This past summer, a group of North Carolina State University students launched their roofie-nail polish alert product. By just swirling your fingernail in your drink, you would be able to tell if you had been drugged:
If common date rape drugs such as GHB, Xanax or Rohypnol are present in the drink, the nail polish color will change. The inventors of Undercover Colors: Stephan Gray, Tyler Confrey-Maloney, Tasso Von Windheim, and Ankesh Madan state via their business Facebook Page:
With our nail polish, any woman will be empowered to discreetly ensure her safety by simply stirring her drink with her finger. If her nail polish changes color, she’ll know that something is wrong. Through this nail polish and similar technologies, we hope to make potential perpetrators afraid to spike a woman’s drink because there’s now a risk that they can get caught. In effect, we want to shift the fear from the victims to the perpetrators. We are Undercover Colors and we are the first fashion company empowering women to prevent sexual assault.
More recently, another company called Stiletto has released their own product to help keep women from becoming victims of sexual assault. Used as a bracelet or necklace, Stiletto is a pendant that can be double clicked when a woman is harmed or feels unsafe. It will notify her emergency contacts along with a text that can include a selfie, other emergency contacts to call, medical conditions and her insurance information according to Cosmopolitan. The pendant will also share the woman’s location and call 911 for her.
“The very nature of wearables, because they are on the body, there is an expectation that they need to be more fashionable, more stylish, and more unique to the individual,” said , Michael Kisch, CEO of Soundhawk a wearable technology company. He also claims within the next few years wearable tech products with help tackle issues such as personal security. Moreover, stories of sexual assault and domestic violence have been making headlines here and around the world more and more this year.
According to Stiletto’s website, the pendants currently cost an between $179 and $349. This also creates a financial barrier and raises the question: What demographic or even type of woman do these companies want to keep safe?
