Those multicolored rings of silicone should be pretty familiar to you by now. Yes, we are talking about silicone wristbands. They have become ubiquitous in the last couple of years. You can notice them on the wrists of Tsunami aid workers, citizens campaigning for a cause, and even the on wrists of school children.
The silicone wristbands have become the most-preferred and the most economical way to show your support for a cause, or to donate to charity, or to raise awareness about an issue or a disease. You can see them used for very different purposes, such as to proclaim one’s religious affiliation, or as a fashion statement! The silicone wristband is the modern mode of wearing your heart on your sleeve, or wrist!
What are silicone wristbands? They are simply circles of solid silicone, worn on the wrist by stretching and sliding them over the palm of one’s hands. They come in any conceivable color yellow, orange, blue, green, black, pink… Some are translucent; others glow in the dark… And they are worn in support of a lot of messages or causes they are as adaptable as they are stretchable! Not all silicone wristbands are silicone, though. Some of them are made of rubber.
You can have any message imprinted over the silicone wristbands, or designs crafted on them. Actually, some of the latest silicone wristbands carry more than one message! Silicone wristbands usually sell for $1-5 a piece, and can be ordered online from many Web sites, in multiples of five hundred, or smaller packs of a dozen or more. The producers frequently give discounts for the bigger orders.
The most well-known of the silicone wristbands is the yellow ‘Livestrong’ wristband worn by cycling champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. The pink ones are worn to show support to breast cancer sufferers. SHeDAISY’s ‘Come Home Soon’ yellow silicone wristbands (named for the group’s Top 15 single) with the words ‘Come Home Soon’ imprinted on them are very well-liked among families of American soldiers.
The silicone wristband is a very functional and low-priced tool for crowd control: it is used as a cheap identifying mechanism in restricted access events attended by large numbers of people, such as music concerts. The silicone wristbands are also distributed by hospitals to their patients as identifying devices with some basic health information imprinted on them.
So what makes these silicone wristbands so well-liked? Sociologists say people have always used talismans in times of trouble. Now we are just using them in a more positive way. Yes, silicone wristbands are more than simple circles of silicone; they represent the human urge to fight and survive great odds.
