**“Finding beauty for cancer patients
Free makeovers help women cope with cancers impact on their appearance”</p>
<p>Judy Saylor’s body takes a beating during her twice-weekly chemotherapy treatments.</p>
<p>So does her self-esteem.</p>
<p>Since Saylor, 64, was diagnosed with lung cancer in March, she’s lost all of her hair, along with most of her eyebrows and eyelashes.</p>
<p>Brown spots have appeared on her face. Her skin is so dry, her eye shadow slides right off.</p>
<p>The first time Saylor wore her wig or as she calls it, “my borrowed hair” she was sure everyone in Costco was staring at her.</p>
<p>“You feel very awkward, even with the wig on,” says Saylor, of Lancaster Township.</p>
<p>“You become very self-conscious.”</p>
<p>Cancer isn’t pretty.</p>
<p>It takes a devastating toll on a woman’s physical and emotional health. But it also affects her appearance, from thinning hair to brittle fingernails.</p>
<p>At the American Cancer Society’s Look Good … Feel Better programs, women in cancer treatment get free makeup and advice for coping with hair and skin changes.</p>
<p>“If you look good … then you feel good,” Saylor says.</p>
<p>“It takes your mind off of feeling bad.”**</p>
<hr>
<p>Even in the last painful days of her mother’s battle with cancer, Jill Greenstein found beauty.</p>
<p>Greenstein, who owns Merle Norman Cosmetics, in Park City Center, boosted her gravely ill mother’s spirits with regular facials.</p>
<p>“No matter how sick a person is … they always want to look pretty,” she says.</p>
<p>Now Greenstein is one of six volunteers who lead Look Good … Feel Better sessions in Lancaster County at least once a week.</p>
<p>The sessions’ small-group nature helps women of all ages feel comfortable and enjoy personal attention.</p>
<p>Greenstein, whose past students include a 16-year-old breast-cancer patient, says Look Good … Feel Better is about more than just free makeup.</p>
<p>Women get to share with others going through a similar life-changing experience.</p>
<p>Greenstein has seen relationships blossom during the two-hour sessions, with one woman even arranging to accompany a new friend to her treatments.</p>
<p>“It means the world to them to actually be able to get out of their house and feel like everyone else,” she says.</p>
<hr>
<p>Since her March diagnosis with uterine cancer, Joanne Markley has felt sick, sore and tired.</p>
<p>Anything but beautiful.</p>
<p>Markley, of East Lampeter Township, had a complete hysterectomy, followed by six weeks of radiation treatments.</p>
<p>Her skin is dry, and her hair is thinning.</p>
<p>But, Saylor points out good-naturedly, at least Markley has some.</p>
<p>“Come week three (of treatments), (my hair) came out in handfuls,” Saylor says.</p>
<p>“That was hard to take.”</p>
<p>On a recent Tuesday evening, an instant camaraderie bonds the three women hovering over small mirrors at the Lancaster ACS office.</p>
<p>The petite, energetic Greenstein passes out bags of cosmetics worth $250, donated by companies like Chanel and Lancome.</p>
<p>“This is like Christmas!” exclaims Markley, a 67-year-old retired house designer/decorator.</p>
<p>Greenstein’s instructions are direct but kind.</p>
<p>First, she says, “I really want to deal with the eye issues I see on all of you.”</p>
<p>“Thanks a lot!” laughs Saylor, director of health information for Lancaster Rehabilitation Hospital.</p>
<p>Greenstein promises that applying concealer along the sides of the nose and even above the eyes will project the illusion of a good night’s sleep.</p>
<p>“That’s the first part that shows,” Markley says. “The eyes just look sick.”</p>
<p>Greenstein dabs concealer atop a brown spot on Saylor’s face, then pushes on the concealer with a sponge, expertly blending it in.</p>
<p>“It’s gone!” she announces triumphantly.</p>
<p>Short, feathery strokes make drawn-in eyebrows look more natural, Greenstein says.</p>
<p>Of course, when you’re bald, you can draw your brows whatever color you want.</p>
<p>Greenstein shows the women how to pump up sparse eyelashes by wiggling a mascara brush at the lash base.</p>
<p>Saylor picks up her wand. “I have a few (lashes) here, I think.”</p>
<p>Markley swipes on bright-red lipstick, smiling at her new, improved self in the mirror.</p>
<p>“Now where’s the Botox?”