Sunday Journal Prompt: Dear Madame Ovary, Have you reached Peak Meno-Marketing?📔🖋️
Are you feeling overly marketed to? Or are you finally feeling heard?
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Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?
I don’t know about you, but I hardly ever read The Daily Fail (mostly because it skews so sensationally trashy and Tory), but this recent piece quoting midlife author Sam Baker caught my attention:
'Vag of Honour' and 'Madame Ovary': Have we reached peak menopause marketing?
On the one hand, the piece acknowledges some products we here genuinely appreciate—on the other, you can see how it calls attention to the $500 billion market any number of opportunists would seek to exploit in the face of midlife women’s collective misery. In the end, it’s all about what works best for you given your symptoms, medical history, and risk profile. (For me, one of the simplest night sweat hacks was putting one of the kid’s freezer lunch gel packs under my pillow at night. I didn’t need a $300 wearable device.)
But what about you? Do you feel like we’ve reached peak marketing when it comes to menopause wellness? Do we need all these specialized products? Or maybe you feel like, “Finally, they’re paying attention!”
In the midst of it all, you could argue that we’re only at the beginning of bespoke, state-of-the-art healthcare for midlife women and that, in time, the grifters will fall away. Sharing what works and what doesn’t has been a large part of The Empress—so we welcome your thoughts…
Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,
P.S. If you haven’t already registered for our VIP Science of Thriving Salon on 02.29.24, from 6 pm-8 pm (PST), we’d love to see you there! We have some amazing panelists joining us! Look for an update this week!
By the way, as a disclaimer, I am not a therapist or a physician. I’ve only been to the medical school of me, so please take all of the above as mere musings and not at all as legit medical advice.
I went out searching for some relief and then ended up buying a whole bunch of weird creams and moisturizers for inside my vagina (I know, what was I thinking?) All to say I have a bathroom drawer full of stuff I never use and doesn't seem to work.
However! I did find one product that has worked wonders in the dry vaginal department when it comes to sex. They are called Pleasure Pods. There is no messy goop because they are solid and are activated by heat. Plus, they are all natural--no chemicals. A couple in Canada invented these nifty little things and I'm a believer. No more painful sex. (Sorry, didn't mean for this to turn into more marketing!) But, it really works. 😂
https://thepleasurepods.com/
P.S. And the name! It's brilliant. Branding needs some help, but the name is gold.
I have not been inundated by meno-ads. Although now that I typed it— it will come. Menopause is so individual I would imagine it would be tough to invent products for the masses. But I’m open.