00:00My hair has always been a really big part of my look and having that kind of vibrancy
00:04always made me feel really good if my hair was looking good and feeling good.
00:08So having that stripped away really took away a big part of me.
00:16My name is Julie and today I'm having my hair cut by someone who's very special to me.
00:20I'm Jasmine and I'm the founder of the charity Cancer Hair Care.
00:24We support people from before, during and after their cancer treatment
00:29and we support them along that entire journey.
00:32The Cancer Hair Care partnership with Shorts called Life Colour is really really exciting.
00:37For small charities it's so important for us to have a wholehearted partner.
00:41Today is a really important day because I'm going to be doing a haircut for Julie.
00:46What I'm going to be doing is taking what she would call her very first chemo hairs
00:50which have grown abundantly long and for her that means we're going to be saying goodbye to her cancer treatment.
00:56I was first diagnosed with cancer in February of 2018 and in the scheme of things it seems like a
01:02trivial thing
01:02but for me my hair is such a big part of my identity. Into my late teens I grew it
01:07very long,
01:08I dye it very very red and then I was a little bit of a punk rocker in the 80s
01:11and used to back comb it
01:13and crimp it and shave it at the sides actually. So I've had lots of interesting colours and interesting
01:18styles but it's always been long and it's always been red. I'd had a number of different ideas about how
01:24I
01:25might manage my hair throughout cancer including a wig, including wearing hats, cutting it short
01:30potentially. So I was very confused when I walked into cancer hair care and had a proper consultation
01:36about all of my options. It was a real lifting of that confusion and that fog.
01:42Hi there. Good to see you. Thank you, you too.
01:45Julie what are we going to do today? Well you can see it's gone a little bit long
01:50and these little chemo curls are still hanging on in there at the end so it'd be great if you
01:55could
01:55make it just look really luscious. So what I'll do is I'll give a good shape up you know we'll
02:01just
02:01bring in so it's nice and glossy some shaping around the front and then we'll bring you back in a
02:06nice
02:07bounce. It feels to me that the real starting place of your journey was when you decided
02:26to give scalp cooling a go. Cancer Hair Care introduced me to a cold cap which is a cap that
02:32cools your scalp that can then preserve some of your hair. I felt really supported through that
02:37whole thing because it's quite a scary thing to go through actually some people can't tolerate
02:42scalp cooling so having all the information I needed was just really really helpful.
02:46Your hair was unfortunately thinning substantially wasn't it? Yeah.
02:50And then we decided to do a bit of a change and you had a bob I think it was
02:55about that length wasn't it?
02:57Yeah. How did that feel? I don't know it was a kind of moment where when I came in I
03:03just knew
03:04something had to change because I was getting so frustrated with it falling out and actually I
03:07just thought that's it I've had it so actually I needed to do something really positive and at that
03:12moment that felt really positive and empowering actually to make a decision about how to take it
03:17forward from there. And that was that length around there for you? Yeah. Longer than the bob but just
03:22to frame your face a bit. Perfect. How did it feel when you had that first colour completed on your
03:28new hair? Yeah it was quite an emotional moment. I also kind of came in my hat hiding my roots
03:34which
03:34were significant but also I had lots of nice new hair coming through that had never never been touched
03:41by hair dye before so yeah it was it was really great to to have you do it and have
03:48it done in a way
03:48that I felt was safe and it was great that I could go out and then buy the live box
03:52to dye myself and
03:53dye my hair in the way I always had done.
04:19Look at your colour it's completely glossy isn't it? Yeah it's great that it's no longer my chemo
04:25hair it's it's all mine and it looks so fresh and lovely. I was really lucky to have my hair
04:31grow
04:31back really full and vibrant. My year of treatment was particularly turbulent and very emotional but
04:38actually there are always some diamonds in the times of crisis. Coming across cancer hair care was one
04:42of the best things that came out of that whole year.
