Hairoom featured on HSBC

Andrea’s Hairoom are proud to have bean featured on HSBC’s under their Business Growth blog. You can read the full article here: https://www.knowledge.hsbc.co.uk/business-growth/article/how-ive-built-a-business-by-understanding-my-niche

Blackpool Remembers Bernie

Bernie Nolan, famous lead singer of The Nolans and actress in Brookside and The Bill, sadly lost her life to aggresive cancer this month, and was cremated in her hometown of Blackpool yesterday. More than 1000 people flooded the streets to pay their respects to the loved pop icon, mother, wife and sister. Read on for Hairoom’s own tribute.

A Fond Farewell to Bernie Nolan

This week, the world said goodbye to Bernie Nolan, aged just 52, after the singer and actress’s long battle with cancer. Bernie, the third of the Nolan sisters to battle breast cancer, was declared free of the disease in 2010, but less than two years later it was discovered that the cancer had spread aggressively to her brain, lungs, liver and bones. Doctors told Bernie from diagnosis that the cancer would this time be incurable.

Bernie refused to allow the “death sentence” to control her though, saying “I’ll fight this forever – it can get stuffed.” An admirable attitude and certainly a beneficial one – positivity can have a marked effect on cancer patients’ quality of life, even in those whose cancer is terminal.

The Nolans started out as a family singing troupe, becoming a fixture of the northern club circuit, releasing a single called ‘Blackpool’ which is still used today by the football team. In 1974 the five oldest Nolan sisters split from the family group to form The Nolan Sisters, quickly becoming regulars on variety act shows like The Two Ronnies and Morecambe & Wise.

The first major signs of success showed in 1975, when the group toured Europe with Frank Sinatra, followed soon after by their first charting UK release, an album of cover performances, which reached number 3 in the UK charts. Their biggest hit was the 1979 release ‘I’m in the mood for dancing” which achieved great success in the UK and Ireland, and topped the charts in Japan, where it sold over 600,000 copies.

Bernie left the band in 1994 to move into acting, after spending two decades as lead singer. Her acting career was successful and diverse, with prominent roles in The Bill and Brookside, and several stage performances. In 2009 the band reformed seeing success with their highest charting album in nearly 30 years. A farewell tour was scheduled to be held in 2013, marking the final departure of the band, however this was sadly postponed and then cancelled when Bernie’s cancer returned.

On the morning of the fourth of July, Bernie died peacefully, surrounded by her family. Her husband, daughter and sisters are “devastated to have lost her […] she is irreplaceable.”

Yesterday over 1000 people lined the streets of her hometown, Blackpool, to pay their respects to Bernie at her funeral. The town was brought to a standstill. Bernie has said in the past that her family was her greatest achievement, and she spent her final months trying to be the best mother she could be in the time she had left. Her daughter Erin was the light and glory of Bernie’s life, and after a sad struggle to become a mother took her through a miscarriage and a stillbirth, Bernie’s joy in Erin was boundless.

From everyone at Hairoom, we would like to offer our most sincere regrets and condolences to Bernie’s family during this incredibly difficult time, and we hope that they remember Bernie’s incredible attitude. Feisty and selfless, she said “there’s so much to be happy and excited about, I refuse to dwell on the negative.” Our thoughts are especially with Erin, who is just about to turn fourteen and is facing a difficult time of life for any girl.

Bernie became an emissary for cancer, encouraging women to be aware of their bodies and to seek medical advice if they found something. Her swift response to finding a lump gave her several extra months with her family, something for which they are vastly grateful. Please make sure you heed this advice and get checked.

Read more of Bernie’s incredible story, including inspiring press interviews, at her website, bernienolan.com

Be inspired by raised awareness and a brave attitude

Inspiration can come from where you least expect it.

Inspiration for women can come from all sorts of places. Recently, Angelina Jolie has received a lot of positive attention from the media for her choice to have a preventative double mastectomy, due to her higher-than-average chance of breast and ovarian cancer. She stated that she publicised her decision because the testing and treatment she could access needs to be made available to more women across the world. Angelina’s actions are very commendable, as with the resources available to her, no-one would have ever needed to know.

Alongside the glamour and glitz of Hollywood, women can also be inspired this summer by a slightly more humble location; Yorkshire. Soap operas have often been a medium through which the British public has come into contact with a variety of disadvantages, disabilities, illnesses and oddities; their innate voyeurism is one of their keys to success.

Over the last few months, Emmerdale has featured the storyline of Brenda Walker’s brain tumour. Amongst the other trials and tribulations that come with such a horrible illness, Brenda begins to lose her hair due to the treatment she’s receiving. The soap manages to capture the grief associated with hair loss, and also highlights some other consequences which are likely to be overlooked by people without the problem. For example, Brenda stops sharing a bed with her partner so that he isn’t exposed to the handfuls of hair left on her pillow each morning.

Lesley Dunlop, the actress who plays Brenda, goes into a little bit more detail about how the character is feeling about the hair loss. “When it comes to the illness itself, she’s feeling positive.” However, in terms of her reaction to the hair loss, “She’s not feeling very good, really.”

Eventually, Brenda elects to shave her head. “…she prefers it to feeling ragged and unkempt. It’s sad for Brenda when she sees the bald patches…” In the true tradition of method acting, when the script calls for Brenda to enlist the help of Gennie to do the actual head shaving, actresses Lesley Dunlop (Brenda) and Sian Reese-Williams (Gennie) really go for it – the scene which aired shows Sian genuinely shaving off Lesley’s hair.

Lesley says, “I felt that it was the least I could do for all the people who don’t have a choice, really, and I felt absolutely fine about it. I did embrace it, actually.”

“I get lots of comments from people who have brain cancer or people saying, ‘Well done Emmerdale for doing this storyline and highlighting it’. It’s one of the highest killers of young people, which I had no idea about, but it’s also one of the lowest funded of all the cancer research charities. It only gets 0.7% of the funding, so it’s raising the profile of it.”

Raising the profile and awareness of lesser known deadly illnesses is an important crusade, and what Lesley says about brain tumours being a high killer of young people is certainly true. They are the second most common group of cancers in the under 15 age bracket, accounting for 27% of all childhood cancers. They are also the most common cause of childhood, teenage, and young adult death from cancer.

For those people who do make it through the cancer, returning to day-to-day normalcy is often all that they want. Getting things back to normal at work or school, at home, and with friends can be challenging though, when there’s a big reminder of the illness right there on top of your head – hair lost to chemotherapy often takes six months or more to grow back, and with radiotherapy, it may be the case that the hair never regrows.

Hairoom specialises in providing wigs and hair pieces to people who have lost their hair due to an illness, such as through cancer treatment. Our experts are trained to provide all the care and support needed, and will listen and respond to your individual requirements. Consultations are free and confidential, so get in touch with us today and take your first step on the road to looking and feeling like yourself again.

Head Scarves are Ideal for British Summer Time.

While the weather is still cold and blustery, we’d like to take a moment out to recommend our range of head scarves. Great to keep your head warm in the traditional British summer we’re sure to have, they are ideal alternatives for people, especially cancer hair loss patients, who don’t have the time or energy to regularly wear a wig.

They are also really great for days you don’t want to wear your wig, such as if you’re washing it, or if you’re spending the day relaxing at home. Have a look at our head scarves page to see a sample of what we have; you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the range of styles and colours available. Our head scarves are all made from soft elasticated cotton and silk, to make sure they are as comfortable and as well-fitting as possible

Wig Care Tips | Best Wig Care Advice

Hairoom discusses the best wig care advice including the do’s and don’t’s of wig storage. These wig care tips will help you get the most out of your wig.

At Hairoom we understand how refreshing and natural it can feel when you’ve found a wig which suits you and makes you feel yourself again. Therefore it is very important that you take good care of your wig so as to maximise its life span and minimise any discomfort for yourself. Whatever the reason for your hair loss, be it alopecia hair loss, hair loss from cancer treatment, or any of the other multiple things which can cause hair loss, Hairoom is here for you every step of the way.

The most important thing to consider when caring for your wig is making sure you only use specialised care products designed for synthetic hair wigs or human hair wigs, depending on which you have got. These products are formulated specifically with the needs of the particular types of wig in mind and using any other products can risk damaging the fibres of the wig.

Next, it is vital that you keep your wig away from extreme or intense heat. It is easy to assume this just applies to obvious heat sources such as hair driers but any heat source can cause the wig fibres to become damaged, including the heat from opening an oven door, the heat in a sauna, or even the heat from standing too near a barbeque.

Unfortunately this also means that you can’t use any form of heat-based hair styling equipment including hair driers, curling tongs or straighteners.

Another important consideration is that you cannot dye your wig. Colours, bleaches and rinses designed for human hair can be very damaging to wig fibres and it’s important that you take the advice of Hairoom’s experts on female hair loss, and think carefully about colour before purchasing your wig.

You should make sure to keep your wig clean, but washing it too frequently could reduce its lifespan. We recommend washing it after around 15 wears, but keeping your scalp and remaining hair clean can help to increase the time between washes.

When you’re not wearing the wig, storing it upright to minimise tangles is important. Placing a wig on a polystyrene head can stretch the cap and cause the fit to become distorted, so these are best to be avoided. The best stands are made for purpose wig stands, but a can of hairspray can be used in a pinch.

With these simple tips, you can make sure that your professional hair loss support and individually finished wig from Hairoom will have the most impact for the longest amount of time.