About Us

Our Origins

We started in this business in 1997 because well I know it doesn't sound very business-y but we wanted to do something different. We knew nothing about the industry and couldn't tell a Butt Plug from a Spark Plug. We opened a shop in a large rural town in Ireland called Kilkenny and as you can imagine were welcomed with opened arms. Well no not really it was a struggle and there was an awful lot to learn in this business if you want to get on.

Our driving mantra even from these humble beginnings was "We could do better". At the time sex shops were seedy backstreet dives populated by unsavory types, but we knew there was a demand for our products from middle Ireland. But middle Ireland was never going to go to a sex shop in the mid-nineties. So we re-invented the sex shop with an emphasis on style and fun. We also treated the customers with respect and everyone was welcomed by friendly staff which kinda sounds obvious but was unique in sex shops in Ireland.

We honestly agree with the "Customer is always right" cliché. We pride ourselves on how we treat our customers because growing up in a small market our customer base was small so it was repeat business or die.

We made a few abortive attempts to reproduce our business methods on the web but were either too early or didn't really have the expertise to succeed, we were never quite happy with the efforts. We were actually early to the whole internet game opening our first web store back in 2000. We felt it had a small town small shop feel to it though and we didn't have any real IT expertise on board so it kind of limped along.

Start of PlayBlue

We decided to rebuild and do it right this time. We teamed up with an IT company and formed PlayBlue. With our years of connections and dealings in this industry we had all the industry knowledge and our IT partners had the skills to move our philosophy to the web. We really do want to do better because we think the seedy backstreet image still follows much of the online adult boutiques to the web. We are proud of our products and we want you to shop with us in comfort.

Well suffice to say it has succeeded we are now the biggest online Irish sex shop and are growing at a rapid rate. Mainly because we make things super simple our products are very fairly priced we are always available to talk to and we love what we do and it shows.

Scandalous as part of PlayBlue

Mid 2012 PlayBlue wanted to show off what we were doing and give customers somewhere where they could come and visit so we bought Scandalous Sex Shop in Kilkenny and re-branded it as our first PlayBlue store. It was our testing ground and where we built our business, unfortunately it was always a little too small to satisfy our growing warehouse requirements so in March 2018 we opened PlayBlue Tallaght Dublin with loads of space to grow.

We then just pre-Covid (perfect timing) opened in Cork in December 2019 after being pestered for years to open in the "real" capital. 

Unfortunately our Kilkenny store closed in March 2022 as the local population couldn't sustain a purely retail sex shop and with the pandemic driven move to online purchasing. Then the push to online orders continued and in August 2024 we made the tough decision to close the Cork store and focus on Tallaght and our website.

What makes us Better?

We are different to other adult stores because our upbringing in the industry has driven home to us that the Customer is boss, without repeat custom we're toast.

We're also not jumping on the bandwagon, we know the adult toys we sell we know the business and we know what the customers want, we are in this for the long haul. We want to build a business that will become the de-facto place to sex shop in Ireland.

We are fanatical about giving you the best service, products and prices possible. We really do mean it when we ask you to contact us with any questions or problems, because that gives us the chance to make a connection with you and to prove our integrity and bona-fides.

Welcome to PlayBlue and please enjoy shopping with us and if you want to talk to us please do.

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