Estee Lauder fights cancer in pink

My friend just died yesterday of cancer. It’s sad and come to think of it, quite timely, ” Jane Stangle says at a little gathering of pink, paintings, and cocktails.

The mood was quite celebratory, although the sentiment was half-sad. A few friends have been lost over the years. Among them was Jane’s friend who, up until the day before, was fighting breast cancer.

This is what the evening was about: breast cancer and Estee Lauder Companies’ brave campaign to put an end to it. Estee Lauder’s breast cancer awareness campaign has been going on since 1992. Since then, it has been distributing millions of pink ribbons year after year. This year, 80 million pink breast cancer ribbons were distributed as the campaign is celebrated in more than 60 countries all over the world.

At the Estee Lauder’s Breast Awareness Campaign 2008 celebration at the Heaven on the 5th floor of Rustan’s Makati, actress Maritoni Fernandez proudly wore her pink ribbon. A breast cancer survivor, she defiantly says, “I don’t want to worry about dying or being sick ever again!” She had lost her good friends Rio Diaz and Marisette Galang-Recto to breast cancer.

Maritoni is right. No one would ever have to worry about breast cancer, not if it‘s detected early. And not if women, young and old, would have themselves checked regularly. Recent findings from Estee Lauder’s Breast Cancer Research Foundation show that if detected early, breast cancer can actually be 98-percent curable. Nobody has to suffer and nobody has to die.

Today, the Philippines, as much as it is a country with breast cancer survivors, has the highest incidence of breast cancer in Asia and ranks ninth in the world.

But the night that celebrated Estee Lauder’s breast cancer awareness campaign was one full of hope.

There were survivors. And there were eight painters from 318 Gallery who took up the cudgels — and their paintbrushes — in the fight against breast cancer. That night, Jane Stangle was the proud curator who presented their works. “Some of the works here were specifically done for this event,” she says. The painters included Andi Cubi, Jhun Alfon, Hermes Alegre, Loreto Racuya, Blaine San Luis, Ronoel Pascual, Romino Quinto, and Jake Catha. Their works had one common underlying theme: the beauty and power of a cancer-free woman.

Meanwhile, Estee Lauder brands will be selling pink ribbon products to raise more money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The brands include Estee Lauder, Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Bumble and Bumble, Clinique, Darphin, Donna Karan, Jo Malone, La Mer, Lab Series Skincare for Men, Ojon, Origins, Prescriptives, Tommy Hilfiger Toiletries, and Sean Jean Fragrances.