Kink Store Review: Kink.com's Own Shop, Bargain Leather and Fine Print

Read the end of the product title first. Kink Store sells its own gear, whose titles end in "by KINK" (218 of them on October 25), and partner brands, which ship straight from the partner in a separate box. Kink says it designs, manufactures, tests, ships and guarantees the house pieces itself, and that last word is the reason to care. If the title doesn't end in "by KINK," none of the store's three return promises covers it.

Made by Kink doesn't mean made in San Francisco, either. The listings name San Francisco for the wood and steel pieces (paddles, stocks, tie points, a bench, a stockade and a padded restraint board) and Bangladesh for the jute. Everything else, the leather included, names no country. The store also says every KINK-branded product "has been tried and tested," without saying by whom or how.

Outside the house line, the biggest brands are Master Series, Strict Leather and Lovense, with short runs of Womanizer, We-Vibe, Tenga, Sportsheets, Tantus and njoy. Nine menu collections are named after Kink.com's sites, a reminder of whose shop this is. The electro shelf (43 products) is real, and the violet wand kit rightly warns against use on anyone with a pacemaker or a heart condition, though most e-stim cables and probes don't say what they're made of.

Prices run from 99 cents for e-stim pads to $4,999 for a sold-out spanking bench, and half the catalog starts under $50. Nearly one listing in five shows a crossed-out compare-at price (121 of 656, close to what our price index found there two days earlier), so read the variant before you trust a sale badge. On the homepage, the jute kits showed "$130.00 $45.00" and a 35% sale tag, mixing the sold-out $45 kit with the $85 one you can buy.

The Secure line is about as plain as leather restraints get. Each one is a 2-inch strap of genuine leather, 0.13 inch thick, with no lining listed, adjusting in 3/8-inch steps and closing with a hasp that takes a padlock or a shackle. Kink says the design has served on its film sets for 30 years and that people call them training cuffs. The wrist pair is $33 and the ankle pair $37, and each comes with two stainless 3/16-inch shackles and two keyed-alike padlocks, with sets of 5, 7 and 10 pieces at $95, $150 and $250. The Secure wrist pair at $33 is the best-value leather in the store.

I'm usually the one in the cuffs, so the inside is the part I care about. For someone who likes to pull, the padded Signature cuffs ($42.97 for wrists, $49.97 for ankles) look like the kinder choice, with a suede lining and double-riveted 1-inch D-rings. Their hardware is nickel-plated, and plating wears through where stainless doesn't.

Warning

"Inescapable when locked" is how Kink sells the Secure line, and it's also the risk. Lock the cuffs if that's part of the fun, but keep a key within reach of whoever isn't cuffed (the locks are keyed alike, so any key opens every lock), and fit each cuff so two fingers slide under the strap. The link to the bed is what has to open fast. Use a panic snap there, which opens while someone is pulling on it. A carabiner under load often won't, and a shackle's pin is slow to undo in a hurry.

The collars split the same way. The $25 Elegant Premium Leather Collar has a padded suede lining and a half-inch O-ring, a fair price for lined leather, and the Signature ($44.99), Secure ($28) and Control Collar and Leash Set ($49) are genuine leather too. Collars are for wearing and leading, never an anchor point, so nothing should tie one to the bed or the wrists. That's why I'd skip the $75 Arched Back Ass Hook to Collar Kit, which runs a line from an anal hook to the collar and whose listing suggests adding it to a hogtie, a position our bondage for beginners guide tells new players to skip.

Then the PU. The Lockdown Arm Binder ($40) is "vegan leather (PU)," the store's own $85 Full Access Bedroom Spreader Bar is PU and metal, and the house gags, a head harness and the $69 Mindfuck Hood are PU too. PU is fine for finding out whether you like something, and it peels with time. At $85 you're paying leather money for it. Kink also calls the arm binder great for beginners, though it holds the shoulders pulled back for as long as it's on, a position to keep short while you learn.

A few listings just say "leather," like the $76 Gold Eclipse cuffs, both crops and the $45 Vampire Gloves. A few name no material at all, among them the individual Signature Line restraints and the $8 clover clamp, which is a later purchase anyway because clovers don't adjust. And "genuine leather" only promises real hide. It says nothing about the grade. If a listing doesn't say, email the store before you buy.

A two-pound oak paddle, an inch thick, cut in San Francisco. That's the large Crybaby Spanking Paddle, which comes in seven hardwoods from $60 for a small oak to $130 for a large walnut, padauk or purple heart. The small one is 12 inches by 3.25 and weighs 8 to 12 ounces. The large is 23 inches by 4.5, a heavy paddle for heavy players, and nobody should be learning their aim with it.

If I were buying a first paddle here, it would be the $34 Bad Kitty. It's genuine leather, 14 inches long, with a padded 6.5 by 3 inch face that's thuddy on one side and stingy on the other. Three inches is the width I'd want for learning, because a wide face spreads the impact and is hard to land in the wrong place. Your hand and a few minutes of warm-up come before any paddle, and the impact basics in our BDSM rankings cover where to aim.

The two floggers whose falls Kink measures both use quarter-inch falls, which lean toward sting. Kink rates the 22-inch suede falls of the $60 Wood Handle Flogger for intermediate and expert hands, and the 18-inch Close Quarters ($40) is short enough to control in a small room. The 27-ounce Big Black Flogger ($90) needs swinging room, its listing says. Whichever you pick, watch for wrap, when the tips curl around the side and land on a rib or a hip.

The rest is for later. The $20 riding crop is easy to use lightly and just as easy to overdo. The $24 rattan cane's safety note gets the basics right, down to keeping the cane to one partner because rattan can't be fully sanitized. Leather and suede can't be fully disinfected either, so floggers get the same rule. Canes are the advanced end of impact, and the $60 Tenderizer, a paddle with a spiked aluminum head, is for people who already know exactly where they're aiming.

"JBO not used" is what rope people look for first on a jute listing, and Kink's says it. JBO is the petroleum-based batching oil a lot of cheap jute is processed with, and it smells and irritates. Kink's 6 mm jute is $12 for 30 feet or $85 for a 300-foot coil, CRX-grade Bangla Tossa from Bangladesh, treated with soybean oil. The 6 mm hemp our rankings point beginners to, Twisted Monk's, is $49.99 for 30 feet, so twelve dollars is a damn good price for rope you'll practice with.

Kink says its jute is ready to tie out of the package, with no singeing or conditioning, and that's the claim I'd most want to feel for myself, since good jute is usually singed and conditioned before it's sold. The labels are honest in a way I didn't expect. The jute listing admits natural-fiber rope can't be load-tested for a guaranteed breaking strength, the cotton ropes say they aren't rated for suspension, and the $2 eyebolts, the pulley blocks, carabiners, quick links and anchor shackles all carry some version of "not rated for suspension or human load-bearing use." When a listing says it isn't rated for a person's weight, believe it.

Only the suspension rings carry a load rating. The $40 Deluxe Shibari Ring says 2,205 pounds, the $35 heart-shaped one 1,100, and the sold-out $22 Classic an 11,000-pound working load, on a listing that gives its diameter as 4.7 inches and 1.2 cm in the same line. None names a test standard or a certificate. A ring is only as strong as the beam, the bolt and the rigging above it anyway, and no listing can rate those for you.

That's why two listings bother me. The jute kits are sold as Jute Rope Bondage Suspension Kits, and even the basic one, the kit the listing points you to if you're starting out, comes with a suspension ring. It's sold out, so the kit you can buy is the $85 Rigger's Kit (eight 30-foot ropes, a Deluxe ring, EMT shears and a bag). The $75 Suspension Wrist Cuffs, with no load rating, say they're for you even if you're new to suspension. Hanging weight from the wrists is the classic way bondage leaves a hand numb, and suspension is learned in person from someone who teaches it.

On paper, the packaging is as discreet as it gets. Orders go out in plain brown boxes, manila envelopes or the courier's own boxes, with no Kink branding on the box or the label, and the sender shows as "RSV LLC" or "Red System Ventures LLC." Card charges carry the same name. Customs forms describe the contents discreetly, and the store says it won't send one blank or false.

US orders over $119 ship free, and the policy publishes no rates below that and no transit times. Orders placed after 1 pm on a weekday, or on a weekend or holiday, leave the next business day from a US warehouse, and partner brands ship from the partners, so a mixed cart can arrive in more than one box. International buyers pay the duties and get no refund if customs seizes the package.

Look at the cart before you pay. Route shipping insurance is ticked by default, at extra cost. Untick it and a lost package becomes your claim with the carrier, which I'd accept on a cheap order and think twice about on an expensive one. Either way, report a missing package within 90 days. Cancelling is free for 24 hours and costs a 25% restocking fee after that. Help is an email address and a contact form, with no phone number and no posted hours.

There are three return promises, and all three cover only KINK-branded gear. The 101-Day KINK Promise takes a house item back used or unused within 101 days, for store credit, one item per order, with no exchanges and with lube and gift cards excluded. The 60-day standard return refunds unopened, unused items. The 1-year warranty covers defects, items that arrive damaged and items that aren't as described, with a replacement or store credit. After that, Kink will still take an item back to dispose of it, with no refund.

"Used or unused" is the generous part. A lot of gear can't be judged until it's on a body, and 101 days of credit is a real safety net for it. Lovehoney's 100-Day Pleasure Guarantee works much the same way, one opened item per order paid back as a voucher.

The details are fiddly. The 60-day line on the policy page says "KINK branded or unbranded," while its own conditions and the Returns Center say KINK only. Partner brands go through a form that gives no written terms at all. The homepage promises "Free Returns," yet no policy page says who pays the return postage. Every return is at staff discretion, and the refund policy says the number per shipping address "may be limited."

The Better Business Bureau has no file under Kink Store. Its file for Cybernet Entertainment, the company Wikipedia lists behind Kink.com, is not rated and not accredited, was opened in 2009, shows no complaints in three years, and sits, for reasons I can't explain, under the category Cemetery. A Reddit search found no threads about the store, and nothing I found accuses it of anything beyond that one-star.

The homepage claims more than 100,000 customers and 500-plus five-star reviews, but its review widget loads by script and I couldn't read the count behind it. The press page links to a press-release blog that returns a 404, and the one outside article I found, in Our Culture Mag in June 2024, is bylined "Our Culture Mag & Partners" and reads as promotional. The terms of service still carry a template placeholder, and the privacy policy says personal information goes to third parties for advertising. None of that makes it a risky place to buy a pair of cuffs. Kink Store's reputation rests mostly on whose shop it is, because almost nobody independent has written about it.

Against Stockroom, the specialist, it comes down to lining and hardware. Stockroom's own leather is made by its team in Los Angeles. Its basic pair is $24 and needs a lock or a snap to close, and its sheepskin-lined, lockable pair is $44 with locks sold separately. Kink's Secure pair is $33 with shackles and padlocks in the box, but no lining is listed. For cuffs someone will pull against all night, I'd pay Stockroom's extra $11 for the lining. For a first leather set with the hardware included, or for rope, electro and impact gear in one cart, Kink.

With Sportsheets it's a question of timing. My first restraint kit was a Sportsheets set, and its Bed Bondage Restraint Kit ($41.99) and Under the Bed Restraint System ($73.99) are still where I'd send anyone who wants to find out about bondage without drilling anything or buying leather. Kink's cuffs come after, when you want something that holds while someone pulls against it.

For faux leather and a blindfold to find out what you like, Lovehoney is cheaper, with frequent sales, and Kink is where similar money starts buying real leather. For furniture, Liberator ships its bondage shapes to your door, while Kink's $1,999 Padded Restraint Board is pickup only, from an address the listing doesn't give, and its $3,499 stockade is a sold-out prototype.

Buy here if you want your first real leather restraints with the hardware included. The Secure wrist and ankle pairs come to $70 together, with four shackles and four padlocks, and the $25 lined collar goes with them.

It also suits anyone learning rope who wants enough jute to make mistakes with, since three 30-foot pieces cost $36, less than one 30-foot length of Twisted Monk's hemp. And it suits impact players who want a handmade hardwood paddle and already know their aim.

Look elsewhere if you're not sure bondage is for you yet (our beginner BDSM kit guide starts cheaper), if you want a cash refund on something you've opened, if you're buying a partner brand you might need to send back, or if you're shopping for suspension gear. Suspension starts with a teacher.