Spring makes me into a flirt-monster. The season itself feels flirty – green grass and colorful flowers finally giving you a peek at them after hiding under snow all winter. The sun popping its head out from behind a cloud to say hello. It’s enough to make a girl want to send some truly ill-advised DMs.

And that’s usually what I did, in springs of yore. Hopped on Tinder and swiped for hours, assessing prospects. Flaunted my tattoos and cleavage on bar patios. Posted selfies galore with kiss-face emoji captions.

With several sex toy reviews on my docket at the moment, and my 11-year-anniversary of being a sex toy reviewer happening this month, I’m thinking a lot about the actual process of how I review toys. It has changed somewhat over the years, and I feel like I’m in a good place with it – I’m not always thrilled to turn masturbation into work or to risk ruining my own orgasms with bad toys, sure, but at least I know how to do those things well now!

Here are some notes on the process I use to review toys, from start to finish. A lot of this process is informed by the fact that I have a chronic illness and am tired/in pain all the time, plus I have many other obligations besides sex toy reviewing, so I can’t do what I used to do at age 19 and test + review a toy almost immediately after receiving it.