Lip Gloss To Kiss Off Breast Cancer

As we saw last week, some cause-related marketing efforts go over better than others. Especially when it comes to breast cancer. Just turning out a product painted pink (we’ve all seen them) seems worse than uninspired: it seems like a mercenary gambit to profit off of others' suffering.

So it’s great to see products who manage to brand themselves to work with a cause, and do so in inventive and interesting ways. One that seems to be doing so effectively is Purple Lab lip gloss’s new Sealed With A Cure line, born out of a partnership with the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.

Not only do part of the proceeds from the lip gloss go towards helping find a cure, each lipstick is named after a victim of the disease (the first one is called Nancy) and comes with a note telling the person’s story.

It’s a good reminder that breast cancer victims aren’t just a statistic. It’s also clever that the lip gloss is formulated to enhance wellness – it’s packed with echinacea as well as vitamins E and C. I was also interested to find that it’s also scented with vanilla – the scent that supposedly fights depression.

Of course, Sealed with a Cure certainly isn’t the brand doing effective cause marketing. Which other ones do you think succeed? And which fail?