Looking good!

Today was an entertaining day, and it was a badly-needed boost.

While I was having chemo I was told about a charity called "Look Good, Feel Better" which offers "beauty workshops" to women having chemotherapy. It's financed by the cosmetic industry and promises tailored advice on things like drawing in convincing eyebrows if you haven't got any - a subject dear to my heart as mine had disappeared.
The workshops are run mainly by beauty consultants who work in big stores for the cosmetics companies - and they get pretty busy at the end of the year, so when I rang in October I couldn't get an appointment for a workshop until January - and today was the day.

I did feel a bit of a fraud - the hair has started to grow back, it actually looks like hair rather than a fuzzy mess now, and the eyebrows and lashes are starting to return. But I had been looking forward to this, so I wasn't about to cancel at the last minute. I don't wear much makeup as a rule, but sometimes I like to make the effort and to be honest I don't think I am very good at it - so any help that's offered is welcome.

There were about nine ladies there - ages varying from twenty-something to seventy-something. Some had lost their hair, some hadn't. All were very keen to have a bit of a laugh, and the consultants were determined that we would not just have a laugh, but would come out of the day looking good and feeling better - just as the name suggested.
The first thing we were given was a cardboard box - these were mysteriously labelled "fair" "medium" or "dark" - mine said "fair". Inside was a rather nice white holdall - jam packed with all sorts of goodies - cleanser, toner and moisturiser, and a selection of makeup appropriate for my reasonably fair skin. They said that the bags were worth about £150, and I can believe that - mine had the moisturiser in it that I buy if I am feeling very extravagant and it's nearly thirty quid a time!
The consultants guided us through the process of removing any makeup, cleansing properly and then applying makeup. It's something that us girls all think we know everything about, but one can always learn something - and it's actually rather fun to play around with makeup in a room full of other women - something that generally stops at the age of about 13, or at least it did in my life!

So if there's anyone out there who is having or going to have chemo, try and get yourself onto one of these workshops - they happen all over the country and they are immense fun. And I did feel that I looked great when I left, even if the howling wind outside when I left made my eyes water and caused me to have mascara running down my cheeks by the time I got to the car!