» Listings for 2015

1. Feminist Icon - Yoky Matsuoka

   Posted on 9:48pm Friday 6th Nov 2015

   I always think that people should be celebrated, especially those flying under the radar.

   I recently heard about this amazing woman and I just wanted to share.  Yoky is a Japanese Neurobotics engineer and an absolutely wonderful role model for young women especially.  She has spent her life researching neuroscience and robotics and combining the two to create the most phenomenal prosthetics and especially a prosthetic hand.

   

   She played tennis when she was young and was semi-professional until she was forced to retire due to a repeated ankle injury.  She dreamed of creating a robotic tennis opponent for herself right back when she was young and this is something that she carried forward when she moved from Japan to the US when she was 16.  

   She has worked on so many projects during her life and is now in the hands of Apple, but she came to my attention with the prosthetic hand she created.  It is an absolute work of art.  It is robotic but modelled bone by bone on the human hand with multiple motors each corresponding to muscles and with strings playing the role of tendons  along each digit.  Her knowledge of the use of a hand in tennis, merged with her knowledge of neuroscience as well as robotics has created something revolutionary.  As Matthew O'Donnell, dean of the U.W. College of Engineering states, she is "a mechanical engineer, neuroscientist, bioengineer, robotics expert and computer scientist, all in one… [with] …the ability to see what is possible by combining all these disciplines." 

   

   It's a wonderful achievement for a woman to rise so high in so many many dominated fields.  She is an inspiration and I salute you Yoky.

    

2. New Amazon Images and Fashion Tape Options

   Posted on 3:42pm Tuesday 27th Oct 2015

    Well it certainly has been busy lately!  You may have seen it in the news, but Amazon managed to patent the white background product photo.

    

   http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/has-amazon-really-patented-one-of-the-most-basic-ways-to-take-a-photograph-9452807.html

    Granted, they have made it very specific in how it is lit etc, but with their new patent under their belt they have decided to enforce white backgrounds on their site.  I completely understand as a white background can make things very clean and simple, but it's been a nightmare for me!  I do have a shop on Amazon as many of you know and with the new requirements I had to retake all of my main images so that they fulfill the new policy.  This is time consuming enough, but my clear breast enhancers have of course been somewhat of a challenge.  After failing a few too many times and trying to convince Amazon to allow me to use contextual props (a bra) in order to help buyers understand what the product is I then managed to get some shots done.  They then disheartingly said to me that they do not have a pure background, and therefore require a whole load of editing.  As you can tell, this has taken a huuuuge amount of my time and I'm not fully there yet.  If you ever visit a seller's store with a clear image on a white background you can appreciate the effort that it took to enable you to see it in the first place :D

   	Are you there style 8?!
   That's a little better, but now I've got to make you really white!

   In better news I've got some new extra sticky fashion tape strips in. I was pleased with my new tape factory but there seemed to be the odd application that the adhesive wasn't strong enough for.  It's a tough line of course to make sure that they are safe to use on skin, but I think I'm there with the new perfect level of stickiness.  Check them out here:

    

   Until next time, wish me luck with my last lot of white background photos and of course HAPPY HALLOWEEN

    

   

3. My little holiday to Edinburgh

   Posted on 2:40pm Tuesday 25th Aug 2015

   As you may have noticed, I took a week off this summer to head up to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival.  I had no idea what to expect but I loved it so much that I just have to tell you about it.

   Darren, a street artist, captured us brilliantly!

    

   I am not good at taking time off as I run my little shop on my own, so when I do get away it makes it extra special.  I asked my daughter where she would like to go and "SCOTLAND" fired out of her mouth faster than even requests to stay up late.  With her explanation that she wanted to learn to speak as if she was from Scooootland, I just knew that we had to go.  We booked a few nights in the city, sorted out our flights and eagerly awaited her summer holiday from school.  We were not disappointed.

   The city was amass with people giving out flyers to all sorts of shows and I wish I could have visited them all but as I had my 7-year-old with me, we stuck to the instant gratification of the street acts.  We were treated to circus performers, world music, illusionists, magicians, singers, bagpipe players, artists, comedians and so much more.  I could easily have stayed there so much longer as there is just so much to see and do.

   The electric energy in the city was fantastic with professional performers from all around the word heading over to show us their skills.  People crowded around, huddled in, gasped, cheered, clapped and sang.  It's not often that you get that kind of feeling in a city and notice so many nationalities coming together to both perform and watch.

    

      

    

    

   If you ever get the chance to go, please do.  Edinburgh is my favourite city at the best of times (besides my lovely Brighton of course!), but add the festival sights and sounds and you are in for a real treat.  

   
   

4. New Stocks AND Styles!

   Posted on 11:45am Wednesday 29th Jul 2015

   At last some new stocks are here!  You've been snapping up the new breast forms and style 11 breast enhancers so they went down much quicker than I thought.  At last the new ones are here and I shall be restocking the site today.

   The new stocks/options in are:

   • All breast form styles and sizes fully stocked.
   • Style 11 back in - both 400g and 500g sizes and they now come without nipple due to popular demand.  I've made them available for sale with new images coming asap.
   • Triangle breast forms now in smaller sizes.  I shall get the descriptions written up asap but they are just smaller versions of the ones I already have and the same sizes as style 11.  The big difference is that they have a concave back so these will be great for ladies needing a bigger boost to the front than style 11 who find the 300g/600g triangle pairs just that bit too big.
   • Special orders are now in for those customers who requested them.  If you ever need a special order just let me know and I can arrange that for you.  Special orders this time included a 2500g teardrop 2 breast form pair and a 250g pear single breast form.  
   • Style 9a and 9b are now available without the raised nipple.  This will be added to the checkout options later today (if the flow of coffee continues!).

   If you have any ideas for future site products or need some help choosing from my ever growing range, you know where I am :)

   

5. So far this year...

   Posted on 8:31pm Monday 13th Jul 2015

   ...I've been busy!

   I could blurb on about all the details, but these are the highlights:

   I've started working with my new factory for the breast forms which has been really exciting.  It took a lot longer than I thought as it involved working out new moulds and changing the shapes slightly.

   Most are are very similar to the way they were, apart from Teardrop Style 2 which is now wider.  They are all however softer to help you on the way with that jiggle factor you all love

   

    

   I hope you love the new versions as much as me so please do send me your feedback.  

   I've been working hard to update the descriptions and images on the site this year as a nice refresh ever now and again is always good.  By adding bras to some images it helps you see the items in context so I hope that really helps.

   I've also been able to bring in a great new style, so say hello to style 11.

    

   

   I've also brought tape strips back, currently with a lower tac for sensitive skin.  Arriving next week will be a stronger version which will not be suitable for all skin and fabric types, but for those who need strong sticking power, this will be the tape for you.

    

   The rest of the year will still bring some great new changes:

   • I shall continue updating all the images and descriptions for you
   • Style 4 from the breast enhancer range is on my list to be looked at.  I am hoping to make some tweaks and have it back in ready for when you jet off somewhere warm in our cold winter months.
   • New guides and information to be added to my help centre to help you with your experience when on my site.

    

   I hope your year is going really well and you are all loving the wonderful ever-changing British summer!

   

6. 2015 at Jo Thornton HQ

   Posted on 1:40pm Saturday 10th Jan 2015

   This year I have some great changes that we can look forward to!

    

   • I shall be changing my breast form factory shortly. This will enable me to produce softer breast forms and importantly different skin tone breast forms.  It has been a goal of mine for quite some time to be able to offer darker skin tones so I am very excited about this.  The styles may change slightly, but only in positive ways as I have so many years experience now that I know exactly what elements work best for you the customer.
   • I shall be working hard to blog more and find information that you will love.  I will be learning how to do infographics and do some to help you choose from my range.  I shall also do some more visual versions of my help guides, how to work out your bra size, check your bra fits well, fit your breast enhancers in your bra etc.
   • I shall be getting you some videos done on the breast forms so that you can see them in a 3D way and get some images of the breast forms styles together so you can better understand the styles differences.  
   • I shall be working hard to design and find a factory that will produce a larger cleavage booster that is nice and wide for wider framed ladies.
   • I shall be looking to bring a few new products in all categories.
   • Producing a newsletter a couple of times a year to let you all know about product changes, sales etc.

    

   If you have any thoughts about any of these or anything you'd love for me to consider, please do get in touch!  [email protected].

   I wish you all a fabulous year and hope that the year of the ram is a great one for you. 

   Jo xxx

7. Living With Lupus

   Posted on 1:25pm Saturday 10th Jan 2015

   This is a more personal post today.  I've not been able to blog or social media much lately so I thought I'd do a little post to let you all know why.  

   I have struggled with my health in the 6 months or so, feeling so tired no matter how much sleep I get (falling asleep whilst typing emails!), experiencing a lot of joint and muscle pain, a lot of discomfort in my digestive system and headaches and migraines.  It has meant it has been very difficult keeping up with my little company and I've found it very frustrating that I couldn't get back to all your lovely customer emails as quickly as I'd like or dispatch products throughout the day as before.  

   As you may or may not know, I run the company on my own.  It's a little business, with my Mum helping out packaging products and freelancers helping me when I need graphic design work etc.  I love it that way as I have grown the business slowly and have been involved in all aspects of it.  To be unwell is frustrating on so many levels though and working on my own means there isn't anyone to pick up the slack.

   I now have a diagnosis however, so hopefully I shall be back on track soon.  I have a rare auto-immune disease called lupus.  It is one of those diseases that affects people differently and is very hard to diagnose, but now I have the diagnosis I can move forward and I am starting on medication to help.  It basically means that the antibodies in my body attack the healthy parts of me, rather than the unhealthy parts like they are supposed to.  This unnecessary war within me causes the symptoms and will flare up throughout my life and it could flare on a day by day basis, or I may have months without symptoms.  It's an odd one to get my head around! 

   I want you all to know that I remain full dedicated to my little shop.  I shall work extra hard when feeling well and have to rest when not, but day-to-day wise I shall always aim to get back to your emails in 24 hours and dispatch your lovely purchases every day as before.  Life is for living and this disease will help me to remember that. 

   If you have a family member or suffer from lupus yourself please feel free to get in touch as I'd love to learn more about it and how it affects them/you.

   Jo xxx