Twisted Monk Bondage Rope Review

Oh man. You guys don’t even know how long I’ve been waiting to get my hands on some of Twisted Monk’s bondage rope. I’ve been so curious, for so long!  So for this post, I’m reviewing it and sharing all that information with you guys, so you know what you’ll get when you buy it yourself.

As per my last post, I had sent away for some new rope to celebrate Blue’s success in getting back control of her health (so damn proud of her!).

It was the best excuse ever to finally invest in some Twisted Monk hemp and really explore hemp properly… so I made the investment, paid for it with my own monies, and soon enough, I had a carefully chosen kit on the way!

My Twisted Monk Bondage Rope Review

First off, here is my unboxing video, showing you exactly what I found when the rope arrived. For those who don’t care about opening boxes and seeing what’s inside, there’s a text review beneath it!

I feel like this video shows my excitement extremely well!

Honestly, I was kind of blown away by all the free extras. I ordered the rope kit as a normal customer, and seriously, I was just expecting to receive a nice package of rope. That’s normally what happens when I order rope from overseas.

But no – Twisted Monk had gone the extra mile and really delivered above and beyond my expectations. He’d clearly put quite a bit of thought into what people are going to need along with their rope;

• rope shears
• instructions on how to care and maintain your rope
• even written information for both rope tops and rope bottoms

(Looking back at the sales page, I should have spotted the rope shears in the picture, but hey – I was mostly focused on the rope!)

Now, there’s a lot of additional notes that are better captured outside of a video, so I’ve gone and typed them up for you all to read below.

Delivery

First off, delivery time was surprisingly fast. I’m an international customer, and realistically, I would have expected the package to take at least a couple of weeks.

The package arrived in seven days.  

Seven days! That’s really freaking fast. I actually thought it might have been a package of gymnastic chalk that I’d ordered elsewhere about three weeks back, finally arriving – it wasn’t until I saw that the package had come from Seattle that I clicked.

There was literally nothing to indicate that this was a rope package. It was extremely discreet, and I was totally fooled. Why is this important?

Because it’s a big deal if you’re ordering rope and you don’t want your flatmates or family to know. Discretion is highly, highly valued.

The Twisted Monk Midori Essentials Kit

The kit itself is comprised of

• Four lengths of long 6mm bondage rope, suitable for creating harnesses and leg ties or whatever else your twisted and creative mind comes up with.
• Four lengths of short 6 mm bondage rope, very suitable for doing spread eagle ties on wrists and ankles, or tying wrists and ankles together – also very good for finishing off a harness without having to add another huge long length. That’s a pain because you then have to figure out what to do with the extra rope. Short lengths are a wonderful thing.
• A single length of 4 mm bondage rope. This is very useful for tying fiddly bits like your male partner’s equipment or, in my case, tying my partner’s hair. Thin rope is a godsend for this sort of thing.

Thinking about it, this is a very well thought out kit. You could throw this in a bag and use it in pretty much any bed or floor based scene with a single partner (tying two people at once is rather awkward anyway). There’s enough for a harness and some supplementary ties (two column ties on the legs, wrists, etc) so that with only a little bit of thought, you can do pretty much any bondage scene.  I anticipate being able to use it frequently and often.

Quality of Dye

This was something I really wasn’t sure about. I’ve never heard of any problems with Twisted Monk’s dyed bondage rope, but when I dyed my own rope, the first few times I tied with it I had some dye come off on my hands. So I thought hey, I should really check that.

Seriously, no issues. I ran that rope back and forth through my hand repeatedly and hard, and had absolutely no stain on my skin. The color itself is really nice; I would describe it as a kind of “Ocean blue” which is to say blue with some slight green undertones. I’m thinking about a “mermaid” photoshoot now…

The Rope Itself

And finally, the best for last.

I’ve been wanting to explore hemp properly for awhile. If you look back on my “What Kind of Rope Is Best For Bondage” post, you’ll note that I had gotten my hands on some in the past – but it had been pretty poor quality, and had shed fibers like a motherfucker. It wasn’t my favorite. So I was looking forward to getting some of Twisted Monk’s stuff and checking it out, because hey; he’s the most recommended hemp supplier in the US that I know of. It made sense that he’d produce some pretty decent, professional grade stuff, and I’d finally get to know what GOOD hemp feels like.

This nice looking hemp rope arrived pre-dyed and pre-conditioned, which is new for me – I usually get the raw stuff and condition it myself in order to lower costs. That said, whatever Monk’s done with this stuff, it is much, much nicer than the previous hemp I’ve touched.

Having done a few practice ties on myself so far, I note that there’s still a tiny dusting of fibers on my clothes here and there, but it’s about the same as I would expect to get with any rope, including jute; much improved over the previous hemp I’ve used in the past.

The 6mm is a perfect diameter for tying; It’s got that nice balance between sturdiness and being fun to tie with, meaning it’s easy to do smooth, dextrous feeling rope handling,  with relatively compact knots.

Interestingly, Twisted Monk’s hemp has that nice weight you get with well conditioned rope, (it makes quite an enjoyable sounding “thump” on the floor as you tie) and is also quite soft on the hands and skin. So it feels solid, with that authoritative weight – but also quite smooth, with no harshness on the skin.

There IS a slight chemical smell – on the other hand, it’s also newly dyed rope. I kinda feel like I’d have to be a bit of an idiot to complain about that – you ask for dyed rope, as a consequence, it’s freshly dyed to order, and smells like it. So you get what you ask for. I do expect that smell to fade over time and bondage scenes, so I’m not concerned.

And finally, the whipping that keeps it from unravelling. Pretty impressed by this. It’s very neat and tied very tightly, with a black (possibly nylon?) thread which looks like nothing is going to bring it off.  Very professionally done.

Summary:

So overall, I’m very pleased with the kit that I got. I did put a bit of thought into it; after all, I wanted a good balance between cost, and having enough of a matched set that I can do complete scenes and photoshoots if I feel like it, without having to add in bits of rope of a different color. That would look a bit tacky, after all.

I could have gotten any of a bunch of different colors; I could even have gotten some more exotic rope; but this is what I was after at this point, because hells bells, I’ve been curious about this stuff forever!

At this point, because I’m good to the rope that I use and take care of it, I would expect this kit to last somewhere between 4-8 years at least; possibly even 10+ years if I never use it for suspension.

So that’s about $200 dollars + shipping  for several years worth of pre-conditioned bondage rope, along with additional tutorials and safety gear. Basically, everything I need for several years of hot, intimate bondage fun, and I didn’t have to spend hours conditioning it myself.

Ahem – I just had a thought, which should probably be a separate post, on cost of rope bondage dates vs movie dates. I am now incredibly smug. 

I was also really impressed with Twisted Monk’s customer service. It’s pretty clear he’s put a lot of thought into the needs of his customers, and that has made for a really good experience when I ordered rope from him. I also really like the actual quality of the rope itself, and the experience I’ve had tying with it so far. If I ever need more hemp, I know where I’m ordering from.

And yes – you are going to see plenty of pictures of Blue all tied up in my new rope in the future 😀