The new Mobile beauty doctors
They’re making thousands of patients feel better – armed with just a hairdryer and a nail file. Meet...
Sindy Chikadaya strides across the foyer of the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in West London wearing a demure navy uniform and carrying her equipment in a large black case.
Other staff take her for a medical professional and, at first, up in the ward, her client asks whether she’s a doctor who’s come to examine her. But Sindy isn’t trained in medicine.
inside that black case are compartments containing not stethoscopes and bandages, but row upon row of gorgeous shades of nail polishes — scarlets and burgundies, neon pinks, pretty pale blues and glittery golds — alongside emery boards, cuticle sticks and pots of luxury hand cream.
Sindy, 23, is a mobile beauty therapist. and the beauty treatments she provides are increasingly recognised as having a genuine therapeutic power that, far from being out of place in a hospital ward, can aid recovery.
Upon seeing the contents of the bag, the patient, in her late 60s and recovering from an operation, immediately relaxes and smiles with pleasure.
it turns out her granddaughter, knowing how fretful she is about the state of her nails, booked a private beauty session — delivered at her nhS bedside — as a surprise.
you might think that having your nails polished, your hair styled or your legs waxed is of little importance when you’re ill, but experts increasingly stress the psychological importance of maintaining normal routines — especially a beauty regime — when recovering from trauma.
indeed, there’s mounting evidence to show that the way you look has significant effects on your physical health.
Milk Beauty is just one of many mobile companies that have sprung up around Britain in the past few years — My Personal Sanctuary, for example, or Blossom & Jasmine, which operate nationwide — ostensibly to cater for busy women with no time to make it to the salon.
What surprised the growing number of beauticians on-the-go, however, was how many visits they ended up making to hospitals or to those convalescing at home.
‘We’ve done dozens of hospital visits,’ says Fiona Mcintosh, who founded mobile beauty company Blow Ltd.
‘it’s an incredibly therapeutic, restorative thing when you’ve had a rough ride in hospital and are just starting to recover to have someone come and do your makeup or blow-dry your hair.
‘ Touch is important, too, for people who have had painful procedures or spent weeks viewing their body in terms of its illness.’
‘ it’s hugely valuable,’ says psychologist Rose aghdami, who specialises in the quality of resilience and how people overcome difficult life events such as surgery or a hospital stay.
‘Patients often say they’re seen first and foremost as their illness and then only secondly, if at all, as an individual. Treatments such as facials and manicures bring the person back to the forefront.’
Mobile beauty therapists don’t only visit hospitals, they also see patients whose health prevents them from making it to a salon.
The elements of touch and massage inherent in pedicures and facials are known to reduce symptoms including pain and anxiety. But the psychological effects are the most clear-cut.
‘i was on crutches for five weeks after having my foot run over by a
car. It was in this big clumpy boot and I was on heavy- duty painkillers that made me feel sick,’ says 58-year- old Kate Hamilton, from South-West London.
‘It was one of the most miserable times of my life. I didn’t have anything to get ready for — no work, no going out — and, to be honest, it was frightening how quickly I began to feel depressed.’
Twice while recuperating she booked a beauty therapist for a hair treatment and manicure.
‘Having your hair done sounds like such a small thing, but when your daily life has been reduced to small things — daytime TV, hobbling to the end of the road and back — you value how it makes you feel.
‘For me, it was a little oasis out of it all. Looking down at my nails would give me a jolt of pleasure for days afterwards. It really did keep me sane.’
It’s possible the importance of looking your best has been underplayed by the medical establishment because it’s seen as an essentially shallow, flippant, feminine thing.
Who honestly cares about perfect nails or a bouncy blow-dry if you’re not able to show them off?
But to think that way is to miss the point, says Rose Aghdami. ‘It’s not about what other people think of us. It’s what we think of ourselves that is so important here.’
It’s also about maintaining a feeling of control in your life.
‘If you’re ill, your choices are often reduced in quite fundamental ways,’ says Rose. ‘You can’t always go where you want and you might even have to stop work. But it can help enormously if elements of choice are brought back.
‘How do I want to look today? Do I want to feel more attractive? What matters most is that the individual feels back in control.’
If cancer treatment means you’ve lost your hair, you might think putting on a bit of lipstick isn’t going to change anything, but research carried out by Look Good Feel Better, a charity founded to help women combat the visible side- effects of their cancer treatment, suggests otherwise.
The charity holds skincare and make-up workshops throughout the country, and carried out a study to assess the impact of their work.
The study showed that 97 per cent of the 2,000 women they asked felt more confident after attending a workshop. Three months later, that figure was still at 96 per cent.
Several clinical studies have shown massage therapy lowers anxiety levels in cancer patients and can even reduce the nausea and pain from treatment.
This comes as little surprise to Lynne Rothwell, a former NHS manager who runs Aurora Wellbeing, a charity that runs a network of salons and mobile beauty therapists across the NorthEast, treating people with cancer.
‘Aurora was born 15 years ago after six women with breast cancer met at Doncaster Royal Infirmary,’ says Lynne. ‘The surgery women have for breast cancer is lifesaving and heroic. But it’s also deeply traumatic.
‘It can feel as though a woman has lost her femininity — treatments such as chemotherapy compound the issue. One of the founders, a lady called Denise Dunn, said she couldn’t face going into Boots to buy beauty products when her skin looked so bad from having chemotherapy.’
With funding, the six set up a beauty salon for patients in a room given to them by the hospital.
JILL
HuGHES, 47, was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago and is just one of the thousands of women who have benefited from Aurora.
A nurse, mother to two boys aged 12 and 14 and the kind of woman who runs a half marathon before breakfast, she has always been ‘a pretty confident person’.
And yet even she found her selfassurance took a huge knock when treatment started.
‘You feel ugly. You lose all the things that make you feel feminine — eyelashes and brows — even the shape of your face changes with the steroids,’ she says.
‘I felt very self-conscious and was often aware that people were looking at me.
‘ I’ve had manicures and pedicures, a treatment to stimulate hair follicles and even a whole pamper day, where I was made to feel and look amazing. It does feel like therapy. It gives you a wonderful time away from the illness.’
This desire to be a person rather than a patient is something Lucy Patterson, co-founder of Milk Beauty, is very aware of.
‘In some ways that’s the therapy part of beauty therapy,’ she says. ‘We have quite a lot of clients who are glamorous and well-groomed, but can’t get out to the salon like they used to.
‘To have someone come to your home who’s not a carer, not a doctor, not an anxious relative, is really important. It’s ordinary life — and often you can talk much more freely to someone who isn’t there just because of your health.’
Many believe such treatments can have psychological and physical benefits.
Marketing executive Rosalind Boreham, 35, has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was eight years old and suffers flare-ups that leave her unable to walk. Once a fortnight, a mobile therapist from Milk visits her in North London to give her a leg wax and manicure.
‘To me, it becomes even more important to have nice nails and nice legs when I’m stuck indoors all week.
‘It’s partly about not feeling sorry for myself and feeling attractive again, and that enormous boost I get to my mood.
‘If I don’t feel irritable, I genuinely find that I can cope better with chronic pain. And that means I can sleep better.
‘A manicure can be a bit of a lifeline, if I’m honest.’