Everything is Smooth for Backdoor Botanics

The South Africa-based intimate wellness brand has had a serendipitous start to its mission of delivering an anal lube of the highest quality

As soon-to-be Backdoor Botanics co-founder Duncan Stevens was enjoying his dinner at a weekly social supper club, one of his dining companions regaled the group with the story of a recent sexual encounter with a well-endowed pilot. While not everyone would consider the story to be polite dinner conversation, the relentlessly sex-positive Stevens decided this is who he would be sitting next to at dinner going forward. 

Stevens and his new partner in gastronomy, Grace Maree, became fast friends despite having very different backgrounds. Maree is a biomedical scientist from Texas who moved to Stevens’ native South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stevens’ previous work included 10 years of running his own jewelry brand, including design and manufacturing, and working for an EU firm as a consultant on consumer studies for major corporations.  

Besides enjoying fine food and good conversation, Stevens’ and Maree’s backgrounds found another way to align: being the perfect combination to start a lube company. If that sounds like a joke, it might be because it initially was, according to Stevens.

“This all started as a joke, I was joking, literally, it was a joke,” Stevens emphasizes.

“I said to Grace, ‘So, Grace, what the f— are you going to be doing with your life? Like, you can’t just sit around in Cape Town, and you’re gonna run out of money at some point.’ And she’s like, ‘I have no f—ing idea,’” he recalls.

“And of course, I knew her background at that particular point, and I said to her, ‘Well, what we should be doing is, we should basically make a regenerating butthole balm for gay men because we need it because we get f—ed up the ass so often,’” he continues.

Maree burst out laughing, Stevens says, but not because the idea was ridiculous — rather, a biochemist she had previously worked with, Karl Lintner, had suggested the exact same product. That joke and subsequent conversation are what brought Stevens and Maree from dinner partners to co-founders. 

Backdoor Botanics wasn’t their first stab at a regenerating intimate wellness brand, though. Their original vision was OANA Regeneraceuticals, a broader line offering a range of high-end products for all genders. 

They still plan to make a full OANA line a reality, but first, after consulting market research, they decided they should pick one product and do it well. They chose an anal lube (rather than the “butthole balm” that had initially inspired them) and created their Backdoor Botanics brand, which Stevens calls “the gay brother that is fun, quirky, a little bit outrageous and does whatever the f— they want.”

While “whatever the f— they want” may seem aspirational for a brand that very recently was nothing but a glimmer in its co-founders’ eyes, product development went about as smoothly as Stevens and Maree could’ve possibly hoped. Their first test batch had almost all of the characteristics they were looking for, and only required minor tweaks to become a market-ready product.  

Those characteristics are deep hydration, anti-inflammatory properties and pH balance, as well as peptides that have been linked with increasing collagen production. All together, they combine to create a product similar to high-end facial serums.

In fact, despite Stevens telling testers, “Don’t rub it all over your face,” one of them did exactly that. The tester reported that Backdoor Botanics cleared up some stubborn seborrheic dermatitis.

That wasn’t the only positive review Stevens received from early users, though. He says he received strong feedback across the board, including from those with sensitive skin that gets irritated by other products. Many testers had the same question: “How can we get it now?”

Luckily for Stevens and his testers alike, the Backdoor Botanics team got exactly what they wanted again when it came time to produce the first retail batch. As they struggled to find places to produce both product and packaging, a lab that had previously been booked had something else fall through and was able to take on Backdoor Botanics on short notice.

This serendipity allowed Stevens and Maree to have Backdoor Botanics ready for hard launch in December 2025. This gave them a window they wouldn’t have otherwise had to start building their audience and brand ahead of Cape Town Pride at the end of February.

The product they delivered brings significant benefits to its users, according to Stevens. The deep hydration it promotes leads to healthier skin, smoother sex and stronger stimulation. The anti-inflammatory qualities are self-explanatory, and the formula is balanced to the pH of the anus specifically, unlike vaginal or general mechanical lubes, preventing discomfort that can come from pH imbalance. The collagen production that the included Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 and Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 peptides have been linked with can help regenerate damaged skin. All in all, Stevens says it’s a great example of his goal to create “better products that people deserve.”  

While Backdoor Botanics is still “building the plane as we’re flying it,” as Stevens says, he says their next destinations are a vaginal lube, similar to Backdoor Botanics but balanced to the pH of the vagina, and a return to the product that initially inspired them, a regenerative anal balm. Wherever Stevens and Maree go next, based on their journey so far, it’s safe to say their travels will continue to be exceptionally smooth.