Pink Blog

I happened upon this “Pink is Beautiful” campaign through a discussion of homoeroticism in sports. I thought I was clicking through to the Dieux du stade calendars, but instead it was the Stade Français general shop…with pink splashed all over it! In addition to the $30 Pink is Beautiful shirts, there’s a $75 pink v-neck sweater (picture saved for posterity here), several other pink items for men, women, and children, and – my personal favorite – the $120 pink jersey. Check it out, so gorgeous. I must have one!

I haven’t figured out yet why Stade Français is all about the pink, though. But isn’t it awesome?!

I came across this while trying to find cheap gymnastics equipment so I could pretend I was a gymnast like I was as a kid. It turns out there is no cheap gymnastics equipment. This little bitty beam, just 8 feet long (half the length of a usual one), is $256.99! It comes with a matching mat, and it IS pink, but apparently my dreams of being a gymnast are foiled by not enough money. Oh, and by being out of shape, inflexible, and overweight. But mostly the lack of money! If I had this little beam I could still skip around and pretend I was a gymnast, just do the dance stuff. But alas, this pink wonder/monstrosity (where would you put it?!) will have to remain out of reach for me. I would say it’s ideal for the beginning gymnast to practice at home, but who’s going to spend this kind of money on a sport that you don’t even know if she’ll like in three months?

When I posted about pink footballs yesterday, I missed an example. Strangely enough, a company that sells sporting goods also sells a pink football purse for $125. It’s not actually made of a football, it’s just leather shaped like a football, with laces and handles attached. I suspect there is definitely a market for an item like this, though I can’t really see carrying it unless it’s pretty big (no size listed on the website) because it looks rather impractical for actually keeping things in.

Someone recently left a comment asking if there were any pink footballs out there. I thought for sure there must be, so I went in search of one. To my surprise, I couldn’t find anything! There’s pink jerseys, a pink uniform for girls, a pink field, and a controversial pink locker room – but no pink footballs. Well, no American pink footballs: a company called Sherrin makes pink Australian footballs for kids, but they look a little different from American footballs. Instead, the closest I could find was the artwork pictured here, Pink Football by James Jaxxa, who created it using a regulation football, sequins, and straight pins. It’s actually rather cute, but it’s not something you can play with. I’m honestly rather surprised that there aren’t any pink footballs out there…everything else is pink!

The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) has established the Pink Zone to increase awareness of breast cancer on the court and around the country. They are heavily involved in fundraising and have collaborated with the NCAA for some of their efforts. You can buy the pink basketball seen here, as well as other pink products, in their shop.

I can’t believe I never posted about my pink boxing gloves when I had them – at least I can’t find the post if I did. But here is some Ryoku boxing gear, gloves and a mask. It looks to me like the mask leaves your nose pretty vulnerable, but what do I know? I had the pink boxing gloves for a photo shoot. I found these at Ryoku, the link is here…but the site has a pretty bad vendor reliability rating from WOT Security. If you have the WOT plugin, it’ll warn you when you go to the site. So if you want to spend your $60 here, you’re welcome to, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Although most pieces of gym equipment now have metal strips that you grip to keep track of your heart rate, there’s still a reason to buy a wrist-worn heart rate monitor. How else are you going to monitor your heart rate while running outside, doing push-ups, or other non-machine-based activities? I’d bet money these are useful for Bowflex users too and you can use them with free weights as well. If you click the link, you can watch a video about how to use the device, which is $80.

Let us bow our heads to mourn the loss of ThinkPinkScuba, a website that only lasted for about a year. The owner, TekDiveGirl, loved pink and started her own store of pink gear. Alas, the store is no longer, but you can still find quite a few pink items for use when scuba diving. The fins pictured at left are kid swim fins for the pool or snorkeling only, they’re not made for diving use, but pink scuba gear is out there if you look!

I needed a new swim cap, so I was in the local sports store the other day. I came upon these fabulous pink goggles by a company called TYR. They were $11, and if I were working full-time I would totally have gotten them. Unfortunately I’m now in school full time and I simply do not have $11 to spend on goggles. (I already have a perfectly good pair.) So alas, no pink goggles for me, but help yourself to the link if you want them!

I just bought a fancy headset by H2O Audio that lets you listen to an iPod Shuffle while you’re swimming. I had to order a Shuffle too, and it happens that the best deal was a pink one, which is great! But it won’t be visible in the protective housing anyway. To avoid that problem, I could have picked up the Aquabeat by Speedo. It’s a fully immersible MP3 player, and it has attached headphones; you can clip it behind your head just like with the one I bought. It holds up to a gig of music, which ought to be enough for some pretty long workouts. The best part about this one is…it floats! I’m not sure if mine will do that. No idea who the electronics manufacturer is; the Speedo website says it “comes with Playlist Editing Software” so who knows how that even works. But if you’re interested in swimming laps and having your pink MP3 player visible, drop $145 on this product!