brands are German, both have been at this for decades, and both sell almost nothing but lubricant. That is where the similarity ends, and the two catalogs tell you exactly where each one decided to compete.

Two catalogs, two shapes

We stock 140 pjur references and 218 from Eros. Eros is the bigger range and it is bigger at the cheap end: its entry band runs €1–12 and holds 71 products, against €1–15 and 39 for pjur. Their top bands finish in almost the same place, €21–160 against €19–150, but they arrive there by different routes.

The interesting part is what sits in the middle. pjur's mid band, €15–21, holds 50 products, and a striking number of them are the same 100 ml bottle with a different formula inside: the Med line, the Woman line, the Organic one. Eros spreads the same money across more formats and more bases. One brand varies the formula and holds the bottle constant; the other varies both.

What each brand decided to be good at

pjur's catalog is organised around named lines that each answer a specific worry: Med for sensitive skin, Woman for a lighter formula, Back Door for anal use, Power as a thicker cream, Original as a silicone workhorse. It reads like a pharmacy shelf, and the ingredient lists back that up: the Med products in our catalog carry some of the shortest lists we hold.

Eros is organised around the format and the effect. Aqua at five different sizes, silicone at several, a hybrid line, cooling and delay variants, a 5000 ml massage gel that exists because somebody asked for it. It reads like a supplier catalog rather than a pharmacy, and that is not a criticism: it is why it can be cheaper per millilitre at almost every level.

The base is where the split shows

Of the pjur products that declare a base, 95 are water-based and 30 silicone. Eros declares 104 water, 46 silicone, 8 hybrid and 6 oil. Four bases against two, and the two extra ones are not filler: a hybrid is a genuinely different product, and an oil base rules out latex condoms entirely.

If you already know which base you want, that difference decides the brand for you before price enters the conversation. If you do not know, the base is the single most useful thing to learn about lubricant, and the next section is mostly about that.

The lines, and what each one is for

Both brands organise their catalogs into named lines, and learning the four or five that matter is the fastest way to shop either one. The names are not decoration: within a brand they tell you the formula family and usually which sizes exist.

On the pjur side, the ones worth knowing are the medical range, built around short ingredient lists and named for sensitive use; the Woman range, lighter formulas in smaller bottles; Original, the long-standing silicone workhorse; Power, a thicker cream that comes in the largest formats pjur sells; and Back Door, the anal range, which exists in several sizes and is where the brand's widest format gap sits.

On the Eros side, the Classic Line is the volume range and where the cheapest per-millilitre water-based bottles live; Power Line is the concentrated end, including delay formulas; Action covers the silicone and hybrid products, several of them with cooling or warming effects; and Bio & Vegan is the plant-based range. Eros also carries the outliers that pjur does not touch at all, up to a 5000 ml massage canister.

The practical shortcut: pick the line first and the size second. Within a line the formula is consistent and the only real decision left is how much of it to buy, which is the decision this guide keeps telling you to get right.

Where the money actually goes

Median price is a bad guide in this category and we would rather say so than lean on it. The obvious objection to comparing median prices is that one brand might simply sell bigger bottles. We checked, and it does not: the median format is exactly 100 ml on both sides, 56 products at pjur and 60 at Eros. So the gap is not packaging, it is price, and the row that states it cleanly is the price per 100 ml: €20.95 against €13.75, a difference of about 45%.

That is the honest headline of this comparison, and it deserves a caveat immediately. A 45% difference on a bottle that lasts you three months is not the same kind of money as a 45% difference on a car, and if a specific pjur formula suits your body and an Eros one does not, the arithmetic stops mattering entirely. Buy the cheaper one when the products are interchangeable. They are not always interchangeable.

What Actually Changes Between Them

Four things in a lubricant are worth comparing and the rest is marketing: what the formula is based on, how much you get, what is in it, and what it is safe to use with. Every one of those is in the table above, with the number of products that state it, because a specification that only half a range publishes is a different promise from one they all publish.

The base decides almost everything else

A water-based lubricant washes off with water, is safe with every toy material and every condom, and dries out during use so you reapply. A silicone-based one lasts far longer, works in water, feels slicker, and will degrade a silicone toy on contact. A hybrid is mostly water with some silicone in it, aiming at the middle. An oil base lasts longest of all and destroys latex, which rules out most condoms.

That paragraph is the whole of what most buyers need, and if you want it at length rather than in four lines, we have a guide dedicated to that single decision: water-based versus silicone lubricant. It is why the base row matters more than the price row. pjur declares a base on 125 of its 140 products and Eros on 164 of 218. In proportion pjur is ahead there, and it is the one row where the more expensive brand documents better.

Format: the number nobody thinks about

pjur declares a format on 137 of 140 products, Eros on 208 of 218. Both are close to complete, which is lucky, because without the format you cannot work out what anything costs.

The ranges are worth reading twice. pjur runs from 1 ml sachets to a 1000 ml pump. Eros goes from 2 ml to 5000 ml. Those extremes are not the same product at different sizes: a 1 ml sachet is a sample and a 5000 ml canister is for professional massage. But between those poles sit the sizes people actually buy, and the price per 100 ml moves enormously across them within the same brand and the same formula.

Ingredients: who tells you and who does not

pjur lists ingredients on 68 of its 140 products and Eros on 88 of 218. About half of the pjur range and two fifths of the Eros one, which leaves most of both catalogs where you are buying without a list. And that is after discarding the listings whose ingredient field just repeats the base instead of listing anything, which is a third of the fields on the Eros side: a field that says "water-based" is not an ingredient list, and counting it as one would have inflated this row by a quarter.

Of the lists we do have, glycerin appears in 33 of pjur's 68 and 41 of Eros's 88. We are reporting what the lists say and nothing beyond it. Glycerin is a common humectant that some people prefer to avoid and others never think about; whether it matters for your body is a question for you or a pharmacist, not for a shop's comparison page, and any store that tells you otherwise is selling you a formula rather than informing you.

What we will say plainly is the useful half: if you have a reason to avoid a specific ingredient, buy only from the products that publish a list, and both brands give you hundreds to choose from. Buying an unlisted formula and hoping is the avoidable part.

Compatibility: the row with the most at stake

pjur states compatibility on 110 of 140 products, which is about three quarters of its range, and Eros on 141 of 218, about two thirds. Latex specifically appears on 36 and 79, and there Eros is well ahead.

And here is the gap that should worry you more than any price: only 9 pjur products and 6 Eros ones say anything at all about silicone toys, in catalogs of 140 and 218. That is the interaction that can ruin a toy you paid a lot for, and it is the one both brands are quietest about. It gets its own section further down because it deserves one.

What is not in the table, and why

You will not find rows here for pH, osmolality, taste, or how long a product lasts before it dries. Not because they do not matter, some of them matter a lot, but because neither brand publishes them on the products we sell, and a table that invents a figure is worse than a table with a gap in it. If those numbers decide your purchase, the honest answer is that you will not get them from a shop comparison and you should ask the manufacturer directly.

Head to Head by Price Band

Prices move, so this section works in bands rather than in figures for individual products. Each brand's catalog is cut into three by its own prices, which is why the two ladders do not line up with each other. And a warning that applies only to this category: a price band tells you much less here than it would with toys, because a cheap band is full of small bottles and an expensive one is full of large ones. Read the bands together with the price per 100 ml or they will mislead you.

Entry band

pjur's runs €1–15 with 39 products; Eros's runs €1–12 with 71. Eros has nearly twice as many options down here and starts lower, which matters because this is where trying a formula for the first time happens.

What is in them differs in a way worth knowing. pjur's entry band is mostly its small formats: the 30 ml Aqua, the Woman line in travel sizes, a 1.5 ml sachet. Eros's holds small bottles too, but also the 50 ml and even 100 ml sizes of its Classic Line, because its prices start lower. So at the same spend you get a larger bottle from Eros, which is the same story the unit price row tells, seen from the other end.

Verdict: Eros for a first purchase, on choice and on how much product you get for the money. Choose pjur down here only if you specifically want to test one of its named formulas before committing to a big bottle, which is a perfectly good reason.

Mid band

pjur's mid band, €15–21, holds 50 products and it is the heart of the brand: the Med line, Organic Touch, the Woman range in 100 ml, the vegan formulas. Almost everything here is the same 100 ml bottle with a different formula inside, which makes the band easy to shop: you are choosing a formula, not a size.

Eros's mid band, €12–19, holds 72 and is a different animal: silicone formulas at 100 ml, the graded anal range, water-based bottles at 250 ml. Larger formats appear here that at pjur only show up in the top band.

Verdict: this is the band where the two brands genuinely compete, and the answer depends on what you are optimising. Formula variety within a familiar size: pjur. More product, or a silicone option, for the same money: Eros.

Top band

pjur's top band is €21–160 with 51 products; Eros's is €19–150 with 75. In lubricant, the top band is mostly not a premium band at all: it is where the large formats live. The 250 ml and 500 ml bottles cost more at the till and less per use than anything below them, which is the exact opposite of how a top band works with toys.

There is one genuine exception on each side, and it distorts the band: the small, expensive specialty products. A 15 ml stimulating gel or a concentrated delay formula sits in the top band on price while being the most expensive thing in the catalog per millilitre. Those are not lubricant in the everyday sense and they should not be compared with a bottle you use weekly.

Verdict: if you already know what you like, buy here, and buy the biggest format of it. This is the only band where spending more reliably means paying less per use, and it is the reverse of the advice this same page would give you about vibrators.

What Size People Actually Buy, and What They Should

Format is the decision this category hides, so it is worth looking at what the two catalogs offer and where the sensible choice sits.

The 100 ml bottle is the centre of gravity of both ranges: 56 products at pjur and 60 at Eros, the most common format in each and the median format in both. That is not an accident. It is big enough to last a casual user months, small enough not to feel like a commitment, and it fits in a drawer. As a default it is a reasonable one.

Below it, the 30 ml and 50 ml sizes are the second most common, and they are where most of the money leaks. They exist for travel and for trying something new, and they get bought as a habit. Above it the choice thins out fast: 20 products at 250 ml at pjur and 16 at Eros, and only 8 and 23 at 500 ml or more. The formats that cost least per use are the ones with the least choice, which tells you something about how this category is shopped rather than about what is good value.

The size ladder, in plain terms

• 1 to 10 ml: samples and single-use sachets. Useful for trying a formula, absurd as a way to buy lubricant. The most expensive product per 100 ml in either catalog is always something in this range.
• 30 to 50 ml: travel and testing. Buy one to find out whether you like a formula. Buying the same one repeatedly is the habit this guide is trying to interrupt.
• 100 ml: the sensible default for most households, and where the widest choice of formula lives in both brands.
• 200 to 250 ml: the value sweet spot for anyone who uses lubricant regularly. Noticeably cheaper per use than 100 ml and still realistic to finish before it expires.
• 500 ml and up: genuinely cheap per millilitre and only sensible for frequent use or for massage. Check the expiry date against your honest usage before you buy one.

The one rule that survives all of this: match the format to how often you actually use it, not to how often you intend to. The bottle that expires half full was more expensive than the small one you would have finished.

Price per 100 ml: The Number Nobody Publishes

Every other section on this page is about which lubricant suits you. This one is about money, and it is the section that will save you the most, because the pricing of this category is close to random from the buyer's point of view and nobody is incentivised to fix that.

Neither brand prints a unit price. Supermarkets show a price per litre on the shelf label and it changed how people buy detergent; intimate products sit outside that habit, so a 30 ml tube and a 500 ml pump are displayed the same way and the shopper compares the two numbers on the front. We calculate the unit price ourselves from the format each product declares, which is why that row of the table only covers the products that declare one: 137 of 140 for pjur and 208 of 218 for Eros.

What the two brands actually cost

The median pjur product costs €20.95 per 100 ml. The median Eros product costs €13.75. That is the brand difference, roughly 45%, and it is the smaller of the two effects on this page.

The bigger effect is inside each brand. pjur's range runs from €6.19 to €179.69 per 100 ml and Eros's from €3.00 to €116.50. Read those two spans against the 45% brand gap and the conclusion is unavoidable: which bottle you pick matters far more than which brand you pick. A buyer who chooses badly within the cheaper brand pays more than one who chooses well within the dearer one.

The same product, three prices

The clearest way to show it is to hold everything constant except the bottle. Same brand, same product line, same declared base, different sizes:

Same brand, same product line, same declared base: 2.7× the cost per millilitre between the cheapest and the dearest format on this list. This is the widest gap in the pjur range; across the 6 pjur lines sold in three or more formats, the typical gap is 1.8×. Neither brand publishes this figure; we calculate it from the format each product declares.

And the same exercise on the other side:

Same brand, same product line, same declared base: 7.5× the cost per millilitre between the cheapest and the dearest format on this list. This is the widest gap in the Eros range; across the 13 Eros lines sold in three or more formats, the typical gap is 2.6×. Neither brand publishes this figure; we calculate it from the format each product declares.

Those two tables are the argument of this whole page. Nothing about the formula changed between the rows. What changed is how much of it you bought at once.

Why the small bottle exists at all

Not to rip you off, mostly. A small format is genuinely useful the first time you try a formula, because a lubricant that does not suit you is a lubricant you throw away, and throwing away 30 ml costs less than throwing away 500. Small bottles also travel, fit in a bedside drawer, and do not sit half-used for two years going off.

So the small format is not a trap. Buying it repeatedly is. The pattern that costs real money is the person who buys the same 30 ml bottle six times a year because it is what they always buy, having never once compared it against the 250 ml of the identical product. That is not a pricing scandal, it is just a habit nobody has a reason to interrupt. We are interrupting it.

The exceptions, so this does not become a bad rule

Bigger is not always better value and there are three real exceptions. A formula you have not tried before, where the small bottle is the cheap way to find out. Anything you use rarely, because lubricant does have a shelf life and a 500 ml bottle used twice a year will expire before you finish it. And products where the large format simply does not exist, which in these two catalogs is most of the specialised formulas: the medical lines, the vegan ones, the flavoured ones.

Outside those three cases, the rule holds: find the formula you like in the smallest bottle, then buy it in the biggest one you will realistically use within a couple of years.

Compatibility: What Ruins a Toy and What Breaks a Condom

This is the only section here where getting it wrong costs you something other than money. Two interactions matter, both are simple, and both are underexplained across this whole category, this shop included until now.

Silicone lubricant on a silicone toy

Silicone lubricant degrades silicone toys. The surfaces bond at the molecular level, and the result is a toy that turns tacky, then rough, then unusable. It does not happen instantly and it is not always dramatic, which is precisely why people keep doing it: the damage shows up long after the decision that caused it.

Now the number that should not be true. Across both catalogs, 9 pjur products and 6 Eros products say anything at all about silicone toys, out of 140 and 218. Between them, 30 and 46 products declare a silicone base. So both brands sell far more silicone lubricant than they publish warnings about what silicone lubricant does to a silicone toy.

We are not going to pretend that is a scandal peculiar to these two: it is the industry norm and it is on the shops as much as the manufacturers. But it is the single most useful thing on this page, so here it is as a rule you can apply without reading anything else: if the toy is silicone, use a water-based lubricant. If you want the longevity of silicone lubricant, use it with glass, steel, ABS or skin, and not with your silicone toys.

Oil and latex

Oil-based lubricant degrades latex, which means it is unsafe with latex condoms and with latex gloves and dams. This one is well known and still catches people out, usually through improvisation: coconut oil, body lotion, whatever is on the bedside table.

In our catalog the oil base is rare and it is entirely on one side: Eros declares 6 oil-based products and pjur declares none. If you use latex condoms, that is a small part of one catalog to avoid, and the rest of both is fine on this count.

What the brands do tell you

pjur states some form of compatibility note on 110 of 140 products and Eros on 141 of 218. Latex is named specifically on 36 and 79. Eros is clearly ahead on naming latex, and both are around two thirds on compatibility generally.

Read those notes when they exist, because they are the brand telling you what it has tested. When they do not exist, fall back on the base: water-based is compatible with everything you are likely to own, silicone is not compatible with silicone toys, oil is not compatible with latex. Those three lines cover almost every real situation.

The hybrid question

Eros sells 8 hybrid products and pjur none. A hybrid is mostly water with silicone added, and it aims at the obvious middle: longer lasting than water, easier to clean than silicone.

The honest position on hybrids and toys is that it depends on how much silicone is in the mix, and neither the percentage nor a toy-safety statement is published on the products we sell. So we will not tell you a hybrid is toy-safe, because we cannot show you where that would come from. If you own silicone toys and want certainty rather than probability, water-based is the answer that needs no footnote.

The Formulas With an Effect

Both brands sell lubricants that do something beyond lubricating: warming, cooling, tingling, delaying, flavoured. They are a small part of each catalog and a large part of what gets bought as a gift, so they are worth a section of their own, including the part nobody says out loud.

Who makes what

Counted by what the product names declare, the split is clear. Eros carries 23 flavoured references and pjur 0: that category is effectively one brand's. Eros also leads on delay formulas, 11 against 7, and on massage products, 22 against 3. Warming and cooling are small on both sides, in single figures each.

pjur's answer is in a different direction: 8 vegan or organic references against 4 at Eros. Neither brand is really competing with the other here. One went toward sensation and the other toward formula, and if the thing you want is on the wrong side, price is not the relevant question.

What these formulas are actually for

Warming and cooling products work by including an ingredient that stimulates the nerve endings that report temperature. Nothing is getting hotter or colder in any measurable sense; the sensation is real and the temperature change is not. Tingling formulas work the same way with a different sensation.

Delay formulas are a different thing entirely: they contain a mild anaesthetic that reduces sensitivity, and they are meant for the penis rather than as a general lubricant. Using one as your everyday bottle is a mistake of category, not of taste.

Flavoured lubricants are for oral use and they are usually thinner and sweeter than a standard formula. Which is fine for the job, and disappointing if you buy one expecting it to behave like a normal lubricant.

The part nobody says

These formulas are the ones most likely to be wrong for a given body on a given day. A warming product that one person finds pleasant another finds uncomfortable, and there is no way to know which you are until you try it. That is not a defect and it is not a warning, it is just how a sensation product works.

So the practical advice is the same one this page keeps giving in a different costume: buy the effect formula in the smallest format, and only after you already own a plain bottle that works. If the effect turns out not to be for you, you have wasted a small purchase instead of a large one, and you still have something usable in the drawer.

And read the ingredient list on these more carefully than on a plain formula, because the whole point of them is that they contain something a plain lubricant does not. Both brands publish a real ingredient list on about half their ranges, so on many of these you can see exactly what is doing the work before you buy, and on the rest you cannot.

Which One Fits Your Situation

Seven situations that cover most of the people who arrive at a page like this. Each answer says why, so a case that is close but not identical still tells you where you belong.

You have never bought lubricant before

Water-based, small bottle, either brand. Do not optimise anything on a first purchase: you do not yet know whether you find a formula too thin, too sticky, too scented or perfect, and there is no way to find out except by using one. Eros's entry band starts lower and has more options down there, so it is the cheaper way to run the experiment.

Once you know which formula you like, come back and buy it in the largest format that line offers. That is the whole strategy, and it is worth more than any brand loyalty.

You own silicone toys

Water-based, and check the base on the product page before you order. Both brands sell plenty of silicone lubricant and neither warns you clearly enough about the interaction. pjur declares 95 water-based products and Eros 104, so there are almost two hundred between them without going anywhere near the problem.

You use lubricant often

Buy the large format and buy Eros unless a specific pjur formula suits you better. This is the profile where the arithmetic actually bites: at the median, Eros costs €13.75 per 100 ml against pjur's €20.95, and the large formats of both go far below their own medians. Somebody who uses lubricant weekly and buys 30 ml bottles is paying several times what the same product costs in a 250 ml one.

You use it rarely

Buy small, and ignore everything this page says about unit price. Lubricant has a shelf life, an opened bottle has a shorter one, and a 500 ml bottle that expires two thirds full was not a bargain. The cheapest option is the one you finish.

You have sensitive skin or you react to things

Buy only from the products that publish an ingredient list, which is 68 of 140 at pjur and 88 of 218 at Eros. Read the list against whatever you know you react to, and if you do not know, that is a conversation with a pharmacist rather than with a shop.

What we will not do is tell you which formula is gentler, because that is a medical claim and we have no basis for it. pjur's Med line is built and named around this use and its lists are short, which is a fact about the product rather than a promise about your body.

You want it to last without reapplying

Silicone-based, and then mind the toy question. pjur declares 30 silicone products and Eros 46, so both have real ranges here. Silicone lasts dramatically longer than water-based, works in the shower or the bath, and needs soap to wash off, which is a fair trade for what it does.

If you also own silicone toys and do not want two bottles, the compromise most people end up with is water-based for toys and silicone for skin. Two bottles is not a defeat: they do different jobs.

You are buying for anal use

Thicker and longer-lasting is the general preference, which points at silicone or at the dedicated water-based formulas both brands make for it. pjur names a line for this specifically and Eros sells several graded ones. Whichever you pick, buy a bigger format than you think you need: this is the use where running out mid-session is the actual problem, and where the small bottle is the false economy.

The Costliest Buying Mistakes

Five, ordered by what they cost. The first one costs the most money and the second one costs the most stuff.

Buying the small bottle every time. The single most expensive habit in this category, and the one nobody notices because each individual purchase is cheap. Within one product line and one base, our catalog shows gaps of 1.8× at pjur and 2.6× at Eros between the cheapest and dearest format, and the widest examples are far larger than that. Nothing about the formula changes. Buy small once to test, then buy big.

Using silicone lubricant on a silicone toy. This is the one that destroys something you already own, and it is barely flagged: 9 products at pjur and 6 at Eros mention silicone toys at all, while the two brands sell 30 and 46 silicone-based lubricants between them. If the toy is silicone, use water-based. That sentence is worth more than the rest of this page.

Assuming the expensive one is gentler. There is no relationship in this catalog between price and how short or clean an ingredient list is. Some of the shortest lists sit on mid-priced medical products and some long ones sit on premium formulas with added effects. If a short ingredient list is what you want, read the lists, which is why we put that row in the table. Paying more is not a shortcut to it.

Improvising with something from the bathroom. Body lotion, coconut oil, baby oil, saliva. The first three degrade latex, so they are unsafe with condoms, and the oils are difficult to wash out of porous materials. Saliva is not a lubricant in any useful sense: it dries in seconds and it moves bacteria around. A 50 ml bottle of water-based lubricant costs less than most of the things people improvise with.

Buying a warming, cooling or tingling formula as your only bottle. Both brands sell them and they are genuinely fun. They are also the formulas most likely to be too much for a given body on a given day, and if it is the only bottle in the house, the evening is over. Buy the effect formula as your second bottle, never your first.

There is a sixth that is not a mistake so much as a missed opportunity: not checking the base before you order. It takes five seconds on the product page, it is declared on 125 of pjur's 140 products and 164 of Eros's 218, and it determines everything about how the product behaves and what it is safe to touch. It is the first thing to look at and most people never look at it once.

A last one that belongs here even though it is not strictly a mistake: treating lubricant as an embarrassing purchase and therefore a rushed one. It is the cheapest thing in this shop, it improves almost every other product you own, and it is the item people spend the least time choosing and the most time regretting. Two minutes on the base and the format is the whole of the effort required, and this page exists because nobody was making those two minutes easy.

And What About Durex?

Fair question, and it is the brand most people would have expected on this page, so here is the honest answer with the numbers rather than a silence.

We stock 47 Durex references. 33 of them are condoms and 12 are lubricant. That is why Durex is not the second column of the table above: comparing 140 specialist lubricants against 12 would fill half the table with gaps, and a table that mostly says "not published" is not a comparison, it is a formality.

What those 12 are: a short, tight range of small water-based bottles, mostly 50 ml and 100 ml, clustered within a few dollars of each other, plus a couple of massage gels. It is a pharmacy range and it behaves like one. If you already buy Durex condoms and want the matching lubricant without thinking about it, that range does the job and there is nothing wrong with it.

What you give up by defaulting to it is choice and unit price. There is no large format, so the arithmetic in the previous sections has nowhere to go; there is essentially one base; and the specialised formulas, the medical lines, the vegan ones, the graded anal ones, do not exist there. That is not a criticism of Durex, which is a condom company that also sells lubricant, and is very good at the first thing.

The one-line version: Durex is the safe default and you will not regret it, and both specialists give you more product per dollar and far more to choose from. If the reason you were going to buy Durex is that it is the only name you recognise, that is a good reason to read the rest of this page and a bad reason to finish the purchase.

How to Read a Lubricant Label

Four things on a label carry information and the rest is adjectives. Once you can find these four, you can compare any two products in this category in about twenty seconds, including products from brands that are not on this page.

1. The base, which is usually the smallest print

Water, silicone, hybrid or oil. It determines what the product is compatible with, how long it lasts, how it washes off and how it feels, and it is the only one of the four that cannot be inferred from anything else. On our product pages it appears as a field of its own, which is why we can tell you that 125 of pjur's 140 products and 164 of Eros's 218 declare it.

If a product does not declare a base anywhere, that is information too. It is usually a water-based formula from a brand that did not think the question mattered, but "usually" is not a basis for putting something on your body, and there are hundreds of products here that do declare it.

2. The format, which is how you work out the price

Millilitres, printed somewhere on the front, and the number you need to divide the price by. This is the step nobody takes, and it is the whole of the arithmetic in this guide. A 30 ml tube at a low price is usually more expensive per use than a 250 ml bottle at a high one.

3. The ingredient list, when it exists

Read it if you have a reason to, ignore it if you do not, and be suspicious of a product that does not have one. Water-based lubricants are mostly water plus a thickener plus a humectant plus a preservative, and the differences between formulas are real but small in a list that short.

Two things worth knowing about how to read it. Ingredients are listed in descending order of quantity, so the first three tell you most of what the product is. And a short list is not automatically better than a long one: some long lists are long because they include botanical extracts that somebody wanted, and some short ones are short because the product is doing very little.

4. The compatibility line, which is the brand's own testing

When a product says it is compatible with latex, that is the manufacturer telling you it has checked. When it says nothing, it is not a warning, it is a silence, and you fall back on the base to work out the answer.

The one silence that matters is the toy question. Neither brand states it often, so treat the base as the answer there: water-based with silicone toys, always, and no exceptions worth the risk.

What to ignore

Almost every other word on the front of a lubricant bottle. "Premium", "ultra", "long lasting", "sensitive", "natural" and "intimate" have no defined meaning in this category and appear on products at every price. "Natural" is the emptiest of them: a lubricant is a manufactured product and the word tells you nothing about the formula.

The named lines are different, and worth learning, because within one brand a line name is a real signal: it tells you which formula family you are in and, usually, which format sizes exist. That is the shortcut that saves the most time once you know a brand.

Storage, Shelf Life and Using It Well

Short section, because there is not much to get wrong, and the little there is tends to be expensive in the specific way that throwing away a full bottle is expensive.

How long it keeps

Lubricant expires and the date is printed on the bottle. Unopened, most water-based formulas keep for a couple of years or more; once opened, the useful life is shorter because you have introduced air and, inevitably, some contact with skin. Silicone-based formulas are more stable than water-based ones, which is one of their quieter advantages.

This is the fact that limits everything the pricing section told you. Buying a 500 ml bottle to save on unit price only works if you will finish it in time. Work backwards from how often you use it, not from the table.

Where to keep it

Somewhere cool, dry and out of direct sun, which for most people means a drawer rather than a bathroom windowsill. Heat and light degrade formulas faster than time does. Close the cap properly, because a half-open pump introduces air and dries the product from the top down.

If you have several bottles, keep them separate from your toys rather than in the same box. This is not about the lubricant harming the toys through packaging; it is that a leaking silicone bottle sitting against a silicone toy for six months is exactly the interaction you were trying to avoid.

Using more of it than you think

The most common usage mistake is being stingy. Lubricant is the cheapest thing in any drawer, particularly if you followed the format advice above, and using too little is what produces friction, discomfort and the impression that a product is not working. Reapply rather than pushing on: water-based formulas in particular are designed to be topped up, and a splash of water reactivates many of them without adding more product.

Cleaning up

Water-based washes off with water alone. Silicone needs soap. Oil needs soap and patience, and will mark fabric. That is the practical trade behind the base decision, and it is worth weighing when you choose: a product that lasts three times longer during use also takes three times longer to deal with afterwards.

Toys get washed the same way regardless of what you used on them: warm water, mild soap, dried properly. Nothing about lubricant changes that routine, with the exception of the silicone-on-silicone case, where the damage is already done by the time you get to the sink.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is pjur worth paying more for than Eros?

Sometimes, and the honest answer has to name what the money buys. It does not buy a safer or gentler product, and nothing in our data supports that reading. It buys a catalog organised around specific problems, with named lines for sensitive skin, for anal use and for a lighter feel, and ingredient lists on those lines that are unusually short. If one of those lines matches a problem you actually have, it is worth the difference. If you just want a good water-based lubricant, Eros does that for €13.75 per 100 ml against €20.95, and the difference is yours to keep.

Water-based or silicone-based?

Water-based unless you have a reason not to. It is compatible with every toy material and every condom, washes off with water, and covers the overwhelming majority of situations. Go silicone when you want it to last much longer, when you are in water, or when reapplying is impractical, and only if you are not using it with silicone toys. Both catalogs are majority water-based for exactly this reason: pjur declares 95 water products against 30 silicone, and Eros 104 against 46.

Will silicone lubricant really ruin my toy?

If the toy is silicone, yes, over time. The surface goes tacky and then degrades, and it is not reversible. It is the reason this guide keeps repeating one sentence: silicone toy, water-based lubricant. With glass, steel, ABS or skin, silicone lubricant is excellent and there is no interaction to worry about.

Is a hybrid safe with silicone toys?

We do not know, and neither does anything printed on the products we sell. A hybrid is water with silicone in it, and whether that matters depends on the proportion, which is not published. Eros sells 8 hybrids and pjur none. If you want certainty rather than probability with a silicone toy, buy water-based; the hybrid's advantage is real but it is not worth a maybe on something you paid a lot for.

Which one lasts longest without reapplying?

Silicone, by a wide margin, then hybrid, then water-based. That ordering is a property of the chemistry rather than of a brand, and it holds across both catalogs. Neither brand publishes a measured duration for any product, so anyone giving you minutes is inventing them, us included if we tried.

Are these safe to use with condoms?

Water-based and silicone-based are both compatible with latex condoms. Oil-based is not, and in our catalog that is 6 Eros products and zero pjur ones. Beyond the base, look for the compatibility line: pjur names it on 110 of 140 products and Eros on 141 of 218, with latex specifically on 36 and 79.

What about glycerin, is it bad?

We are not going to answer that, and the reason matters. Glycerin is a common humectant that appears in 33 of the 68 pjur ingredient lists we hold and 41 of Eros's 88. Some people prefer to avoid it and have their reasons; whether it is right for your body is a medical question, and a shop that answers it is selling you a formula, not informing you. What we can do is show you which products publish a list so you can decide with the label in front of you.

Is the flavoured or warming stuff any good?

They work as advertised and they are a poor first purchase. A warming or tingling formula is a stronger sensation than people expect and it does not suit every body or every day; a flavoured one is designed for a specific use and is usually thinner. Buy one as an addition once you have a plain bottle you trust, not as the only lubricant in the house.

Can I use the same bottle for anal?

You can, and a thicker or dedicated formula is usually more comfortable. Both brands make graded ranges for it, and the practical advice is duller than the marketing: buy more of it than you think, because the failure mode here is running out, and a small bottle is the wrong purchase for this use.

Does the big bottle really cost that much less?

Yes, and it is the most reliable saving in this category. Within a single product line and base, our catalog shows a typical gap of 1.8× at pjur and 2.6× at Eros between the cheapest and the dearest format, with individual cases far wider. The only reasons not to buy big are shelf life and not having tried the formula yet.

Why does this page not give me prices?

Because printed prices go stale and this guide is published across markets that do not pay in the same currency. The bands and the per-100 ml figures are recalculated from the live catalog every time the page is refreshed, which is why they can be trusted in a way a typed number cannot. Click through to any product for the current price.

Should I buy the brand or the specific product?

The product, and in this category more than in any other. The gap between two formats of the same product is bigger than the gap between the two brands, so a page like this one is useful for narrowing down base and format and almost useless as a loyalty decision. Work out what base you need, find a formula you like, buy it in the largest size you will finish, and let the logo be the last thing you look at.

Six to start with

One per price band and brand, picked from those in stock today that declare their base and their format, taking in each band the product that states most about itself and, among equals, the one that costs least per 100 ml. You will find the price on the product page: we do not print it here so this guide does not age badly.

The Verdict

Who each brand is for

Eros is for almost everybody buying lubricant as lubricant. It is the larger range at 218 products against 140, it is cheaper at the median by about 45% per 100 ml, it declares four bases where pjur declares two, and it goes further down at the entry end and further up in format size. If you want a good water-based bottle and you do not have a specific requirement, this is the default and the money saved is real.

pjur is for the buyer with a named problem. Sensitive skin, a preference for short ingredient lists, anal use, a formula that has to work in water, a partner who reacted badly to something before. Its catalog is organised around those cases rather than around formats, and when one of them is your case, the premium buys something you can point at.

Where each one wins

Eros wins on price per unit, and it is not close. €13.75 per 100 ml at the median against €20.95, a bottom of €3.00 against €6.19, and large formats that pjur does not match. On the only money question that survives scrutiny in this category, Eros wins clearly.

Eros wins on range of formula. Water, silicone, hybrid and oil against water and silicone. Two of those four are absent from pjur entirely, and a hybrid is a genuinely different product rather than a marketing variant.

pjur wins on declaring its base. 125 of 140 against 164 of 218: in proportion, the dearer brand is more consistent about publishing the one specification that decides compatibility. It is the row where paying more correlates with being told more, and it is the only one.

pjur wins on the specialised lines, which is a judgment rather than a count, so treat it as one. Its medical and woman-specific ranges are built around short ingredient lists and named use cases, and that structure is easier to shop when you have a problem to solve. Eros has excellent products in those categories too; what it does not have is the same organisation around them.

Neither wins on the toy question, and both should. 9 and 6 products mentioning silicone toys, in catalogs of 140 and 218, while selling 30 and 46 silicone-based products between them. That is the one place where the whole category, shops included, has been letting buyers work it out on their own.

Where to start

If you have no strong requirement, buy a small water-based Eros, use it, and if you like it buy the biggest format of that exact product. That sequence costs almost nothing to run and it ends with you paying the lowest unit price in this comparison for a formula you have already tested.

If you have a requirement, name it before you shop: silicone toys, sensitive skin, water, duration, anal. Each of those points at a base and a line, and once you have the base and the line, the choice between two brands is a much smaller decision than it looked at the start of this page.

And if you are buying a second bottle, make it a different base from the first. The two-bottle household, water-based for toys and silicone for skin, solves more situations than any single product either brand sells.

What this comparison cannot decide for you is the part that a table never reaches: how a formula feels on your skin, whether a scent bothers you, whether a texture you find perfect is one your partner finds sticky. Those answers arrive on the first evening you use the thing, not from a specification. Use this page to get the base right, the format right and the price right, which is genuinely most of the decision, and accept that the last part of it is yours to find out.

Written and maintained by Lova, Loviux's AI · reviewed by the team