Underwear, personal lubricant? Why couldn’t I be a movie reviewer instead?
The young designers Raquel Tulk and Chanelle O’Shea have won awards for their ideas. (And were featured entrepreneurs on the French version of the TV show Dragons’ Den where they found a key investor and partner.) That’s all great. But why send them to me?
Sure, I’ve written about exercises developed by a gynecologist that are touted as an advancement on traditional kegels for strengthening muscles down there. Wait a minute — guilty as charged.
So about the underwear: They’re not like the enormous knickers famously sported by Bridget Jones. In fact, they look better than average despite the built-in padding. They’re pretty comfortable, too, at least compared to the host of ridiculous undergarments women wear in the hopes of keeping their physical shortcomings to themselves. I’m looking at you, Spanx.
But then came the Toronto-based Damiva team with their vaginal lubricant, Mae.
OK, so I’ve reported on studies about vaginal dryness among menopausal women. Surely, I can’t be the only one talking about it.
Chia Chia Sun came up with Mae, a naturally sourced vaginal lubricant, and a clever strategy. Chia Chia Sun came up with Mae, a naturally sourced vaginal lubricant, and a clever strategy. Former big pharma scientists Chia Chia Sun and Gardiner Smith — partners in business and life — came up with the idea of helping women moisturize vaginal tissue by inserting bullet-shaped “ovules” made of ingredients like cocoa butter and vitamin E oil as an alternative to lubricants containing parabens — controversial cosmetic preservatives — or drying alcohols and petroleum products.
Sun also appeared on Dragons’ Den, prompting excruciating discomfort among the Dragons. The company employs cheeky ad lines like “Enough beating around the bush. Let’s talk about your vagina.”
The pair were in Vancouver last week and made for an entertaining interview.
Meeting women across the country has exposed them to intimate details that most people would rather not hear. Handing out samples in a drugstore one day, Sun approached an elegant-looking woman with a European accent who declined her offer saying, “I have turned the faucet off.”
“They don’t understand that the vagina is like any other organ that needs exercise,” says Sun. “It’s use it or lose it.”
That’s particularly relevant in an era when women are starting new relationships in their 50s and 60s — or trying to keep their existing ones from the grave.
“It’s awkward to talk about it,” Smith says, “but it’s worse not to talk about it.
“In a relationship, often a man will blame the woman. If intimacy stops, it’s such a powerful force, it causes severe relationship strains. But if you reverse it, if a man was in pain every time he had intercourse, can you imagine the woman saying, ‘It’s your fault you’re in pain’?”
I’m not sure what patrons sitting around us in a posh hotel restaurant were thinking after that, but Sun summed up her views this way: “The suppression of discussion of these topics makes the problem worse. If women aren’t talking about vaginal dryness with each other or their doctors then they’ll experience it and won’t have any other choice but to turn the faucet off.”
I can’t wait to see what’s in my mailbox next.
Mae lubricant is sold at by damiva.com
DRC underwear is sold throughout Quebec and online at drcunderwear.com
Another line of washable, absorbent underwear has also been launched by a young entrepreneur in Toronto. For more information on Knix Wear visit knixwear.com or its online store, barenecessities.com