Avon Urges Instagram To Lift Its Nipple Ban During Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Oct. 1 marked the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and now's a great time to get clued up about the condition, get to know your body, and raise money and awareness. Brands and charities are teaming up to give you more information about breast cancer and how to check yourself and one of the easiest ways to learn more about the process is through social media. In light of this, cosmetics firm Avon is calling for Instagram to drop it’s nipple ban through Breast Cancer Awareness Month so people can see how to check their breasts and what to look out for.

The popular cosmetics company has a charitable foundation, The Avon Foundation for Women, which has reached out to Instagram to show images of females nipples throughout October. Currently images with nudity, including images of females nipples, are banned under Instagrams guidelines. The Independent said that, in a statement, the chairwoman for the Avon Foundation for Women Amy Greene said, “We believe this will use the social media platform as a force for good, helping to raise greater awareness of BCAM and to further breast health education.” She continued:

“At Avon we have a long-term commitment to breast health education and want to shine a light on breast health awareness across the globe.”

Greene is calling for the nipple ban to be lifted on Instagram so women can be shown how to check themselves properly and take a “Breast Break.” The research and care charity Breast Cancer Now revealed that less than half (48%) of women that they surveyed in 2018 were regularly checking their breasts for breast cancer, and 8% said they never had at all. Meanwhile, 41% said they didn’t check more because they forget and 21% said it’s because they don’t feel confident checking.

Avon have teamed up with the breast cancer charity CoppaFeel to raise awareness of how to check your breasts, become more confident with what’s normal for you, and get to know your body a little bit better. Speaking on their website, co-founder of CoppaFeel Kris Hallenga said, “I had been unaware that breast cancer could affect people in their twenties and knew very little about the disease. I’m not sure I realised it at the time, but finding out I had cancer forced me to confront an unexpected choice. Let life happen to me? Or grab on and try to change it? I chose the latter.”

Knowing what’s normal for your body is super important and if you think something is wrong, you should feel empowered to be able to say so. It’s awesome that brands and charities are teaming up throughout October to raise the profile of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and being able to see how to check your boobs and what you should be looking out from the comfort of your own home is awesome.

If you’d like more information about how to check your boobs this month you can visit the CoppaFeel website and sign up for their monthly text reminders to check your breasts so you’ll never forget again.