Since today is Chocolate Covered Anything Day, I thought I’d do some research on who invented chocolate and women and chocolate.

Here are four articles I found:

Chocolate invented 3,100 years ago by the Aztecs – while trying to make beer.

Scientists have discovered that chocolate was invented at least 3,100 years ago in Central America and not as the sweet treat people now crave, but as a celebratory beer-like beverage and status symbol.

Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes exclusively from the cacao plant – the source of chocolate – in pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido, Honduras. To read the rest of the article visit Mail Online

Women and chocolate: Simply made for each other by Glenda Cooper

Women and chocolate are a dream team and advertisers have cleverly ensured they stay that way.

You can bet that when the first Aztec tentatively crushed a cacao bean, right behind him was an ad executive excitedly branding the muddy brown discovery “the food of the gods”. Or if there wasn’t, there certainly should have been — because chocolate hasn’t looked back since. Mars’s new “Mars Delight”, expected out this spring, is just the latest attempt to beguile us into seeing that a mixture of hydrogenated fat, sugar and theobromine (a type of caffeine) is an essential part of our life.  To read the rest of this article, visit Chocolate.org.

And then there’s the chocolate chip cookie, invented by a Woman!

Ruth Wakefield, Inventor of the Chocolate Chip Cookie:

Ruth Graves Wakefield (1905-1977) invented chocolate chips (and chocolate chip cookies) in 1930. Wakefield ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. Her new cookie invention was called the “Toll House Cookie.” Her original cookies used broken-up bars of semi-sweet chocolate. Her cookbook, “Toll House Tried and True Recipes,” was published in 1940. Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite treat for people of all ages, but without the famous woman inventor Ruth Wakefield, the world might never have tasted those sweet delights. Born in 1905, Wakefield grew up to be a dietician and food lecturer after graduating from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924. Along with her husband Kenneth, she bought a tourist lodge named the Toll House Inn, where she prepared the recipes for meals that were served to guests. Here’s the story of Ruth Wakefield: http://www.women-inventors.com/Ruth-Wakefield.asp

So the Aztecs invented it and women perfected it!  Isn’t that divine?

Chocolate lover’s paradises around the world by By Joe Yogerst ~ From Belgium to Hershey, Pa., 10 Places to go cuckoo for cocoa

It’s just like any other addiction. You start slowly, gradually acquire a taste for the stuff and then ramp things up into a full-blown habit. But you can’t help yourself—you love the subtle buzz, the lingering aftertaste, the euphoric feeling that seems to follow every delicious encounter, to the point where you can no longer live without your daily dose. That’s when you know you’re a full-blown chocoholic. Read the rest of Chocolate lover’s paradise at MSNBC.

Joan Lefkowitz, an original marketer of TopsyTail tm, is president of ACCESSORY BRAINSTORMS, Inc, a licensing agency, sales representation and consultancy for Fashion/Beauty Accessory and Lifestyle Inventions. From its showroom in New York’s ‘accessories district,  it licenses inventors’ products to major corporations and markets to Mail Order Catalogues, TV Shopping programs and retail. 

Some very successful products we have launched have been TOPSY TAIL (which sold over $100m at retail), HAIRDINI, HOLLYWOOD FASHION TAPES, and MISS OOPS and, most recently, BOSOM BUTTON, LUMBARWEAR, WHIRL-A-STYLE, WINKEE, R.E.M. SPRING (hair removal tool) and TAG TAMERS…Specializing in representing unique products and inventions since 1984, she is always interested in seeing new products in these categories. ACCESSORIES Magazine awarded her for the “Most Inventive Products” and also cited her as one of the 100 most important accessories industry “Movers and Shakers”. You can visit: www.accessorybrainstorms.com for more information.

In this session you will learn the hallmarks of a good invention, what should be included in your inventors marketing plan, the key elements that go into packaging a product for market,  how to develop a name for your product, marketing strategies to get your product into the hands of your ideal customer, how to approach retailers to carry your product, licensing options and other marketing tips for inventors who are ready to take their product to market.

To attend, send an email to info (at) inventingwomen.com with ”RSVP Market Inventions” in the subject line.

On Wednesday, September 10th at 11 AM (EST)

Inventor of the Cleavage Caddy™ Tells how she got her idea onto the chests of women in America.

If you are interested in attending this FREE teleconference, send a message to heidi@inventingwomen.com with “Cleavage Caddy RSVP” in the subject line and you will be sent instructions to participate.

Have an invention?  Need to get your invention off the ground? Join Heidi as she interviews Kim Lavine, Inventor and Author of Mommy Millionaire and 14 experts on building wealth September 18-20 for the Grow a Million Dollar Business Summit. Learn more and register WHERE WOMEN PROSPER.

You can learn more about the Cleavage Caddy™ at http://www.mazantricreations.com/mazantri-cleavage-caddy.html

Tomima Edmark is the the inventor of the wildly successful TopsyTail, a hair accessory for women that she marketed by herself to revenues of $150 million. She is also the founder of HerRoom.com and HisRoom.com.

During her interview Tomima shared her journey of taking her invention to market, how she promoted Topsy Tail, got them in major retail outlets, got funding and all the challenges and victories that went along with creating a mutli-million dollar empire.

You can listen to Tomima’s interview here: .

The next interview was with Denyse DuBrucq, inventor, educator and scientist. 

Denyse shared her story about all the things she has invented including the resistance to her ideas even though they could change the world, how she found the perfect patent attorney to work with, the resources she has found helpful in her journey and also the story of her newest invention and how she plans to save millions of lives with it.

You can listen to Denyse’s story here: http://inventingwomen.com/audio/DenyseDubrucq.mp3 .

Friday May 2, 2008 – 9:30 AM Eastern Time (8:30 Central, 7:30 Mountain, 6:30 Pacific)

Tomima Edmark is the inventor of the wildly successful TopsyTail, a hair accessory for women that she marketed by herself to revenues of $150 million. This extraordinary product earned her instant fame among the nation’s small-business set and put Edmark on an entrepreneurial path that continues today. She has since developed a series of additional consumer products, written several successful books and created a variety of e-commerce Web sites. Along the way, she became known for her entrepreneurship and was featured on television shows and in business publications like Good Morning America, Oprah, Forbes Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

In 1999, Tomima realized there was a gap in the options women had to buy lingerie; our choices were department store, lingerie boutique or mail order. Why shouldn’t we have the same ease buying bras that we had for, say, tee shirts or music? An entrepreneur with a series of unconventional successes, Tomima turned to the internet and HerRoom was born. For Tomima, HerRoom isn’t just about shopping for sexy lingerie. She wants women to find the styles and sizes that fit them best—for all body types and tastes.

With a BFA in Fashion Design and an MBA, she uses her left brain and right brain to understand both the design and business of the women’s lingerie market. Tomina is going to share how she got the idea for TopsyTail, her journey to taking her invention to market and the steps she took to that led to its ultimate success.

To RSVP for this event, send a message to Heidi (at) inventing women.com with “RSVP Tomima Edmark” in the subject line.  Instructions will be sent to you in return email.

   Never Let ‘em Get You Down! The Challenges and Bureaucratic B.S. of Taking An Invention to Market with Denyse DuBrucq, EdD.

Join us on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 (10:00 AM Eastern Time) (9:00 AM Central, 8:00 AM Mountain, 7:00 AM Pacific)

Denyse DuBrucq, EdD. is an educator and inventor.  She serves as Managing General Partner of two partnerships holding her inventions, one dealing with the electronics inventions and the other those dealing with fires and crises.  She discovered how to use Liguid Nitrogen to stop fires.  Prospects for her invention are world wide to reduce the carbon released to the atmosphere during fires and to preserve water resources.  She anticipates demonstrations in China to control their severe coal mine fires and in California for the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention to end wildland fires quickly and efficiently. 

In 2003 with the Iraq War underway, the Iraqis threatened to explode their oil wells 20 feet below the surface.  To control these events without losing rights to the technology as happened in her work to control the Kuwait well fires in 1991, DuBrucq started writing the first Liquid Nitrogen patent focusing first on the Iraqi task, and, as the ideas kept streaming, the a wide group of fire and crises control capabilities. 

August, 2003, she offered the US Army Corps of Engineers means to quickly end the oil pipeline fires in Iraq, where these fires took 10 days to end, enabling them to be controlled in one day.  The compensation she requested never happened because it had to be paid by the company that lost profits because of the new required speed of fire control.  In this session you will learn about Denyse’s journey of disappointment, promises not kept, political two-stepping and other challenges she has faced to get her products to market. 

Unwavering in her quest to succeed, Denyse has put together a team that she feels will help her get the much needed funding, attention and outcome she knows can and will change the world.

Interested in attending?  Send an email to heidi (at) inventing women with RSVP Denyse DuBrucq in the subject line and you will receive call-in and webinar instructions.

Men and women can say “Count me in!” to help eradicate this preventable cancer 

Cervical cancer education will get a shot in the arm this month from an unusual source – The Undie Awards.  Every year underwear preferences come out of the closet as men and women vote online for their favorite styles and manufacturers.  This year HerRoom.com, organizers of the Undie Awards, will donate twenty-five cents to the National Cervical Cancer Public Education Campaign for each voter who clicks Count Me In!

 “If more education can save lives and wipe out cervical cancer, we’re prepared to step up and support that ideal,” says Tomima Edmark, Founder and President of HerRoom.com.  “Just go to The Undie Awards, cast your votes and click the Count Me In! button. We’ll donate twenty-five cents for every voter who does that. Last year we received 12,500 votes and we hope to get many more this year.  If 100 000 people vote this year we’ll donate twenty-five thousand dollars to the fund.” 

The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2008, about 11,070 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and 3,870 women will die of the disease. The National Cervical Cancer Public Education Campaign is committed to eliminating cervical cancer completely and now that a cervical cancer vaccine is available, 70% of cervical cancers can be prevented.  In addition, the availability of improved Pap test screening plus a test for the virus that causes almost all cervical cancer—the Human papilloma virus, or HPV—means that no women need die from this preventable cancer. 

Voting in The Undie Awards provides men and women with information about America’s favorite underwear styles. Awards go not only to the overall category winners, but with the body type data that each voter enters men and women can also see the most popular styles for different body types. 

Note: Inventing Women will be intervieiwing Tomima Edmark, Inventor and Founder of HerRoom.com and HisRoom.com on May 2, 2008. Stay Tuned!

Julia Rhodes, Inventor of Kleen Slate Dry Erase Markers and Whiteboards.

Julia M. Rhodes is President of KleenSlate Concepts, a successful international product development company she founded in 2001. Julia invented, patented, manufactured, marketed and distributed her first product: The KleenSlate Attachable Eraser for Dry-erase Markers. She single handedly landed contracts with both Office Depot and Staples and understands what it takes to “do business with the Big Boys.” In the past seven years she has built a thriving company with a growing line of award-winning dry-erase products.

Building a business from an idea for a product requires a can-do attitude, which is reinforced by Julia’s growing success, and she is generous in her desire to share this information with others just starting out in business. Invention is just the first step in product development and her passion is supporting other inventors in understanding the steps required for taking an idea and making it a reality.

A former school teacher, Julia’s dedicated to improving education, and all her products are designed to be of the highest quality and employ creative approaches to communication both in and out of the classroom. Her newest product, KwikChek II just won the prestigious award, “Teachers’ Choice 2008” from Learning Magazine. She is constantly engaged in crafting new educational products to expand her current offerings and is also working on her first book – “The Right Sisters: Modern Day Women Inventors,” which she hopes will inspire young adults to pursue their passions and believe in their ideas. Julia has been featured on radio and television, most notably The Entrepreneur Hour Radio Show and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She is also a Founding Board Member of Inventing Women™

In this session Julia will be giving an overview of taking an idea from your head, to market. We discuss how she got the idea, how she researched it for marketability, how she patented it, who she used to help her get her idea off the ground, how she spread the word about her idea using whiteboard clothing (which she also invented) and more! Listen to Julia now!

First words are often the most challenging to write. Whether it be in a book, in a letter, on a blog or in a memo. First words are important. After all they set the stage for what’s to come. So I thought I’d do just that by highlighting just a few inventing women who made history and changed our lives in a very profound and positive way. This is only a sample of the thousands of women I plan to highlight. Be sure and click on their names to read their personal stories of success.

Bette Nesmith Graham saved thousands of countless hours for typists everywhere when she invented Liquid Paper®, Mary Anderson undoubtedly saved countless lives with her invention (the Windshield Wiper ) and what about the Inventor of the Barbie Doll, Ruth Handler? I still have my collection of 39 Barbies, Kens, Midges, Gidgets and not to mention the clothing, cars and Barbie houses!

And contrary to popular belief a man did not invent the modern brassier! Mary Phelps Jacob did! And thank goodness she did or we’d probably all still be wearing corsets not because corsets are considered a fashion statement because we had to!

One of my personal favorites is Ruth Wakefield, Inventor of the chocolate chip cookie! Okay, raise your hands if you thought it was Debbie Fields….

And my husband’s personal favorite (if he knew it existed) might be the Remote Control Locator invented by Twin Sisters Kelli and Vanessa Dunn.

And while you’re in the mood to read about Inventing Women throughout history, here’s a great post called “Exploring the History of Women Inventors” by J. E. Bedi (Lemelson Center) I recommend you check out!

These and many more women will be written about on Inventing Women. My personal goals are to highlight women throughout history who have inspired us and changed our lives and to write about TODAY’s Inventing Women who are realizing their own dreams, visions and achieving their goals, Who knows, the next one could be YOU!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Inventing Women. We have big plans for Inventing Women everywhere and invite you to be a part of it! Let’s make history together.

Warmest regards,

Heidi Richards Mooney