The Carcinista

How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part II

June 17, 2010 at 8:27 PM (Hair, Mood, style, Treatment) (Anastasia, Bag Balm, cosmetics, curls, dry skin, frizz, Hair, Lindi Skin, lotion, makeup, nails, Olay, pedicure, Sephora, serum, shampoo, Target)

With apologies to the layperson, this post is full of advice for patients.

I was never a product junkie. While I like makeup as much as the next girlie-girl, I can’t bring myself to pick up the latest eye shadow colors every season, nor to drop serious coin (which could be better spent on clothing or leather goods) on department-store or boutique cosmetics. Basics are really all I need, and a few hair products.

Any cancer patient will tell you that this just can’t be. Whether you’re stocking your medicine cabinet with countless orange bottles to counteract the side effects of your side effects, or piling on makeup to cover your ghostly pallor, the best home improvement dollars spent in my house would be to supersize the master bathroom to hold all my crap. (In my defense, it is only slightly larger than your average phone booth.) And while it may be hard to keep track of all the funny names on the orange bottles, and remember what product to apply to which body part and when, some of the jams and jellies I have found to be real lifesavers.

Skin

Depending on which treatment you’re receiving, your skin can be sensitive, ashy, dry, flaky, greasy, or broken out. I was lucky enough to encounter all of them, often simultaneously, which made amelioration a sophisticated juggling act. For my extra-dry body skin, I was given a sample of LindiSkin Soothing Balm. LindiSkin is a company that offers a range of products specifically created for cancer patients. Light on chemicals and gentle on sensitive skin, the Soothing Balm restored my so-dry-I-itched-til-I-bled skin last spring with a gentle scent and no trace of irritation. They also offer a range of facial products, although the rich Serum was too rich for my face. But the lotion is delightful, cancer or not, and the company’s dedication to cancer patients is impressive.

I also found solace for my cracked feet in a tub of good ol’ Bag Balm. Yes, sleeping with the air of lanolin issuing from your cotton socks may put the damper on romance, but so does having ogre feet. A week of regular shower-pumice-plus-lotion-under-socks, morning and bedtime, dials back the winter feet to survivable levels.

My fingernails are so weak that I can’t even squeeze a zit, but the short length gave me the courage to try some wacky colors for fun. Pedicures are practically a medical necessity, and I find that lying in bed staring at your feet is much more fun if your toes look cute. Treat yourself.

Cosmetics

When you’re pallid and ashy with those tell-tale red rings around your eyes, there’s really no way to avoid catching sight of yourself in the mirror and feeling sick. So when you have the energy to stand up in front of the mirror for five minutes, I highly recommend painting some life back into your cheeks. Start by evening out the discoloration (age, sun spots, all heightened by hormonal fluctuations) with a good tinted moisturizer. I love the combination of age-fighting and sheer color in the Olay Definity Color Recapture. One step takes half the effort of two! Add a gel blush (powder just emphasizes the ashiness of chemo skin) and some mascara, and you look twice as alive as you did before you started.

Brows and lashes gone? I wish I had a magic-bullet solution, but there’s really trial-and-error required to find what works best for you. My first round of bald-face, I got a comprehensive eyebrow kit from Anastasia and used the stencil-powder-wax combo, which does a pretty good job of staying on all day (until naptime, anyway). Last summer I used a perfect-taupe eyebrow pencil from Sonia Kashuk, but for some reason my eyebrow sweat glands (who knew we had ’em?) kicked into overdrive and I reapplied about six times a day. The pencils are sprinkled all over my house and car and purses. For my lashes, I compensated with a tapered line of dark-brown eye pencil on the top lid, since there was no way I could make a line of falsies look like anything other than a caterpillar parked up there. I like the Revlon ColorStay because it lasts most of the day, but really, there’s no way to hide the lack of eyelashes. I missed them the most.

Hair

I’ve heard lots of anecdotal stories that chemo hair grows back in curly on nearly everyone. It certainly has for me – I’m trying to decide if I like it better than baldness. Anyway, I have an enormous collection of different hair products for the many lengths my hair has been over the past four years. Gel for the slicking-back of humidity-one-inch ‘fro; waxy pomade for a little control of the two-inch-straight-up-not-quite-curls. The gold standards for all styles, though, are the Frizz-Ease line. I use the shampoo and conditioner, but use your favorites. Start post-shower treatment with the serum no matter what the length; it keeps down the frizz to manageable levels. I’ve got long-enough hair now that I can use the Curl-Perfecting Spray, too – it definitely make the curls cool instead of Napoleon-Dynamite crazy. NO HAIRBRUSH in the curls, EVER. Got it?

Next, we’ll talk about lifesaving products for your innards. Got any favorite skin/hair/face products to share?

How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part I

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