Your Condom Assignment... Report Back With Your Results!

Attention all you condom users out there! I have a question for all of you... are your condoms making you sick? Yes, I am serious (or at least trying to be!). I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Let me digress... for the past few months, I have come to learn about and follow Sir Richard's Condom Company. What impresses me about this condom manufacturer is their transparency. Sir Richard's company makes it easily understood to any person concerned that their condoms are not only made from 100% natural latex, but that they are also free of parabens, glycerin, and spermicide. And... the cherry on to top, none of Sir Richard's Condoms contain casein (a dairy product).   Digressing even further, this condom company is very dear because in addition to manufacturing a socially and health conscious product, they have a special premise from which they operate their business:

• The Story Behind Sir Richard's Company

And this manufacturer makes good on its promise! In February 2012, Sir Richard's announced that they plan to make their first condom donation:

• 500,000 Reasons to Celebrate National Condom Week: Sir Richard's revealed their inaugural donation of 500,000 condoms to Haiti. To be relevant to Haiti, the company created the condom brand KORE (slang term that means as "I have your back.") and the condom's package is written in Haitian Creole.

This leads me to my current level of wonder. If this condom company is so open and honest about the materials they use, how does it stack up against the leading condom manufacturers? To my disappointment, the many condom companies I examined really let me down. This should be a wake-up call for you condom manufacturers. I can honestly say that even with a lot of web research and in-store box reading, I found it EXTREMELY difficult to figure out what was being added to these condoms...  sadly, other than being fairly able to ascertain whether the condom was latex,  polyurethane, or polyisoprene, the next bit of promising information I could find informed me that the condom boxes were made of 100% recyclable material. Environmentally conscious, perhaps, but tells me NOTHING about what chemicals are in my condoms!

So, my trusty condom friends... my advice to you is there is no easy way around finding out this information. Condom companies are very secretive, and it would probably be easier to dissect a frog than figure out exactly what materials or chemicals are parts of the condom making process. Given that some of these can cause health issues, you need to do some investigation of your own. If for no other reason, to make sure you aren't allergic to any of the ingredients or that they aren't compromising your health. I have done my research, so I am now issuing YOU ALL an ASSIGNMENT (ooooh!). Determine if you may be concerned over what can be lurking in your trusty condom. Then, find out exactly what ingredients were added (don't forget to look into the ingredients found in the lubricants that come pre-packaged with the condoms). See what YOU can find out and then report back to me the methods you used to obtain this information. With all of our powers, we WILL unravel the mysteries behind what exactly is being added to our dependable condoms. Good luck on your mission -- I await your responses...

To help you with your assignment:

• Wondering What Condoms Are Made Of?
• Concerned About How Companies Make Condoms? Share What You Found Out!

_{How Are Condoms Made Photo Courtesy of Luis Davilla/Getty Images}