Sexual wellness product photography with AI for condoms, lube and massagers

Let the box lead

In most categories the product is the star and the packaging is a supporting shot. Here it often runs the other way. The test notes above make the point: the massager was declined as a bare close-up and accepted in its gift box. Packaging tells the image model and the shopper alike that this is a retail product.

So plan the set around the box. A front-on white-background image of the closed box as the main image, the box opened with the product in its tray, then the product beside the box. For condoms, the box with a couple of foil wrappers in front of it, as in the first example here, shows the format without showing anything more. The short motion clip on this page was made from that still, and a slow drift across the box is all the movement this category needs.

Discreet is a look you can choose

Shoppers in this category are often buying something they’d rather not explain to a flatmate, and the images can respect that. Muted colours, stone, linen and frosted glass, a bathroom shelf, a bedside table with a book and a lamp: the product looks like it belongs in a well-kept home, and nothing in the frame needs explaining.

If you ship in plain packaging, show it. A photo of the unmarked shipping box, closed and then open with the product inside, answers a question many buyers have and few will ask. It also makes a calm, product-only image for an email header.

A condom and lube listing, image by image

Say you sell a 12-pack of condoms and a 100 ml water-based lubricant with a pump. For the condoms: a white-background image of the box front, the side panel with size and material, a stone-surface shot with two foil wrappers, and a bathroom-cabinet scene. For the lube: a white-background image of the bottle, a close-up of the pump and label, the bottle on a bathroom shelf like the example here, and the bottle beside the condom box as a bundle.

Check the label on every image. Material, size, count and ingredient lines are what a buyer reads before choosing, and they are printed small. A box that says 10 when you sell 12, or a lubricant that turns silicone-based in the small print, is a product error however good the picture looks.

Bundles deserve their own main image. If you sell the condoms and lube together, photograph the bundle as it actually ships and generate from that photo, rather than combining two separate product photos in one prompt. It is the only way to be sure the counts and sizes in the picture match the order. Certification marks and regulatory symbols on the pack are too small to trust to a generated image, so keep a real photo of that panel as well.

Massagers need context more than detail

Massagers are where you are most likely to meet a declined image, judging by our test. Give the image model a retail context from the start: the product in or beside its box, on a bedside table, on a bathroom shelf, with its charging cable. These read as product photos. A tight, isolated close-up of the shape can read as something else.

Matte silicone is easy to photograph badly. Shoot in soft daylight so the surface reads as soft-touch rather than shiny plastic, and make sure the buttons and charging port are visible if buyers ask about them. Name the colour exactly, too: dusty pink and mauve sit close together, and a buyer who gets the wrong one sends it back.

People, bodies and anything that suggests use

No people, no bodies, no hands holding a massager, nothing that suggests use. Blurbly doesn’t make nude or sexual images, and on Meta and TikTok only condoms and lube framed around health can be advertised to adults, so massager photos are for your own store, email and the marketplaces that list them.