Pinkwasher: (pink’-wah-sher) noun. A company that purports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon campaign, but manufactures products that are linked to the disease.
I was just looking around on the net for pink ribbon products. My idea was a simple one, so I thought. I make jewelery and I wanted to make something to give to all my team members who are joining me for the Susan G. Komen race for the cure. Easier said than done!
At this time of the year we are all bombarded with pink ribbons. They are everywhere you look. The market, Target, craft stores everywhere! It is over whelming at times, and sometimes it is empowering. At least for me anyways. I feel like the pink ribbon is a chance for me to raise awareness for people everyday. Someone might walk by me and say to themselves, “Wow she is so young and she has breast cancer, maybe I should go get a mammogram!”. These days we have to be careful about purchasing pink ribbon items. On the site Think Before You pink they explain a lot of all of this pink ribbon stuff. In short there are a lot of companies out there jumping on the pink bandwagon. Especially at this time of the year. Some of these companies do not even contribute the money they receive from these items to breast cancer causes. Others do but refuse to make their products cancer safe. It is a very complicated thing and it is best explained in my link.
On the site is a parade of pink products. With each product listed is an explanation of how much the company really donates to breast cancer research. Plain and simple and easy to understand.
If you do buy pink products in the next month or so, think before you pink. There are some really good products out there don’t be shy. It is ok to wear and buy your pink ribbon products. Just do it the right way!
Cross posted on Spruce Hill
Mothers With Cancer 
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Really.
Thanks I was a little worried because no one commented! I thought my post was to judgmental.
I thought it was well written. 🙂 I wish Think Before You Pink would update their site though.
Oh never mind. They did. 🙂
thanks so much for posting about this! the think before you pink campaign is raising some really important questions… check out the take action for this october: http://www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org/Pages/TakeAction.html. it’s callilng on yoplait — which has a big fundraising campaign with their lids — to keep rBGH out of the milk they make their yogurt with. (use of rBGH has been linked with breast cancer, and a whole load of other health problems.)