Written by Ria Patel ’25 of the Morehead-Cain Scholar Media Team

What is your culture’s narrative around sex?

What was your go-to sex-ed source?

What was your first period like?

Chances are, if you hear questions like these followed by giggles, screams, and fervent conversation, you’re playing Boob Blurb, a card game-turned-social movement founded by Isabella Grandic ’25 and inspired by women’s liberation, women’s health and wellness, and women’s rights.

Boob Blurb promotes emotionally vulnerable conversation around topics that have been censored for centuries, such as consent, birth control, gender fluidity, and more, according to Isabella.

“When you allow these conversations to have fluidity, you realize that, in many ways, you are not alone. There are a lot more perspectives on these issues, and this is something we can connect to with other people,” the founder explains.

I had the privilege of playing Boob Blurb on my very first night as a first-year scholar at Carolina. Although I had no idea who Izzy was, or what Boob Blurb meant at the time, I appreciated that the game was asking the right questions, but not pushing a “right answer.”

“The questions are open-ended, and that’s what they are supposed to be,” Izzy says. “There is no ‘right answer’ to how and if, for example, you remove your leg hair . . . there is no right answer to how and if you should end a relationship.”

Isabella says Boob Blurb began as a long list of questions.

“It was genuinely just a PDF with, like . . . twenty-seven questions,” she says. “I had a hypothesis.”

Isabella decided to reach out to Hailey Sani, whose girl talk Q&A videos resonated with Izzy by breaking down conversation barriers around female-specific issues.

“I wanted to shoot my shot,” Isabella says. “I sent her this email . . . I had nothing . . . I just had this PDF.”

Hailey responded immediately. With her connections in the world of e-commerce and entertainment, and Isabella’s business idea, the two decided to partner.

There were months of learning, messing up, and learning again, from figuring out phrases like “minimum order quantity” to learning how to send an invoice for the first time.

“There is so much you learn on the job,” Isabella says. “Yes, it’s finding people who have walked in your footsteps, but I got some really valuable advice from people who would never think of selling a card game or selling something of this caliber, but people’s perspectives are really valuable.”

As Boob Blurb approaches its launch date in late April, I asked Isabella what she would say to those who might think Boob Blurb topics are “inappropriate” or “too much information.”

“How much of the truth you accept culturally is just narratives that are fed to you, and you reciprocate,” she says. “It shouldn’t be weird to talk about things that happen to your body that are natural or inevitable.”

To learn more about the company and the product release, you can sign up for Boob Blurb’s newsletter here.

More about Izzy

Isabella (Izzy) Grandic ’25 graduated from Etobicoke Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Izzy is the co-founder and executive director of EMM.health, a project that distributes medication to women after childbirth to prevent postpartum hemorrhaging, a leading cause of maternal death globally. EMM has raised $20,000 and partnered with the nonprofit FAYOHI and the State Ministry of Health in Jigawa, Nigeria, to launch a pilot program.

Izzy was also student at The Knowledge Society (TKS) for two years. She has researched cellular agriculture and biotechnology, writing dozens of technical review papers and presenting her work globally to more than 50,000 people, including at Web Summit in Lisbon. Since 2019, she has been the program success manager at TKS, overseeing program outcomes for more than 800 students across eight programs.

At Carolina, she plans to study biomedical engineering to gain skills to continue impacting healthcare infrastructure.

About the Morehead-Cain Self-Starter Series

The Morehead-Cain Self-Starter Series highlights scholars and alumni who took the initiative to fill gaps within their communities.

Rather than focusing on “success” alone, Sarah Chocron ’25 and Ria Patel ’25 dive into the conversations, connections, and networks that got these self-starters to where they are today. The series is inspired by the self-discovery Sarah and Ria experienced in starting their own pop-up coffee shop on campus, Griatitude Coffee Co.

Stay tuned to learn more about these Morehead-Cains—not just what they built, but how they built it.

This is the first edition of the Morehead-Cain Self-Starter Series. The next edition will highlight Mercy Adekola ’25 and her nail art business, Nails Have Mercy.

About the author

Ria Patel of Collierville, Tennessee, covers the scholar beat on the Morehead-Cain Scholar Media Team.

Ria graduated in spring 2021 from St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis. While in high school, the first-year scholar founded INSPIre, an organization focused on adolescent mental health and well-being, and she conducted independent research projects at the University of Memphis, studying working memory and learning conditions.

At Carolina, she plans to pursue a major in neuroscience with minors in business and chemistry, and to continue her interest in mental health and wellness.

Sarah and Ria Patel ’25 are the co-founders of Griatitude Coffee co., a pop-up coffee shop with affordable specialty drinks for students in the Chapel Hill area. She plans to pursue a double major in information science and history with a minor in cognitive science.