pinkMOXIE

Hats off to Steve Jobs and the iPhone

Yesterday's iPhone craze and the days leading up to it were quite unique and amazing. Only Steve Jobs could pull of something of this magnitude.

Back in the day we camped out for hours, even days, to get our hot little hands on a pair of Rolling Stones concert tickets, but a mobile phone? Albeit, it's not just any phone, but nonetheless, it's still a tech gadget.

Apple has always been synonymous with brand evangelism. Apple followers from the beginning have always been loyal and crazy for the brand. But the latest iPhone craze raised the bar and took it to new heights by catapulting Apple to true "rock star" status.

Lather's Delicious Cranberry Sugar Scrub

This is truly the best sugar scrub on the planet!! Trust me, you will fall in love with it and will want to share it with all your friends (it makes a great gift).

There are lots of great sugar scrubs on the market, but one element that I find with other sugar and salt scrubs is that they tend to be too oily and slippery. This one contains wonderful therapeutic oils without being overly oily and slippery.

Lather's Cranberry Sugar Scrub provides therapeutic benefits from its many botanical oils such as sesame, sweet almond, kukui nut, macadamia nut and sunflower seed, which moisturize and soothe your skin.

The pure turbinado sugar granules and cranberry seeds provide gentle exfoliation to remove dead skin cells, leaving your skin silky smooth. This delightful and delicious sugar scrub polishes your skin and rinses clean. It's the best sugar scrub you'll ever try!!

It retails for $38.00 for 10.0 oz and is available online (www.lather.com) or at any Lather boutique:

• San Jose, CA: Lather Santana Row
• Pasadena, CA: Lather Historic Old Town
• Scottsdale, AZ: Lather Kierland Commons
• New York City: Lather Spa

The Power, Reach and Compassion of Social Networking

I just learned of a very tragic and heartbreaking story about a six-month old baby boy named Kaleb Schwade, who has become known as "Baby Kaleb." Since May, he has been in a Florida hospital fighting for his life after suffering a brain injury due to Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).

According to news stories, baby Kaleb's day care provider, Rebecca Saunders, 35 and mother of three, is accused of allegedly shaking the baby boy so hard that it caused a brain injury. Saunders was arrested and is out on bail awaiting trial.

Baby Kaleb's parents, Kristy and Joshua Schwade, have been by his hospital bedside day and night hoping and praying for his recovery. They have received an overwhelming amount of support from what started out as a small group of Kristy's friends on her MySpace page, and has now grown to 82,403 on MySpace alone, with many more supporters across the globe on other social networking sites. The latest is on Sugar Publishing’s social networking site TeamSugar (note: I'm part of the TeamSugar social network).

Two TeamSugar members, known as "thedrywallgirl" and "t0xxic," have implemented a SBS and Baby Kaleb awareness campaign across the TeamSugar network this weekend. It was through this awareness campaign that I learned about Baby Kaleb.

It's a heartbreaking story and a tragedy that's completely preventable if people would proactively seek help for their anger management problems. It's NEVER acceptable to shake a baby regardless of how loud or long a baby cries. It's difficult to understand how someone could injure and harm a child in any manner, but the sad reality is that it does happen, which is why it's important to raise awareness of SBS.

I wrote about it today, because I want to help spread the word about SBS and about the Schwade family's story. You can learn more about SBS by visiting the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome Web site. If you're interested in following baby Kaleb's progress, Kristy regularly updates her MySpace page.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the Schwade family and other families dealing with the devastating aftermath of SBS.

Read related news story: Baby's hospital tale grips MySpace by Justin George, St. Petersburg Times

LESSON TO ALL: Teen dies from excessive muscle cream use

This tragic story about the New York teen who died from excessive use of a muscle cream that contained the anti-inflammatory ingredient methyl salicylate may be a rare incident, but it is a reminder to us all about the importance of knowing your ingredients and not using any product to excess.

I'm an obsessive label reader and try to do my best to know the good from the bad ingredients. It's not always easy, especially with so many new skin care products flooding the market these days. We live in an era of information overload, so keeping up with product ingredients is a difficult task.

For those of you who are like me and are a bit obsessive about skin care ingredients, you’ll want to bookmark the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Skin Deep database Web site.

EWG is a non-profit public interest watchdog group and environmental research organization. The organization covers a wide variety of public safety concerns from toxins in food and water to harmful chemicals in skin care products.

The Skin Deep database allows readers to look up different skin care brands to see the exact ingredients in each product and the safety rating of the ingredients. It will point out which ingredients are linked to cancer; developmental/reproductive toxicity; violations, restrictions and warnings; allergies/immunotoxicity; and other concerns associated with the ingredient. The Skin Deep database covers 25,000 personal care products and is quite extensive and a wealth of knowledge.

However, keep in mind that there are two camps to some of these ingredient studies; and for some ingredients, such as the parabens, there is much disagreement between the two sides on how damaging they actually are to our health when used in small amounts. As with any research study, you have to read the research from all sides and decide for yourself.

It's a balancing act, but one worth pursuing. After all, you are responsible for your own health and no one, not even the FDA or your doctors, is going to look out for your health and longevity they way you can. The best way to take control over your health is to be proactive and educated.

UPDATE (06/12/07): Better labels urged for sports creams