But the pink ribbon has a history and some present controversy as well, and there are not many who know the history behind the pink ribbon. The idea of using a ribbon to stand for the breast cancer battle began in 1979, when Americans were held as hostages in Iran and their families and friends tied yellow ribbons around trees to show their support for the beloved ones. This was their way of supporting freedom and the release of the Americans held hostages in Iran.
In the 1990, a 68 year old woman, named Charlotte Haley used the same concept when her daughter and mother were diagnosed with breast cancer. She began making peach ribbons and attached them to cards in order to support her daughter’s battle with breast cancer. These cards offered information about the annual budget of the National Cancer Institute and the small percentage of this budget that was spent for cancer research and prevention.
In 1991, Evelyn Lauder from the Estee Lauder Corporation and Alexandra Penney from Self Magazine put together an October edition of "Self" magazine to recognize the month as the breast cancer awareness month. They heard about the peach ribbons of Charlotte Haley and decided to use them as well. But when Haley was contacted by phone, she refused to make this cause commercialized.
However, Lauder and Penney still wanted to use this ribbon concept, so they consulted a legal department to see what was there to do. The legal department told them they could use the ribbon as long as they changed the color of the commercialized ribbon. So Lauder and Penney chose pink and the breast cancer got its logo as the pink ribbon. Today, the pink ribbon does not only stand for fighting against breast cancer, but also for all women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and all people who stood up for the breast cancer cause and helped in one way or another. There are several breast cancer products, like clothing, jewelry, items for the car, notebooks, laptops, candles, skincare and beauty products, etc.
There are also consumer groups which monitor the activity of some big companies that merchandise breast cancer products and use the pink ribbon on their products, in order to see how much they actually donate for breast cancer research and development. Breast cancer is a disease that affects many women. The breast cancer pink ribbon stands for this disease, but only few consumers who purchase merchandise for breast cancer aid know the history behind one of the breast cancer symbols.