One Brand, Two Lines, Every Temperature
Crack open any bar of Sex Wax and the coconut hits before you find the rail of your board. Mr. Zog's has been pressing wax in Carpinteria since the early 1970s, and the round label sits in the bottom of half the surf bags on the planet. The question is not whether Sex Wax works. It does. The question is which bar to buy, because the brand sells two lines and a lot of temperatures.
This review covers every Sex Wax bar I have surfed: four Quick Humps bars and three Original bars. Each one gets its temperature range, hardness, scent and my take. If you just want an answer, start with the quick pick below and skip to your bar.
Quick pick:
- Cold water, thick suit: Quick Humps 2X (purple)
- Spring and fall water: Quick Humps 3X (green) or Original Cool (orange label)
- Summer water: Quick Humps 4X (orange) or Original Warm (red label)
- Hot water, or a hard base layer: Quick Humps 6X (blue) or Original Tropical (blue label)
How to Read a Sex Wax Label
Quick Humps is the modern line. Each bar carries a hardness number from 1X (softest) to 6X (hardest), and the label color tells you which one you have. The bars weigh 85 grams, come in a cardboard box, and all smell of coconut.
- 1X Yellow: extra cold water
- 2X Purple: 48 to 68 F (9 to 20 C)
- 3X Green: 58 to 74 F (14 to 23 C)
- 4X Orange: 64 to 78 F (18 to 26 C)
- 5X Red: 70 to 84 F (21 to 29 C)
- 6X Blue: 78 F (26 C) and above, or as a basecoat in any water
The ranges overlap on purpose. If you sit on the line between two bars, pick the softer one for bare feet and the harder one for booties.
Original is the bar that made the brand famous. It weighs 75 grams, comes wrapped rather than boxed, and is rated by water temperature instead of by an X number. Sex Wax says any Original bar works as a base coat or a top coat. The Original bars also come in different scents, which is half the fun.
Both lines are made in the USA and both are paraffin-based. I have not surfed the 1X Yellow or the 5X Red, so they are not reviewed below.
Quick Humps 2X Cold (Purple)
- Water temperature: 48 to 68 F (9 to 20 C)
- Hardness: 2X, extra soft
- Scent: Coconut
- Rating: 7.4/10
- Check the price on Amazon
When the water turns cold, wax has a problem: it hardens, and a hard bar on a cold deck is just a slippery sheet. The purple bar is the answer. It goes on with almost no pressure, which matters on a freezing morning when your hands don't want to work, and it stays tacky when everything else goes stiff.
One NorCal cold-water surfer who has tried several brands rates Quick Humps the best for grip and ease of application, though not the strongest bump builder. That fits a soft bar. It grabs your feet, but the bumps are rounder and flatter than a harder wax gives you. It also wears down faster, and in warm water or a hot car it melts into a sticky film. Lay it over a basecoat and the top layer lasts noticeably longer.
Pro tip: Keep the bar in an inside pocket before you wax. A frozen bar crumbles instead of rubbing on smoothly.
Quick Humps 3X Cool (Green)
- Water temperature: 58 to 74 F (14 to 23 C)
- Hardness: 3X, soft
- Scent: Coconut
- Rating: 8.5/10
- Check the price on Amazon
This is the bar that lives in my bag through the shoulder seasons. It covers the in-between water where the purple bar is too soft and the orange bar is too stiff. The name is not marketing fluff: a few strokes turn a flat deck into a gripped one, and the bumps are physical humps your feet can feel rather than a film that smears.
Green is softer than orange, so it goes on easily, and firmer than purple, so the humps stand up and hold. It is the best all-round bar in the range and the one I would hand a friend who asked for "just one bar." In cold water it turns hard and slippery, and in tropical water it sags. Inside its range, it is a quiet winner.
Quick Humps 4X Warm (Orange)
- Water temperature: 64 to 78 F (18 to 26 C)
- Hardness: 4X, firm
- Scent: Coconut
- Rating: 8/10
- Check the price on Amazon
The orange bar covers late spring, summer and early fall on most coastlines. That is a generous spread, and it makes the 4X the practical pick for anyone who does not want a different bar for every month. It is also the one to keep in the car when you drive from a cool coast to a warm one.
It goes on without a fight and builds a rubbery, tacky texture that holds through a session in mild water. The bumps are practical rather than tall and sharp. In cold water it stiffens and loses tack, and at the hot end of tropical water it softens faster than the blue bar. It is often sold in multi-bar packs, which suits anyone who keeps a spare in the car, one in the board bag and one at home.
Quick Humps 6X Tropical and Basecoat (Blue)
- Water temperature: 78 F (26 C) and above as a top coat, any water as a basecoat
- Hardness: 6X, extra hard
- Scent: Coconut
- Rating: 8/10
- Check the price on Amazon
The blue bar does two jobs, and the label says so: "Tropical water or basecoat." In hot water it is the top coat. Its humps are tight and stiff rather than gummy, so they hold through a long session instead of turning greasy. The grip comes from the shape of the bumps, not from stickiness, and in boardshorts water that is exactly what you want.
In cooler water it becomes the foundation. Rub a hard grid of 6X first, then put a softer bar on top. The firm bumps keep their shape and the soft wax has something to cling to. Used alone in cool or cold water, though, it is slick, and plenty of surfers have learned that the hard way. Expect to push hard when you apply it. It is dense on purpose.
Original Cool (Coconut, Orange Label)
- Water temperature: 58 to 68 F (14 to 20 C)
- Type: Base coat or top coat
- Scent: Coconut
- Rating: 8.5/10
- Check the price on Amazon
This is the bar most surfers learned on, and Cool fits the widest slice of coastline: too warm for a full winter suit, too cold for boardshorts. It is soft enough to bite into a clean deck with a little pressure and firm enough that it doesn't smear the second the sun comes out. It builds crisp, distinct bumps, and it is forgiving enough for a first-time waxer.
It is not exciting, and that is the point. In truly cold water it hardens and loses tack. In hot water the bumps flatten. Stay inside its range and it simply works. For the price of a bar, that is hard to argue with.
Original Warm (Grape, Red Label)
- Water temperature: 64 to 74 F (18 to 23 C)
- Type: Base coat or top coat
- Scent: Grape
- Rating: 6.8/10
- Check the price on Amazon
The summer bar smells like a grape soda machine, and the smell alone makes a parking lot feel like a beach. It is firmer than Cool, so it takes a bit more muscle to lay down, and softer than Tropical, so it grips better in water that isn't sauna-hot. In its range it forms solid bumps and holds them for a reasonable time.
It scores lowest of the bunch for one reason: the window is narrow. Ten degrees of water is not much, and outside it you feel the bar go slick in the cold or slump in the heat. It also wears down quickly if you surf a lot. If you want a no-frills, unscented wax, this isn't it. If you surf summer water and like the grape, it is a cheap, fun bar.
Original Tropical (Strawberry, Blue Label)
- Water temperature: 75 F (24 C) and above
- Type: Base coat or top coat
- Scent: Strawberry
- Rating: 8/10
- Check the price on Amazon
The stiff one. Tropical has the highest melting point in the Original line, and it is the bar to grab when the ocean feels like a bath. A soft wax in that water turns into a greasy film. Tropical holds its shape, so you still have grip at the end of a long session.
Its hardness also makes it a strong foundation. One surfer who rides a wide range of temperatures lays a thick Tropical layer first, then changes only the softer top bar as the season shifts. Expect to work for it: press hard, cross-hatch, and let the grid build before you try to make bumps. In cool or cold water it is a bad top coat. The strawberry scent makes the effort easier to forgive.
Quick Humps or Original?
The two lines overlap more than the packaging suggests. Quick Humps gives you more steps on the hardness scale, a bigger 85 gram bar and a box that keeps lint off between sessions. Original gives you the classic bar and a choice of scents.
On the water, owners say both form crisp bumps and smear less than some rivals, though a few find Sticky Bumps clings to bare feet better. A popular fix is to mix brands: one bar for the base, another for the final layer. My pick for most surfers is the Quick Humps 3X Green as the everyday bar, with a 6X Blue for the base.
The Basecoat Debate
Surfers split on basecoat, and loudly. One camp calls it a trick to sell you a second bar. They have waxed for decades with nothing but a bar matched to the season. The other camp swears by it: a hard layer builds structure, so the soft top coat needs only a light touch before each session. Owners report that half as much wax lasts twice as long between full re-coats.
My read: you don't need it, but it works as advertised. It helps most in cold water with a very soft top coat, where the soft bar would otherwise smear away. In tropical water, basecoat and a tropical bar are close cousins, and many surfers skip the extra layer.
Waxing It Right
Technique matters more than the formula. Start on a clean, room-temperature deck in the shade. A cold deck makes the bar skate, and a sun-baked deck goes slick. Drag the edge of the bar in a cross-hatch to lay a grid, then rub in small circles until the wax beads up into tacky nodes. Press harder for taller humps.
Before each session, rub a little top coat over the old wax and rough it up with a wax comb. When the wax turns grey with sand and grime, scrape it off, clean the residue with a citrus cleaner and start again. Keep every bar out of a hot car. Heat softens even a hard bar and it picks up lint and sand.
On a Snowboard Topsheet
Plenty of snowboarders rub surf wax on the topsheet instead of sticking on a rubber stomp pad, and I tried most of these bars that way. A palm-sized, cross-hatched patch inside the back binding gives your boot something to grip when you skate through a lift line or come off the chair with one foot loose. It goes on nearly translucent, so it doesn't wreck your graphics.
Hardness decides how it behaves. The purple 2X stays tacky even in freezing air. The green 3X and Original Cool shed water and resist icing over. The blue 6X is rock hard at 25 F and feels more locked-in, and one application lasted about four full days of riding, but in the single digits it turns glassy and can chip. Every bar picks up lift-line grime, and a plastic card scrapes it off clean. Keep surf wax off the base: it is made for friction, not glide.
Where Sex Wax Falls Short
Every bar here is picky about water temperature. Pick the wrong one and you will blame the brand for something the thermometer did. These are also plain paraffin bars. There is no tackiness trick and no plant-based formula, so surfers who want the stickiest feel or a petroleum-free product will look elsewhere. Owners who have tried plant-based brands often say they are too soft or too sticky, and cost is the usual reason people stay with the classics.
The scents divide people, too. Many love them, and a few would rather their board smelled of nothing.
Verdict
Sex Wax is the safe choice in surf wax, and it earns that spot. Match the bar to the water and any of these will keep you on your board. My picks: the Quick Humps 3X Green for most of the year, the 2X Purple for winter, the 6X Blue for hot water or a base layer, and Original Cool if you want the classic bar and the classic smell.
