Women with cancer can lose so much more than their health.
As a result of the treatment they might lose their hair, their eyebrows and lashes, and their skin can dry out and become sensitive.
Understandably, that can lead to women losing their body confidence and feeling less willing to go out.
Now health and wellness enthusiast Jo Esdale – who runs Essential Well-Being – is planning to run free masterclasses to educate women in that situation about what they can do to help themselves look and feel better.
They are being run for the charity Look Good Feel Better and will be held at Jo’s new clinic at 9 London Road, Spalding.
The first one is being held on January 15 and the clinic will provide all the gentle, mineral-free products used during the class and give participants a trial size to take away – it is up to them if they would like to buy more.
Jo, who will be leading the sessions with clinic manager Michelle Parker, says Look Good Feel Better is currently running workshops in hospitals in Peterborough and King’s Lynn. However, she says: “What I don’t like about that is you have to go to the place where you are getting chemotherapy.
“The chemotherapy changes your skin completely, makes it feel dry, sore, sensitive and uncomfortable and if you use your normal products it can make your skin even more sore.
“We’ll talk to women about how to care for their skin, and give them nutrition, exercise and make-up advice. We’ll teach them to recognise their eyebrow shape and re-create it naturally.”
Jo has been helping women to look and feel better since she joined the industry in 1990, first working at home until she moved into the Vine Street clinic three years ago.
Since then the team has grown, prompting the move to the former bed and breakfast premises.
The larger premises will allow the clinic to extend the range of treatments and therapies on offer and a courtyard garden will allow space for summer out-of-doors workshops.
Contact the clinic on 01775 249425 for more information about the masterclasses.