Are you in the pink during October as a celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Everyone seems to have hopped onto this marketing bandwagon and Bloomie's is no exception. The store has done everything from illuminating its flagship store on 59th Street in NYC with the color pink to offering special merchandise and promotions.

This Bloomie's bra event seems to make a heck of a lot more sense than buying a pink mixer or vaccum cleaner unless you are channeling Reese Witherspoon's Elle from Legally Blonde.

Get fitted for your perfect bra from Wacoal, Donna Karen Intimates or DKNY Underware and Wacoal and $2 will be donated by Wacoal to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. You will also get information on early cancer detection and a self breast examination guide. Buy a Wacoal "Awareness Bra" and an additional $2 will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The special bra event is Oct. 11 at the Aventura store and Oct. 31 at the Boca Raton store.

Option include sexy bras like the Wacoal "Pretty and Polished" full-figure bra for $60 and the Wacoal "Slimline Mimimizer" for $58.

XOXO-- Shopper Girl

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It's been a long time coming. You've seen the ads, now you've got the stores.

Kohl's has been bombarding the airwaves with its tempting TV advertisements long before they opened the first SoFla store in Boynton Beach earlier this year. (The reason? Stores often make regional media buys and the coverage area may overlap where there are no stores.)

On Oct. 1, the chain is opening six more stores in our circulation area -- Coconut Creek, Hialeah, Hollywood, Homestead, Kendall and MIramar. For locations. see www.kohls.com/southflorida. Check out the earlybird specials 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 1.

You can try to win the $1,000 Kohl's gift card by visiting any Kohl's from Oct. 1-Oct.11.

Also, Kohl's is selling a wide variety of KitchenAid Cook for the Cure products in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. For example, if you buy this Stand Mixer ($359.99), KitchenAid will donate $50 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For oither products, KitchenAid will donate 10 percent from the purchase of this product to the foundation.

XOXO -- Shopper Girl

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When author/illustrator Cathy Nilon was 43 and diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, she couldn’t comprehend how to explain to 4-year-old son Luca what Mommy was going to go through. She couldn’t find any programs for his age group and her family had no mental health coverage to help cope with the trauma.

Nilon, now 46 and a breast cancer survivor, has created Chemo Cat ($9.95, Ravenna Press), a heart-wrenching, but ultimately uplifting story of her family’s cancer journey, told in the voice of her son.

Luca and Mama cat, aka Cat-Cat, are a family of cats who take you through their thoughts and emotions — the highs and the deepest lows — of that difficult period. Chemo Cat is poignant for the mere fact that it’s so real.

When you see cancer’s ravages through the eyes of the young — who have to figure out why Mama’s hair has fallen out and why she throws up all the time and why she can’t play with him like she used to — it becomes all the more unfathomable.

Says Luca in the book: “I was saddest by far and sometimes would shout ; or just sit on my floor and cry my eyes out. I was tired of kids who had healthier moms ...”

Almost as compelling as the story and gorgeous illustrations is the foreword, where Nilon gives thanks to the supportive sisterhood she found through her cancer experience. Read it and you really understand why we call them “survivors.”

Find It:
The book is available here :
or at amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. All proceeds go to
Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

K.V.W.

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Tomorrow (October 11) from 5 to 8 p.m., the Fresh Produce store on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale will host a Girl's Night Out Shopping Party to benefit the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer. (For details, call 954-463-8131)

As part of it, Fresh Produce will donate 10 percent of the events' sales to the VB Foundation; $5 from the sale of Ellie the Elephant tees; and Vera Bradley will donate 50% of proceeds from select Limited Edition Pink Elephant items.

(Aside: As an elephant-phile (seriously, I have a thing about elephants; even have a whole Christmas tree with elephant ornaments) I must say the Pink Elephant collection is beyond adorable.

K.V.W.

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This is a product Elle Woods of Legally Blonde would kill to have -- a vacuum with a great reputation in her fave color.

The bagless Dyson DC07 Pink, which cleans with cyclone technology and is certified asthma friendly according ot the Asthma and Alllergy Foundation of America, sells for $399 exclusively at Target. And $40 from the sale of each one will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Too bad Elle didn't have one of these in the movie.

C.V.S.

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Saw these pink tennis balls available at Publix yesterday. Not sure how much of a donation Wilson makes to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, but what a fun way to bring your pink support onto the court. You can also get them online here.

- K.V.W

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Looking to replace your favorite scent?

Check out FragranceNet.com, for an enourmous selection and some good discount prices.

While there, do a search for "Pink" and you'll find a whole list of fragrances that help give back during the month of October, when the online perfume purveyor is donating 25 percent of proceeds to the Breast Cancer Research.

Among the pink selections: Pink Sugar from Aquolina for under $22; Ice Pink from Carolina Herrara for under $17; Tartine et Chocolate Pink from Givenchy for under $30 and Inferno Paradiso Pink from Benetton for under $22.

--K.V.W.

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As October nears, we are starting to be inundated with pink, that is, products geared to promote Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Shop-o-matic will occasionally feature items that we deem especially cool and that donate significant proceeds to a noteworthy cause. (You'd be surprised at the number of so-called "pink" merchandise that doesn't actually contribute -- or does so minimally -- to the cause but takes advantage of the marketing campaign behind it.)

So let's begin...

Love this Michael Stars tee from Olive and Bettes (my all-time fave store in NYC).

Love the "I believe in a cure..." slogan and the "one size fits most" Michael Stars tees really do usually have a great fit.

Oh, and all proceeds of this shirt go to Woman At Risk, a program at Columbia University Medical Center.

K.V.W.

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