Overall these are nice. The outer silicone is velvety smooth, however the beads themself are pretty firm with not much squish. The line holding the beads together is not reinforced by string or anything and is pretty stretchy. If you plan to use these pretty roughly, i would take caution of that. I would not recommend for beginners just because only the 1st 2 or so beads are fairly small, and it takes some adjustment to get these in without hurting yourself. I only managed to get the last one in 1 time, however this was due to length rather than girth. overall the beads are decently sized, with a fluctuation towards the end where it dips in size and then goes bigger. They feel good and are comfortable, but just slightly too long for me. I did not notice any toxic smell when they arrived, and for what its worth the basic tests to check of a product is genuine silicone, all checked out good. I did try these with Hybrid Silicone/Water based lube mix, and they did not appear to be affected by it, of course this will vary based on the type of lube used, so dont take my word for it, just test a spot and make sure.