A Visit to the National Women’s Show

Billed as “The Ultimate Girls Day Out,” the National women’s show was jam packed with vendors and presenters of all kinds trying to sell their goods and services to the thousands of women who flocked to the three day event to sample, savor, get makeovers and shop to their hearts content. But, was it really what it was hyped up to be? That depends on what you like.

Never in my life have I ever encountered so many different representatives from plastic surgery clinics talking about procedures, both invasive and non-invasive, using lasers, freezing (cryotherapy), and even vacations to the Middle East (Tunisia) for cheaper surgical procedures such as bariatric procedures and invasive plastic surgery. Maybe it was because I am pushing 40 that it felt like these vultures were honing in on me but it kind of felt like I couldn’t take a step without a rep trying to talk to me about botox for my crow’s feet or the new botox, laser therapy. I can’t say it was great for my morale but at points I was interested…actually I was interested to see if I could see if I could get any sample procedures for free as the last time I had visited they were injecting the fuck out of people with Restelayne at cut throat prices but there was none of that shit going down.

My personal favorite thing that I stumbled upon was a product called “Easy Day,” which is a pad that can be used for both menstruation and incontinence. Never have I ever seen a product so absorbent. The rep pulled out a pad, poured a quarter cup of water into it and then passed it to me. The pad felt dry as a bone. The product was both breathable and also had a mineral based substance in its core that killed off bacteria, hence eliminating odor. If I saw this product in a store, I would buy it, hands down.  You can find out more about it at www.easyday.ca

Having visited this show ten years ago, one major thing that had changed over the last decade was the unbelievable amount of sex toys they had available at the show. The entire thing was like a weird bombardment of makeup, lean health food products (because we all should be skinny), clothes geared at making women look thinner, jewelry & accessories and then cosmetics geared at making you look younger. The outer lying message was very clear, don’t be old, don’t be fat, stick stuff to your head to look pretty and if that doesn’t work, go for surgery. If you want to head off to Tunisia that website is www.medcare-vacances.ca .Ironically, camped out right beside the booths for all of the sex toys was a military recruitment kiosk. I am really not sure what the message was there.

Truthfully the show was really kind of disappointing. There was a shit ton of cosmetic products geared at making you look younger as well as non invasive surgical procedures to do the same thing and then there were free samples of health foods, protein shakes, unbelievably tacky jewelry, gaudy clothes, hippie soaps, wax treatments for the hairy and fucking pet food. No pets but they had fucking pet food. I have no idea as to how they could sell this thing off as “the ultimate girls day out,” when it was just jackass after jackass trying to sell me on junk science supplements or face creams that were “guaranteed,” to make me look younger, as if that were my ultimate goal in life, to fight the hideousness of aging.

I have a theory when it comes to supplements and creams that are “anti-aging” and that is that if they were really effective at what they said they could do, big pharma would already have bought the rights and would be distributing them themselves. Pharmaceutical companies are big and powerful and will harness anything that they can get scientific results from. If they can’t get scientific results from it, its a pile of shit and don’t fucking bother.

So, as I was saying, for the most part, I found the show to be pretty fucking boring, very draining as I kind of hate being in a crowd but also very underwhelming. My favorite part was taking photos of a kiosk that was devoted to douche and then texting it to friends because that is my maturity level. And no, I so didn’t want to talk to them. I am not going there. The whole douche thing went out in the 80s for a reason and that was because it was pointless. Taking capsules of pro-biotics  is significantly more effective and has other benefits as well.

And, the fact that they had booths for pet food that did not feature pets was a real let down too. Like, who the fuck gets a thrill out of buying pet food? This whole thing was supposed to be a shopping extravaganza for girls and their gal-pals but like they shit they expected us to get excited about was so fucking crazy it was unbelievable. Like was I supposed to be overjoyed by a skillet or food chopper or some fucking barrettes? Was a corset type thing to hide my mom body supposed to riddle me with glee? How about a sex toy? Couldn’t I just discretely buy that on the internet like everyone else these days? Was I supposed to be intrigued by the douche stand? Get a makeover by some never heard of brand of makeup? Be enthralled by the new Minute Rice Quinoa Cup that was in my goodie bag? Like what part of any of that was I supposed to be bowled over by?

My personal favorite weird and creepy product at the show this year was the Quantum Wave, which was being presented by Cindy Robin at her booth, “This is cold laser with a scaler wave technology. This basically takes your body and unwinds all of the stress. This works for pain, inflammation, circulation and it is anti-aging. The Quantum Wave shifts your body from being sympathetic to parasympathetic so from being super stressed out to being super blissed out. It is a great way to start and end your day and you can use it on your pets!” The chick literally had a photo of some poor cat sitting with this fucking thing. It was so fucked up and no, there wasn’t an ounce of legit science to back this thing up.

While she did offer, I did not try it out, it reminded me too much of those e-readers from Scientology. Like I said previously, if it was worth anything a pharmaceutical company would have been selling them by the millions already. The fact that they aren’t says something.

In summary, the show was at times titillating but ultimately not life changing. Seeing booth after booth filled with lingerie and sex toys lined up right beside a recruitment desk for the military was really fucking weird but then again a lot of it was just really, really deliriously weird. In the end, I didn’t drop a dime on anything because there was nothing that jumped out at me that I absolutely needed.