A California man who always disliked traditional condoms made it his mission to build a better, sexier prophylactic — and is now selling his improved pregnancy protection for $25 a pop.
Southern California resident Charlie Powell spent five years on his 'Galactic Cap', which is designed to ensure more skin-to-skin contact and promises more pleasure for men.
The innovative new design, which has been called the 'just the tip' condom according to Racked, seems to have found it's market — since it's already sold out due to 'overwhelming demand'.
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Miracle? The Galactic Cap condom promises to prevent pregnancy and also offer more pleasure
Just the tip: The cap sticks to the top of the penis, allowing for more skin-to-skin contact
Old-school? The Galactic Cap's inventor said he never liked condoms, and thinks more men would wear them if they didn't cover the whole penis
'The Galactic Cap is a condom men will want to wear and their partners will love.
'A better alternative, it will increase condom use and promote healthier sex,' Charlie wrote of his design.
According to Mel magazine, the former video producer first started thinking about improving condoms back in the '80s, when a friend contracted HIV from having unprotected sex.
The main problem, as he sees it, isn't a condom's effectiveness — it's the fact that so many men don't want to wear them at all, including Charlie himself.
'I don’t like them, and I never even used one until I was 33,' he said.
Charlie felt that there was a real need for something that can prevent pregnancy — as well as any diseases carried by bodily fluids — but also offers more skin-to-skin contact, as an alternative to a traditional condom.
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The innovator: Charlie Powell (center), spent five years on the design, starting out with a cap-like prototype that raised $100,000 before fine-tuning the design
Where it goes: The cap is made of a two-ply material that has a hole on one side, allowing for it to trap semen
The sticky stuff: A backing needs to be peeled off so the cap can be stuck to the penis
So he got to work designing the first version of the Galactic cap, which looked like the tip of a traditional condom. It was meant to hold tight to the head of the penis with adhesive.
The idea was so appealing that he managed to raise $100,000 for it in a 2014 campaign on the fundraising site Indiegogo, which funded more research. The research, though, found that the design didn't work as well as it could have — so he started tinkering with it.
'I got my handyman, who was working around my house, and we sat down with a dildo and we made this thing,' he said.
The new, updated design — which is sold out but still available to order — is made from two-ply medical-grade polyurethane. It's shaped sort of like an asymmetrical Band-Aid, with adhesive on one side that sticks to the penis. It mostly adheres to the head, and leaves the coronal ridge and shaft exposed.
How it works: The hole at the top aligns with the hole in the penis to stop semen from going into the man's partner's body
It's not a catch-all: Because most of the skin is uncovered, though, it won't prevent some STDs, like herpes, syphilis, or HPV
Putting it on is a little different, too. Instead of taking it out of plastic and rolling it over the penis, like one would with a traditional condom, users need to peel off a disposable white backing to reveal an adhesive-coated polyurethane film, which is then places on the erect penis.
A 'hole' or 'window' at the top of the Galactic Cap is aligned the hole in penis, and the longer end of the Band-Aid design is then flattened to stick the the top of the shaft, while the 'wings' are flattened down on top.
A reservoir around the hole — which is only in one layer of the two-layer design — is designed to trap semen.
Charlie points out that the cap should only be used when the wearer has healthy skin — so no visible STD symptoms, like sores or a rash. The cap protects against transmitting semen, which can prevent pregnancy and any STDs that are in bodily fluids — but it doesn't create a barrier for spreading things like herpes, genital warts, HPV, or syphilis.
The inventor said he wished he'd called it a Galactic Prophylactic, or something equally snazzy
The caps are available for $25 a piece on the company's website but cost less when bought in multiples
It's also not FDA-approved, and shouldn't be used with lube, which can mess with the adhesive.
'It’s really a condom for couples,' Charlie said.
Couples who have cash to spend, in particular. A single Galactic Cap, which can only be used once, is now selling for $25 on the company's website, though caps bought in multiples cost lest.
Still, Charlie thinks the steeply-priced pregnancy preventers are 'the future', and only regrets not calling them Galactic Prophylactics.
'When I was making the Indiegogo video, I went to the dictionary and I came up with galactic, because it was pleasure that was out of this world, and then it was kind of capping the head of the penis,' he told Mel. 'But it needs a little more sizzle.'
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