WEST READING, Pa. — Being diagnosed with cancer can be scary and the treatments like chemo and radiation can lead to changes in the body, including the skin.
That's why Breast Cancer Support Servicesof Berks County offers clean makeup classes to cancer survivors, helping them feel good about themselves while using products that won’t irritate their skin.
The classes are offered every couple of months and are free to people with breast cancer and survivors. Those interested can contact Breast Cancer Support Services of Berks County.
- Breast Cancer Support Services of Berks County offers clean makeup classes
- Cancer treatments can change the way people's skin reacts to products
- The classes are offered every couple of months and are free to people with breast cancer and survivors
The techniques used in the class are used in most makeup classes.
“I'm not normally a makeup kind of person," Ashley Hughes of Fleetwood, a cancer survivor, said. "I usually don't wear makeup with my job; it's a little bit hard to just keep the full face of make-up on.
“So being able to get together with other women who also want to learn some tips and tricks and just have a good night together and bond a little bit, it's nice."
The Fleetwood resident and her mom, Tammy Hughes of Oley, also a survivor, attend most of the classes offered at Breast Cancer Support Services, or BCSS, in West Reading.
“My mom and I like to do all these classes together," Ashley Hughes said. "We look at what upcoming events there are and then we come in and just bond with some of the other ladies that also do the classes with us.”
“It's something we can share. I love makeup and she's actually not a big makeup person, so it's something fun for her to do," Tammy added.
Unexpected shared experience
The mother-daughter duo is making the best of an experience they never hoped to share.
"My breast cancer journey started almost 10 years ago," Tammy said. "Actually the day after Christmas, I found — I was doing a self breast exam and found a lump.”
Years after treatment, including a bilateral mastectomy and finding out she had the BRCA mutation, Tammy's daughter also would receive life-changing news — as Ashley said, “copy — paste.”
"There was a lot of shock. I was never expecting at 31 to be told `I'm so sorry, you have cancer'."Ashley Hughes of Fleetwood
"There was a lot of shock," Ashley said. "I was never expecting at 31 to be told, 'I'm so sorry, you have cancer.’”
She said she also had the BRCA mutation, which puts those who have it at a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
“[It’s] something we share that we don't necessarily want to share," Tammy said. "But it is what it is, and I help her through it as best as we can.”
She said she is helping her daughter through treatment by staying by her side, including at the Safe Beauty classes.
“Breast cancer can be serious a lot of times and we tend to forget that women, too, and we need to feel good,” Nina Rowley, a board member and program chairwoman at BCSS.
“My skin changed from the different treatments and the different medications that I had to take. I had trouble with aromatase inhibitors, which inhibit your hormones, and their production, and so I felt like a teenager again, with my face and it took a while to find something that could settle it down.”
Big confidence boost
Rowley said that after her own skin changed following cancer treatments, she felt there needed to be a class offering safe alternatives to skincare and makeup.
She found Motives Cosmetics, which offers clean products.
Maleeva Lengel, who has worked with the makeup line for more than a decade, said, “those custom-blend products were designed for burn victims and so they have a lot of soothing botanicals, which just helps with the skin, whether it's from a cosmetic standpoint or even a skincare standpoint."
Lengel teaches the class aimed at offering a bit of makeup education and a big confidence boost.
"I really felt that this was a community I could serve and serve well," she said. "And I also found it's just, it's a great time for them to take care of themselves.”
Tammy Hughes said, “they don't have a lot of the chemicals and things that we find in a lot of makeup products, which is nice, especially when you're going through radiation treatment, chemotherapy, and even after using talc and different things are just not safe for your skin.
"Especially if you have, in our case, like, the bracket mutation. It just throws a high risk for even more cancer down the road.”
The women are switching to clean products to hopefully have a clean bill of health in the future.
“All of these products are actually great," Ashley Hughes said. "They feel light on my skin. I came a couple of weeks ago and we did the custom foundation. I love that stuff. It is so nice and so wonderful.
“So any of these products I would recommend for somebody who's going through this, to have that nice light face of makeup, but still feel confident in it."
