Okay, so everyone’s whisperin’ about makin’ their own artificial… well, you get the picture. Sounds like a neat little project, eh? Think again.

Most of the chatter you hear? It’s just folks who watched a 5-minute video and now think they’re Da Vinci with a tube of silicone. They’re all talkin’ ’bout how easy it is, grab this, grab that, and boom, you’re set. Total nonsense, most of it.
The Reality of DIYing That
Lemme be straight with ya. When you start lookin’ into what it really takes to make somethin’ like that, somethin’ that’s, y’know, not gonna be a weird health hazard or just fall apart lookin’ sad… it ain’t a walk in the park. You got materials to worry about – body-safe stuff ain’t cheap or easy to find just lyin’ around. Then there’s the actual, like, makin’ it part. It’s not like whippin’ up instant noodles.
Most of these ‘easy guides’? They’re cuttin’ corners you don’t even know exist yet. And those corners can bite you in the… well, you know.
- Thinkin’ any old plastic will do? Nope.
- Random foam from the craft store? Bad idea.
- Just eyeballin’ it? Recipe for disaster.
So How Do I Know All This Stuff?
Alright, fair question. It’s not like I’m runnin’ a secret workshop in my basement churnin’ these things out, haha. Nah. My ‘expertise’, if you wanna call it that, comes from a long, painful history of tryin’ to DIY damn near everything else. And learnin’ the hard way, over and over again.
I’m talkin’ about the time I tried to build my own custom bookshelf. Sounds dead simple, right? Wood, screws, a bit of varnish. I figured, ‘How hard can it be?’ Famous last words. I even drew up plans, watched a dozen videos. Bought the ‘good’ wood, not that cheap particle board. Measured twice, cut once, or so I thought. Turns out my ‘once’ was still pretty crooked on half the pieces. I spent a whole weekend on it, wrestling with saws and drills. The varnish fumes gave me a headache for two days. And in the end, after all that fuss, I ended up with somethin’ that looked like it lost a fight with a lawnmower. Wobbled so bad, I wouldn’t trust it with a single paperback, let alone my good hardcovers. My wife, bless her heart, just looked at it, then at me, and said, ‘Maybe we just buy one next time, honey?’ It eventually became very expensive firewood.

And that was just a bookshelf! Somethin’ way less… personal. The point is, there’s a huge gap between seein’ a cool idea online and actually makin’ a quality, safe, functional thing. Especially when it’s somethin’ that’s, uh, interacting with sensitive parts of your anatomy.
So, when I see folks online talkin’ all casual about makin’ their own artificial… items… I just shake my head. My practice and record on this particular subject is mostly observin’ the internet’s wild ideas and comparin’ it to my own DIY face-plants with much simpler stuff. Take it from an old hand at makin’ messes: some projects are best left to the pros, or at least approached with a mountain of caution and proper research, not just some random dude’s 10-minute video. That’s my piece, anyway.