The Best PE Wipes

Many men suffer through the shame and frustration of premature ejaculation (PE). And many more men would like to last longer in bed, even if they don't meet a doctor's standards for PE diagnosis.1

A handful of products promise to extend a man's performance time in bed. One of those products is the premature ejaculation wipe. These single-use wipes are coated with a topical anesthetic that takes some of the feeling away from your penis for anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes. It's enough for you to feel much of the experience, but it will also delay your climax.

In this guide, we'll take a close look at different types of wipes and their pros and cons, helping you find out which brand is the right choice for you.

At Innerbody Research, we extensively test each health service we review, including a wide array of the top PE wipes. All told, our team has spent over 345 hours testing and researching premature ejaculation and the various products that seek to address it. That includes getting hands-on with the top products on the market and evaluating their effectiveness, ease of use, customer service, and more.

We tempered that personal testing experience with data from over 30 scientific journal articles pertaining to PE, benzocaine anesthesia, and treatment alternatives. Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this guide was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions to live healthier lifestyles.

To evaluate PE wipes, we took the logical first step, which was to order them and try them for ourselves. In rating their performance, we considered effectiveness, cost, ease of use, safety, and customer service. The products’ effectiveness had the most influence in our rankings, followed closely by cost and ease of use. Safety is an important benchmark, as well, but most of the major players in this space have nearly identical ingredients revolving around the topical anesthetic benzocaine. We still looked closely at benzocaine concentrations and inactive ingredients to highlight any meaningful differences among brands.

Effectiveness

Winner: Promescent

While most of these wipes use benzocaine as their primary numbing agent, the quality of the soaking solution changes from brand to brand.2 Our testers found that Promescent wipes not only created a superior numbing sensation to most, but they also lasted longer than their competitors.

The closest performer to Promescent was Hims, notably because Promescent manufactures Hims delay wipes. We’ll get into that a little more in their respective sections below, but that fact makes it difficult to quantify one brand’s effectiveness over the other. Other minor aspects of use that influence effectiveness helped put Promescent over the top here, including how the packaging is designed to make them easy to open.

Cost

Winner: Promescent

Whether you want to try a small number of wipes to see if they're right for you or make a larger investment, Promescent's price structure is more competitive than the other benzocaine-based brands. VigRX has bulk purchase levels that outperform Promescent's pricing, with wipes costing as little as $1.78 each compared to Promescent’s subscription discount price per wipe ($1.86). But VigRX wipes contain no clinical numbing agents, and you have to have a lot more capital ($106.95) to spend up-front if you want to bring down the cost per wipe.

Here’s a look at how the costs compare among the top delay wipe brands for one-time purchases. Some companies offer additional subscription savings:

Hims used to be the best choice for budget-conscious men looking for a benzocaine-based wipe, but that was before Promescent started offering a 30-pack. Previously, it only offered its wipes in a 5-pack or a 15-pack, and Hims’ price per wipe was slightly better.

Ease of use

Winner: Promescent

At first glance, these products seem like they’d all be easy to use, and, to some extent, that’s true. You tear the package open, use the wipe to apply the numbing solution to your intended area, and get back to intercourse. But not so fast…. Delay wipes have a few additional steps, and at each one, there’s an opportunity for one brand to outperform another. And in the heat of the moment, what seemed like minor details can matter a fair bit.

Let’s start with the packaging. If you’re engaged in foreplay and getting close to something more serious, you’ll need to stop to apply the wipe or incorporate the wipe procedure into your play (though this can be dangerous for especially sensitive men with severe PE). If that package is hard to open, things will slow down and get frustrating. Honestly, we didn’t think we’d have to cover this aspect of delay wipes when we first got our hands on them, but Roman’s wipes were so difficult to open that it became an area of concern. VigRX has the easiest packaging to open, with Promescent close behind.

Then, there’s the wipe itself. Its size and saturation will affect ease of use in a major way. If it’s too wet, as is the case with Promescent and Hims, you’re liable to get more of the numbing agent on your hands or drip it where you might not want it. All of these solutions are somewhat viscous, but none of them stain, in our experience.

As you can see, Hims and Promescent wipes are also on the small side, making them harder to handle. VigRX’s wipes have the opposite problem; they’re too big and too dry. It’s hard to know if you’ve transferred enough to your penis, and you’re going to get a lot on your hand. Roman Swipes are in the middle for both size and saturation, but, as we discussed, their packaging makes them hard to get to in a pinch.

When we took all of these factors and our personal testing experiences into account, Promescent came out ahead of Hims by a nose. The packaging is ever-so-slightly easier to open, and we found them to be somewhat less oversaturated compared to Hims.

Safety

Winner: Roman

For most people, delay wipes should be safe to use as instructed. Benzocaine allergies are relatively uncommon, and most contraindications for topical benzocaine are associated with temporary-use drugs like antibiotics (more on these risks in our dedicated safety section below). VigRX is the one product in our guide not to use benzocaine or any other topical anesthetic drug. It employs botanical ingredients instead. Still, the lack of research supporting their efficacy or detailing their safety prevents VigRX from winning out in this category.

In the end, the question of safety came down to the inactive ingredients and the concentration of benzocaine in the wipes. All three companies using benzocaine — Promescent, Hims, and Roman — employ propylene glycol as a main inactive ingredient. It’s a common ingredient in many cosmetics, but it’s also a known irritant, and its presence may result in irritation of the skin on your genitalia.3

Promescent and Hims use only propylene glycol as their sole inactive ingredient, whereas Roman uses ethyl alcohol and purified water. Roman’s benzocaine concentration is also 4%, compared with the 7% solutions in Hims and Promescent products. Those two facts make Roman Swipes less likely than the rest of the products in this guide to cause irritation or allergic contact dermatitis (unless you’re allergic to benzocaine).

Customer service

Winner: Hims

Good customer service is paramount in an industry that addresses sexual needs. Hims and Roman have the most advanced customer service systems, thanks largely to their networks of doctors and wide arrays of treatments. Either would make an excellent choice for anyone looking to address more than just PE — like erectile dysfunction, hair loss, or even mental health.

We give the edge to Hims here because its prices often beat out Roman’s for the most common supportive ingredients. Hims also offers two SSRI prescriptions for PE, whereas Roman only offers one.

Premature ejaculation occurs when a man persistently or recurrently climaxes before or soon after penetration, resulting in personal distress.4 In some cases, this orgasm can occur before a man is even fully erect. And the fact that some cases of PE are intertwined with erectile dysfunction only further complicates the diagnosis.5

By that definition, premature ejaculation can affect self-esteem, sexual desire, and even relationships. And those effects fit into a more comprehensive clinical diagnosis that more doctors are recognizing as awareness evolves.

PE wipes are like little moist towelettes, but instead of containing a mild cleaning agent to get barbeque sauce off your hands, they contain a mild numbing agent to desensitize your penis. Most work by applying a small amount of benzocaine — a local numbing agent. They aren't strong enough to numb your penis entirely. The idea is to reduce the intensity of sexual sensations, allowing you to enjoy sex but last longer at the same time.

But how does benzocaine actually desensitize you? Well, the body normally exchanges sodium and potassium ions on either side of a nerve cell. That creates a negative charge that travels through your body along voltage-gated ion channels the way electricity travels along a circuit.6 When that charge gets to your brain, it registers as a sensation. Benzocaine and most topical anesthetics disrupt the sodium's activity specifically.7 That reduction inhibits the ability for the signal to travel, but the effect is temporary; as the body breaks down the small amount of benzocaine present, your sodium gets back to work. And depending on the concentration and dose of the anesthetic applied, total numbness isn’t the only possible outcome.

The benzocaine in PE wipes is only strong enough to desensitize the penis — not to numb it completely — and to last for roughly 45 minutes. This can change depending on the concentration and quantity of numbing solution in a given wipe, but our testers found it to be roughly consistent.

Treatment for PE is something all men can seek, regardless of their sexual stamina, though we don’t recommend the prescription intervention route for men who last 15 minutes but would rather last 20. According to a 2017 study in The Journal of Urology that looked at benzocaine-based PE wipes, intravaginal ejaculation latency time or IELT (the span from penetration to climax) had a statistically significant increase from an average of 74 seconds to more than 300 seconds.8 That’s the difference between lasting around one minute and lasting five instead.

There are a lot of variables, including other erogenous zones on the body and complex psychological factors, but the placebo arm of the study only increased its IELT by around 10 seconds.9 There is a clear benefit to using the wipes, and if you feel like you and your partner would benefit from extended intercourse, then they might be a good choice for you.

These premature ejaculation wipes offer a subtle numbing sensation that can last up to an hour. However, just because these wipes can last that long doesn't mean they'll keep you from climaxing for that long. You'll still have a lot of sensation, and all of the psychological aspects of orgasm will be present.

Who should look elsewhere for PE treatment?

Most delay wipes rely on the topical anesthetic benzocaine to desensitize the penis, so the most obvious group of men who should avoid them are those with benzocaine allergies or allergies to similar anesthetics.10 Men who regularly take nitrates and certain other medications could also be at a higher risk of developing a dangerous condition called methemoglobinemia, which we’ll detail in the following section.13

Fortunately, there are alternatives to wipes, including lidocaine-based sprays for those with benzocaine allergies. There are also physical exercises, prescription medications, and other means by which you can address your PE.

Premature ejaculation wipes should be safe for most users. A tiny percentage of the population suffers from a benzocaine allergy.10 If you know you have a benzocaine allergy, you should avoid PE wipes that contain it. Benzocaine is in a class of numbing agents called esters. If you have an allergy to any of the following, you may be allergic to benzocaine:11

• Benzocaine
• Chloroprocaine
• Proparacaine
• Tetracaine
• Procaine
• Cocaine

Lidocaine may be a suitable alternative for you because it belongs to another group of anesthetics called amides. But there’s an equally extensive list of other amides to which you may be allergic, and that would disqualify you from lidocaine use, as well:11

• Lidocaine
• Bupivacaine
• Ropivacaine
• Septocaine
• Carbocaine
• Prilocaine

If you aren’t sure whether you’re allergic to either group, we recommend that you avoid applying topical anesthesia of any kind to your genitalia without first testing another part of the body. The forearm is a common location for allergy testing due to its relative sensitivity and the fact that a localized reaction there shouldn’t hinder your typical daily activities. Testing a small patch of skin here is a wise idea before risking a reaction on your penis.

PE wipes and methemoglobinemia

Topical anesthetics such as lidocaine and benzocaine are contraindicated with various drugs to increase your likelihood of developing methemoglobinemia. Methemoglobinemia is a blood disorder in which your red blood cells lose their ability to carry oxygen.12 Since your tissues need oxygen to survive, this can become a fatal condition.

Incidents of methemoglobinemia associated with topical anesthetic use are more prevalent with benzocaine than with lidocaine, but neither is a safe choice if you take any of the following medications or similar drugs in these classes:13

• Antimalarials: primaquine or chloroquine
• Antineoplastic agents: cyclophosphamide or flutamide
• Antibiotics: sulfonamides, dapsone or nitrofurantoin
• Antianginal agents: nitroglycerin or nitrates
• Antihypertensives: sodium nitroprusside
• Anti-inflammatory/analgesics: acetaminophen, celecoxib, sulfasalazine, or phenazopyridine
• Other agents: rasburicase, zopiclone, or metoclopramide

While some of these drugs are often taken daily, such as nitrates, others are more commonly used as needed. For drugs like acetaminophen or antibiotics, you can avoid using PE wipes until the drugs are out of your system. Otherwise, we encourage you to seek alternative treatments for your PE.

Best overall, best budget pick, and longest duration

Promescent was the first company to introduce a delay spray that utilized an oil-aqueous lidocaine solution that could effectively absorb without leaving much residue behind. Its success has spurred countless other companies in the development of similar sprays. In our guide to the best delay sprays, Promescent is consistently our top pick.

While its delay spray relies on lidocaine, Promescent's wipes use benzocaine as a primary numbing agent. There is only one other ingredient listed in the inactive section of the drug facts, and that’s propylene glycol. The wipes themselves are 100% cotton. Promescent manufactures the wipes that Hims sells, and they are identical to these except for packaging and price, where Promescent serves you better at this time.

Here's how its PE wipes are priced:

That $1.86/wipe price point is the lowest among benzocaine-based wipes. VigRX’s wipes (which lack any known topical anesthetic) can cost as little as $1.78/wipe if you’re willing to spend over $100 investing in 60 wipes per purchase. Given the superior efficacy our testers found in Promescent’s wipes and the minuscule $0.08 difference per wipe, we still highly recommend Promescent over VigRX for budget-conscious men.

Promescent offers a variety of bundles that combine products from several of these categories. This is a great way to save if you're interested in multiple items. Promescent Delay Wipes are part of a bundle called “The All Nighter”, which includes delay spray and wipes, as well as one of two available female arousal gels. The price starts at $55.31 and increases as you increase the number of sprays or wipes included. There are currently no bundles with wipes that are suitable for couples that don’t involve a woman.

Promescent also offers a litany of other sexual health and pleasure products, including:

• Delay spray
• Sex toys
• Lubricants
• Massage oils
• Condoms
• Arousal gel
• Cleaning products

Promescent is beginning to branch out even further, offering treatments for erectile dysfunction with one of the lowest prices for daily tadalafil that we’ve seen. At this time, we can’t recommend it over Hims or Roman for this kind of support, but only because its offering is so new. As we have more time to test and evaluate these services against the well-established offerings from competitors, we’ll revisit this content.

Promescent accepts payment from all major credit cards and PayPal. Shipping on orders over $20 is free and discreet. Your package will not contain any text or graphics that give away what's inside.

To further explore Promescent's offerings, you can read our complete review.

Best for PE and ED support

Hims is a comprehensive men's health service that offers everything from primary care to therapy. It has the widest assortment of PE treatments available, thanks to its inclusion of two prescription SSRIs. Its doctors can also prescribe ED medications in the treatment of PE, but this is typically reserved for cases where other treatments have failed or when there is a confluence of both disorders in a single patient. You'll have to have a telemedicine consultation with one of its doctors to receive a prescription, but the consultation is free.

Like Promescent, Hims Delay Wipes use benzocaine as a numbing agent. The concentration (7%) is the same as Promescent’s, as are the other ingredients (just propylene glycol). Even the wipes themselves look similar and are, likewise, made from 100% cotton. That’s all more than just a coincidence; Promescent actually manufactures Hims delay wipes. Our research team confirmed this in interviews with multiple company representatives. And their performance was identical in testing.

Where Hims falls behind Promescent for wipes is in its pricing. Hims doesn't do a good job listing wipe prices on its site. You'll see a $19 starter pack listed without any indication as to how many wipes come in it (it’s three wipes, for the record). There’s also a $21.67 "3-month plan," again with no real quantity listed. That 3-month plan is actually just two 12-packs, and Hims charges you the total amount ($65) when you select it, with recurrent quarterly billing and shipping. There is no one-time purchase option for the three-month supply, though canceling your subscription is easy and penalty-free.

Here's an easy way to understand Hims' wipe pricing:

While Hims orders ship for free, each one has a $5 processing fee. No other company in this guide charges such a fee.

Hims provides a litany of additional healthcare services in the following categories:

• Sexual health, including PE and ED treatments
• Hair loss, including prescription pills and both prescription and non-prescription topical treatments
• Primary care, including general wellness and allergy support
• Mental health, including psychiatry and group therapy
• Skincare, including anti-aging and acne treatments
• Supplements for things like hair health and sleep

Hims has also recently added several sexual wellness products to its lineup that are reminiscent of what Promescent has offered for several years. These include sex toys, condoms, lubricant, and more. Roman has an extremely similar telehealth infrastructure but has yet to expand its lineup to include things like sex toys or other practical tools for sexual pleasure.

You can read more about Hims and its wide variety of offerings in our comprehensive review.

Best for sensitive skin

Roman is similar to Hims in that it offers a wide range of healthcare services. It has a few advantages over Hims as well (for instance, its support for weight management and testosterone levels). Roman used to place some of these services under the umbrella of its parent company, Ro, but the brands have since effectively merged, with Ro offering everything that Roman had and more. This can sometimes cause a little confusion, but most processes are pretty straightforward.

Roman was one of the first companies in this space to offer wipes for premature ejaculation, while everyone else was focused on sprays. Roman Swipes contain a 4% benzocaine solution, which is 3% less than Hims or Promescent. In testing, we found the difference in strength to be noticeable but not too significant. For some men, 4% will provide too slight an effect to make a meaningful difference in their ejaculation latency. For others, especially those who find the numbing sensation from Hims or Promescent to be too intense, it might provide just the right amount of desensitization.

That 4% solution is one of the reasons we consider Roman the best choice among wipes for men with sensitive skin. A weaker solution is less likely to cause a reaction — though it’s still enough to cause one if you’re allergic to benzocaine. But Roman’s inactive ingredients are slightly superior to its competitors, as well. While Hims and Promescent use only propylene glycol alongside their benzocaine, Roman employs ethyl alcohol, propylene glycol, and purified water. That results in a lower concentration of propylene glycol, which we discuss as a known irritant above.

However, Roman does not offer a spray at this time, so anyone with a benzocaine allergy will have to look to another brand to access a lidocaine-based alternative.

One of the most aggravating parts of Roman Swipes is that the packaging of individual wipes is very difficult to open. If you’re in the throes of passion and need to get to a wipe relatively quickly, the struggle may upset the mood. There are three spots on a Roman Swipe’s packet that look as though they could be perforations intended to make opening the packet easier. Only one of these three actually works, and it’s the one in the strangest place.

Here’s where to find the perforation on Roman Swipes to open the package with greater ease:

Even armed with this knowledge, you might have a harder time than you would with VigRX or Promescent, whose packaging is much easier to open.

Unfortunately, Roman's prices are the highest among its peers. The products are also subscription-only, so there's no opportunity to cut the cost further. Here's how they break down:

Roman’s other services include:

• Sexual health, including PE, ED, and prostate health support
• Hair and skincare, including hair loss treatments and products for eczema, aging, and excessive sweating
• Weight management, including popular medications like Ozempic
• Mental health, including stress relief and help to quit smoking
• Testosterone support, including a testosterone test, a supplement, and prescription medications
• Allergies

Roman’s return policy is both strict and vague. The site claims that all sales are final but also that the company wants to work with you if you’re unsatisfied. The deeper information in the company’s terms and conditions reiterates this with no additional detail.

You can learn more about Roman by reading our complete review.

Easiest packaging to open and best for those with a benzocaine allergy

VigRX sells several products, many of which are geared toward male enhancement. It has a delay spray in addition to its PE wipes. That spray uses benzocaine, but the wipes do not. That certainly makes them a viable option for anyone with a benzocaine allergy or those who want to start by trying something with ingredients rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and not modern Western practice.

VigRX Delay Wipes rely on two active ingredients:

VigRX offers its PE wipes in 1-, 2-, 3-, and 6-month supplies, with ten wipes in a month's pack. Here's how the pricing breaks down:

That $1.78/wipe price point is the lowest of any wipe on this list, beating out the next best deal from Promescent by $0.08. However, it’s important to remember that VigRX’s wipes do not contain any benzocaine, and you need to spend over $100 on a 6-month supply to get that cost per wipe to come down.

Shipping from VigRX is only free with the 6-month supply. Any orders smaller than that will cost $8.99 to ship (up from $5.99 a little over a year ago). There are two expedited shipping options, as well:

• FedEx 2-3-day: $14.99
• FedEx overnight: $36.99

Using a PE wipe is pretty simple, but there are some precautions you should keep in mind for you to have the most pleasurable experience.

Here's a step-by-step process:

1. Open a single PE wipe. They come individually packed.
2. Run the wipe across the underside of the head of your penis. You can apply excess moisture in the wipe to your shaft if you desire, but this is not necessary and may cause more numbing than you want.
3. Wait 10-15 minutes for the solution to absorb.
4. Clean off any excess numbing solution. You do not want to transfer this to your partner.
5. Wash off the product after intercourse.

After following these steps, you can have intercourse as you normally would. The numbing sensation should last for 30-60 minutes, depending on the brand and your sensitivity to it.

People make common mistakes when learning how to use PE products. Avoid these, and you should be on your way to a pleasurable, extended experience.

There are a few viable alternatives to PE wipes if you find they don't work for you. You can find many of these solutions from the companies we've already highlighted in this guide, like Promescent, Hims, and Roman.

Sprays

Delay sprays are extremely effective. Many use lidocaine instead of benzocaine. Lidocaine has a higher potency and a lower incidence of adverse reactions than benzocaine.10 Many people prefer wipes if they find them effective, as individually packaged wipes are much easier to slip into your pocket than even the smallest delay spray bottles.

Promescent, our preferred provider for PE wipes, also makes our favorite delay spray. We have an extensive guide to delay sprays if you want more information.

Prescriptions

While no pill has been designed to treat premature ejaculation, two common medicines appear to be useful in tackling it off-label. Doctors can prescribe these to you if you're willing to risk their adverse effects. Both are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — paroxetine and sertraline. SSRIs are reliable antidepressants, but some have been shown to offset climax in patients.

Side effects of paroxetine include:17

• Sleep disturbances
• Muscle soreness
• Palpitations
• Nausea
• Flushing

Side effects of sertraline include:18

• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting
• Dry mouth
• Headache
• Insomnia
• Heartburn

With side effect profiles like these, we consider prescription antidepressants for PE to be the last resort. If you have reason to believe that you could benefit from antidepressants, they might be a way to kill two birds with one stone. But you should speak with your doctor or one of the physicians through Hims or Roman before seeking a prescription.

Some urologists will prescribe ED medications to treat PE, as there is evidence that the two can be interlinked and that ED medications can treat both. But if you don’t have erectile performance issues, it likely isn’t worth the potential side effects — particularly cardiovascular ones — to take ED medications.19 If ED and PE are concurrent issues, urologists will tend to focus treatment on the ED first. If your PE abates, then it’s a double victory. If not, you can pursue further actions with your doctor’s advice.

Kegel exercises

Exercises designed to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles are commonly called Kegels. Some men may have heard of them only in the context of women attempting to regain vaginal tightness after childbirth, but the exercises and the muscles they work are far more beneficial than that.

Pelvic floor exercises have been shown to increase ejaculation latency when used alongside other therapies, leading men in one 6-month study to regain control over climax and nearly quadruple their performance time.20 There is also significant evidence that they can help with various forms of incontinence, from stress urinary incontinence resulting after prostate surgery to the more common post-void dribbling that affects around 1-in-10 men.21

If you’ve ever had to stop urinating mid-stream, you know how to do a Kegel exercise; it’s the same muscle contraction. You’ll want to relax other muscles in the area and focus on the sensation of that contraction. Hold the contraction for 3-5 seconds, release, and repeat. Try to fit in three sets of 10 about 12-15 times daily.