Homage to the Color Black

What does the color black make you think of or feel? For my entire life, my Father (also Maxim Hygiene Products’ Founding Father) scolded me for wearing black. He coupled the color with traditional associations of mourning, darkness and sadness, yet failed to acknowledge the power in it. That all changed when we launched our “black label” of NEW Revolutionary MaxION products. I’ll never forget the expression on his face when he pulled the first stock of samples out of the first shipment of finished goods we received from the factory – it was love at first sight!

Just like almost anything in life, our perception plays a role in how we interpret different experiences or colors for that matter; with most things in life, you can choose to perceive them as positive or negative. I come from a school of thought that truly believes there is a higher purpose for everything that we experience and it is our mission to extract the goodness out of every situation. Here’s a brief list of all the goodness we feel when we see the color black and the inspiration behind why we chose it to be the backdrop of our new products’ sassy packaging:

Fashionable

Some will argue if black is even a color, but that didn’t stop it from becoming the iconic color of the fashion industry. This was is confirmed by famed fashion designer Coco Chanel, who’s credited with liberating women from the constraints of the corseted silhouette with sporty casual designs that became the feminine standard in the post World War I era. Chanel was quoted as saying, “Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.”

And who can forget the perfect black dress, a must have in every woman’s wardrobe, that was established as such by both fashion and film icon Audrey Hepburn in the first scenes of her unforgettable role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

No matter what one wears on the outside though, Hepburn was quick to remind us that
“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.”

Artistic

As the Mother of American Modernism, Georgia O’Keeffe is most well known for her floral depictions that contrary to her expressed intention, many interpreted as Freudian illustrations of the female genitalia. Her later more famous works move away from this common theme, creating one of our favorite pieces that unfortunately comes with a sad story – the Black Abstraction, as seen to the left.

Like we said earlier in the post, perception has the power to create light from darkness. Our interpretation of this philosophy playing itself out in this piece is that O’Keeffe was able to create a beautiful painting as a result of dismal situation.

The Black Abstraction represents the experience O’Keeffe had in 1927, when she underwent an operation to remove a benign tumor in her breast, which maybe explains why she was once quoted as saying, “There’s something about black. You feel hidden away in it.”

Most women feel the same about their periods and use  the color black as a tool to hide away during their periods, i.e. wearing black clothes to cover up the dreaded leak and bloating that many women experience during their periods. Many societies and cultures still instill feelings of shame and embarrassment in women during their periods.

At Maxim Hygiene, we like to encourage the opposite! Be bold about who you are as a women and celebrate reasons for having a period. The black packaging we created for our new line of products is bold in this way in that it not only brings change to a category typically full of white colored background packaging, but it offers new ion based technology that helps prevent irritation and odor!

Mystical

Although modern science does not have the empirical data it demands, the science of metaphysics, alternative healers and the first scientists of our time like Aristotle, have long celebrated the healing properties of gemstones. Our special gemstone ingredient and inspiration in particular for the MaxION line is Black Tourmaline, which is said to kill off negative energy in many different forms. Ironically, Tourmaline is negatively charged, but negative ions are associated with positive energy!

You know that invigorated fresh feeling you experience after a nice hike or camping trip? That might just be because nature is packed with negatively charged particles. So, if you’re feeling stressed at home or work, try nestling one of these positive energy transformers next to your desk or around your neck and let it shield you from the axes of evil.

For this reason, tourmaline is popularly used during the ritual work of alternative healers. In order get to the hard work of clearing their clients’ pathways, they need to first get to their own. For Certified Crystal Healer, Angie Yingst, black tourmaline remains her most important ally in her protection toolkit. It is also an excellent grounding crystal for meditation.

Mesmerizing

We’ve all had an unforgettable moment where we’re gazing up in to a clear night sky imagining what lives beyond the darkness and places of the sparkling shiny stars. I recently heard from a spiritual holistic teacher that 97% of the world is made up of dark matter. She went on to explain that like my dad, many of us intuitively associate darkness as being scary in the absence of light. Maybe this somehow taps in to our fear of the unknown which is why we find the dark night sky so mesmerizing.

What’s out there in outer space? What lurks beyond our senses? The black night sky conjures up such questions, while at the same time sets the perfect backdrop to see the light; without the darkness, we would not be able to see the light as clearly or we might get overwhelmed and blinded by all the light. Spiritually, this might also help explain why “bad things happen.” Without the bad, we might never be able to appreciate or see the good, which is why we must appreciate the darkness alongside the light.

So with our Mesmerizing, Mystical, Artistic and Fashionable inspiration, we present to you our new MaxION products and hope you’re feeling as excited and enLIGTHened by the color black and the new products as we are.

Please feel free to share your favorite and inspirational dark/light, black/white, MaxION/Maxim moment with us here!