Breast Cancer Awareness

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. This weekend is also J for Jellies in our ABC Challenge. I decided to mix the two together. I present it here because I feel like it's an opportunity for me to address something that bugs me every time this month rolls around: pinkwashing.

"Jolène," you are saying, "what the heck is pinkwashing?" Well, it's the pernicious way in which many companies and organizations pretend to care about breast cancer and breast cancer awareness without, you know, actually doing anything useful about it. Here's a website for you, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. And here are two excerpts from the Advertisements section of the Breast Cancer Awareness article on Wikipedia:

Business marketing campaigns, particularly sales promotions for products that increase pollution or have been linked to the development of breast cancer, such as alcohol, high-fat foods, some pesticides, or the parabens and phthalates used by most cosmetic companies, have been condemned as pinkwashing (a portmanteau of pink ribbon and whitewash).^[25]Such promotions generally result in a token donation to a breast cancer-related charity by taking advantage of the consumers' fear of cancer and grief for people who have died to drive sales.^[9] 

and

Two significant campaigns against pink consumption are the National Breast Cancer Coalition's "Not Just Ribbons" campaign, and Breast Cancer Action's "Think Before You Pink" campaign. NBCC's "Not Just Ribbons" campaign sought to focus awareness efforts onto substantive issues such as genetic discrimination, access to cancer treatment, patient rights, and environmental breast cancer research.^[26] "Think Before You Pink" encouraged consumers to ask questions about pink products (e.g., to find out how much of a donation was being made).^[27]

A good example is antiperspirants. Companies continue to manufacture antiperspirants, whose active ingredient has been proven to increase the risk of breast cancer, all while pink-ribboning their overall product line to seem like they care. Here is an article a friend sent me on cause marketing (which covers breast cancer awareness as well as other causes). Stuff like that drives me insane. But I'll stop ranting now. I just firmly believe in conscious consumerism.

This skittlette was done using Flamingo Kisses on the thumb and index (three coat), as well as pinky (two coats). Two coats of She Walks in Beauty were then applied to the pinky. The middle and ring fingers are a pond manicure done using Vitral *** and Tempest, and took a good 5 coats to achieve the opacity you see here -- definitely not meant for that.

She Walks in Beauty is a pink and gold glitter, two colours that are totally unlike me, but I love the polish to bits. Vitral *** is too hot pink for me, but Flamingo Kisses (a polish created by Dandy Nails in memory of Sandy Hook) is beautiful, a cold pink with pink and purple flake shimmer. Really nice, and an easily smooth three coats.

Polishes used:

Dandy Nails - Flamingo Kisses (I do not believe this ever went to market; I won it in a contest)

A England - She Walks in Beauty

Colorama - Vitral ***

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Rica - Glossy Glam (top coat)

medium detail brush

Sorry to ramble away on ya! But guess what tomorrow is: DIGIT-AL DOZEN DAYYYY!! Well, the first of five. I've got four of my five manis done, and photos taken and edited, but man oh man am I stumped for the last one. That's my project for today. ;)

xo,

J.

*** IMPORTANT NOTE: A good friend brought this to my attention. I can certify that all polishes used in this mani are, at the very least, 3-free. EXCEPT FOR VITRAL. Brazilian polishes are all switching over to 3-free formulae as far as I know, but I do not know the status of Colorama polishes. Please be aware that non-3-free polish has ingredients that are linked to cancer (I don't know about breast cancer, but cancer in general). While I promise I am not profiting off the back of breast cancer awareness, lest I appear hypocritical, I wanted you to know!