‘It makes me feel like I don’t have cancer’
Battling pair given hair makeover thanks to inspiring Wearside wig firm:
A Sunderland hairdresser has given two brave women fighting cancer makeovers to raise awareness for a charity campaign.
Ashlea Anderson, 34, and Molly Richardson, 18, have both lost their hair following treatment.
The pair were given makeovers by hairdresser Nicola Wood to help raise awareness for Stand Up To Cancer, a joint campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4.
Portland Academy Special Needs teacher Ashlea mum to Joel, 14, Ivy, six, and April, three - was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in May.
She underwent a lumpectomy, has completed three rounds of chemotherapy and continues to receive chemotherapy weekly.
“Telling my mum I had cancer was the hardest part. Even harder than telling her I was pregnant at 18,” she said.
“Wearing a wig makes you feel like you don’t have cancer. For that time you can just feel normal.”
Molly, from Washington, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia last year and will continue chemotherapy until June.
She got a bright peach wig for her first style and said: “I wanted to go as bold as I dared with my first wig and loved it.
“Now for this makeover I wanted to embrace the really long hair, as it’ll be quite some time before mine is this long again. I feel really pretty having real hair again and it’s nice to take control back.
“I did try on a dark straight wig as part of the makeover, but that was too much like my old hair and it was quite hard to see in the mirror.”
Nicola operates The Wonderful Wig Company from Kitui Hair Design in Sunderland. She started working with hair loss in 2017 after her own cancer diagnosis.
She said: “I would sit in the hospital and see so many people wearing wigs – the difference in a good and bad one was shocking to me. I realised there was something I could do to try and help.”
Nicola’s team made bespoke wigs for the makeovers and gave the women a chance to completely transform their normal look, with the added sparkle of make-up by Melissa Wharton Makeup and a studio photoshoot with Lisa McCormick Photography.
To get involved visit su2c.org.uk