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Oct. 25, 2013
Beauty, even in hard times
New oncology spa and boutique helps women battling cancers.
LAUREN KRAMER
Compassionate Beauty, the city’s first oncology boutique and spa, had its grand opening this month in Kitsilano. But president and founder Saundra Shapiro is already looking forward to the day she can go out of business. “Our slogan is, ‘Unfortunately, we’re open,’” she said. “We’re sad to be here because cancer is so prevalent, but there needs to be a store here for all these women. We’re humbled to help them through a really scary time in their lives.”
Shapiro, a Calgary resident who opened Compassionate Beauty in Calgary in 2005, is an entrepreneur dedicated to providing a unique centre for women undergoing cancer treatment. Her spa and boutique offers mastectomy fitting, wig fitting, an esthetician, a cosmetician, a massage therapist and tattooing services. The store also offers swimwear, yoga wear, lingerie, sports clothes and other apparel for women with cancer.
It turns out, her own mother is one of her best clients. “When we first opened, my mother, who had never had cancer, used to spend days with me at the store. She never understood why I would want to open a store like Compassionate Beauty,” Shapiro said. “A year later she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and one year after that was cured, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, then breast cancer, and now her lymphoma has returned.
“For women in treatment, their immune system is compromised so they can’t have a regular spa treatment – but they still want it,” Shapiro said. “We found ways and products to ensure their safety and still give them the services they’re used to getting.”
Shapiro’s staff is specially trained to deal with women undergoing cancer treatment. The massage therapists, for example, are trained with manual lymphatic drainage, which is important for a woman who has had surgery affecting the lymph nodes. The estheticians understand what is and what isn’t safe and the tattoo artists do lots of areola tattooing after breast reconstruction, and eyebrow tattooing for women who lost their eyebrows during chemotherapy, but want to keep the look they had previously. Wig fitters at Compassionate Beauty are trained to cut wigs, do bonding and custom fit the wigs so they are comfortable to wear. The 1,700-square-foot Vancouver store at 1683 Chestnut St. has an inventory of 200 wigs and will have a staff of eight, offering service in English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese.
Opened in September, it’s a franchise operated by Cathie Easdown, who worked previously as a clinical nurse for 20 years. “I think she brings great things to the store,” said Shapiro. “She’s got an in-depth background dealing with the health system and, unfortunately, she’s been touched by this disease in her own family. I’m confident she’ll bring that out in her staffing and the whole environment of the store.”
“My mother and aunt were diagnosed with breast cancer and I’ve had a lot of cancer in my personal family and friends,” explained Easdown. While in Calgary last spring, she learned about Compassionate Beauty and thought it a wonderful idea, something that could help her give back to women with cancer.
“I know firsthand about cancer,” she said. “I wish my family members could have experienced this store, because it’s such a wonderful feeling, to come into a store like this and have everything you could possibly need while going through treatment, from a beauty and feel-good standpoint.”
Shapiro, a Montreal native, moved to Alberta in 1982, where she opened hair salons specializing in children. Then she learned that her best friend from childhood, Louise, was diagnosed with recurrent cervical cancer. Over the next year, the two friends brainstormed about the things women would want at a store like Compassionate Beauty.
“One day in particular, Louise just wanted a facial but she wasn’t comfortable taking off her wig and laying on the esthetics bed,” Shaprio wrote on the Compassionate Beauty website about what she calls her “(sp)ahh-ha moment.” “She wanted to feel safe and accepted and have a sense of belonging, instead of standing out because of her visible effects of chemotherapy. Compassionate Beauty now has a facial room and happily loves every woman that has a treatment, with hair or without.”
After Louise lost her battle with cancer, Shapiro was determined to open the store, and the response has been tremendous. “From our first year we’ve quadrupled the number of women coming in,” she said. “We’ve seen over 11,000 women – pretty scary numbers – and now we have doctors, surgeons, oncologists and cancer hospitals behind us, referring patients to us.”
To date, Compassionate Beauty has a store in a cancer centre in Arizona, another opening next to Surrey Memorial Hospital and locations opening in Edmonton and Toronto – near Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre – in the next six months. Services are on par, price-wise, with those other stores and spas and Shapiro is determined not to be high-priced. “We want to be there for all different budgets so we have a range of differently priced services,” she explained. “But there’s a lot of support and financial assistance out there for women diagnosed with cancer, for example through Pharmacare and third-party insurances, for mastectomy products. It’s important for women to figure out who is covering them and what they’re covered for.”
While Compassionate Beauty specializes in what women with cancer are going through and what needs they have, Shapiro still hopes she can one day go out of business. “The day cancer is eradicated I’m going to close the store and sell it to a spa or salon with a big smile on my face, because there’s nothing worse than being diagnosed with cancer. The effect it has on family, friends and yourself – you can’t compare it to anything else.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
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