SWAC 411
As women, we have all been touched by breast cancer – a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend, or by a story that has just moved us. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the Purple Lab team wants to give back. But I personally want our product to mean something, have a story behind it, and inspire. Hence, SWAC, which stands for Sealed With a Cure (remember the letters you’d write when you were little – and you’d put “SWAK” on them?).
Through mutual friends, I met with three women whose close friend, Nancy, was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer when she was 35. I had never heard of this type of cancer, nor had anyone I know. As I learned more about it, I realized that there is little known – at least in the public – about this aggressive disease that tends to effect younger women.
When Nancy lost her battle two years later, her friends created the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation in her honor to ignite awareness and support research. Immediately, I knew this was the charity I wanted to work with.
And I wanted to do something different – create a gloss that speaks to health and wellness, which is exactly what SWAC is about.
Ingredient Details
SWAC is soothing, nourishing, delicious, and beautiful. First, there is Ecchinacea, an herbaceous plant often called a purple coneflower (purple coneflower – Purple Lab! Coincidence?). It became popular as an herbal remedy that boosts the immune system in the 1930s and has been used ever since.
SWAC is infused with extract from mangosteens, a tropical fruit from an evergreen tree that originated in Indonesia and the Sundra Islands. Sweet and tangy, the rind is purple-ish when ripe (another coincidence?). The reason it’s in SWAC is because it is a superfruit that is super rich in antioxidants.
There is a subtle vanilla scent and vanilla is used in aromatherapy as an anti-depressant and for stress reduction. The most interesting part: The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center was one of the first organizations to determine factual therapeutic properties of essential oils like vanilla.
Vitamin E and Vitamin C offer extreme moisture. If you happen to be going through chemotherapy, your lips get very dry. So this is the perfect way to keep them from cracking – all while looking and feeling feminine.
I think it’s important to feel pretty inside and out, especially when you’re battling breast cancer of any kind. Breast cancer is a disease that attacks part of what makes us women – so to go through it with the perfect pout is just another way to stand up to it and not let it defeat you. The slight sparkle comes from real gold flakes.
