Since the beginning of our partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, we have been touched by the many stories stylists share about how this terrible disease has touched their lives. Last fall, we asked salons to send us the stories that inspired them to participate in the Aquage “Help Make A Difference” campaign...

Studio One Salon Day Spa – Huber Heights, OH
Gloria Bohm has been a hairstylist for several years. Just recently she was diagnosed with a very fast growing breast cancer and still, she gets up every day to go to work. Her focus is on how she can take all this back to the classroom to show her students firsthand the physical and emotional effects of cancer and how they can better help a client that might be sitting in their chair one day. She is an inspiration to me…she is my Hero.

Special Touch Hair Designs & Tanning – Dayton, OH
My salon hero would be my mother, Connie L. Bolinger. Even though this horrible disease took things away from her, she continually gave to others. It has been six months since she passed. I still feel her kindness and generosity every day when I walk into the salon. She truly is my Salon Hero.

Shear Magic – Harland, IA
We consider all of our clients heroes. From the clients that look to us to cut their hair or help choose a wig to those giving clients that cut 10 inches off to help us make wigs. Its more than a business for us, it is a service from the heart and our client’s gratitude keeps us motivated.”

The Hair Palace, Sandersville, GA
Angela “Slim” Farmer was a tiny woman with an amazing appetite for life and food. Originally treated for melanoma at 17, cancer was discovered again in her liver, lungs and bones of her shoulder at 27. Treatment was aggressive, but Slim still came to work every day she could, even though her shoulder would not allow her to continue the work she loved. Instead she answered phones and ran the salon. Just a couple of months shy of a year, Slim lost her flight. She was and always will be a bright and shining inspiration to all who knew and loved her.

Hairadise Salon & Spa, Sun Prairie, WI
We feel anyone who has had to courageously fight the battle of breast cancer, or any cancer, are heroes. Each of us have our own hero that we personally know and watch as they go through treatments all the while remaining positive and strong, trying not to let this disease define who they are.

The Powder Room, St. Peters, MO
My client’s name was Lois Rogers. It was within the first few years that I met her, that I learned how strong of a person she was as I watched her go through personal struggles. It wasn’t long after her wedding, that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In February 2009, the doctors discovered that the breast cancer cells were now in her spine. She really had made peace with everything. How could she be so calm and still smiling? Again, she was just amazing and inspirational. She passed away in June 2009. Her strength and faith were the most amazing things I have ever been a part of. She was the most unselfish person I have ever met, and I miss her.

Esther’s Hair Haven, DuBois, PA
Our owner’s grandmother had a radical double mastectomy in 1964 at the age of 63. She remained cancer free until 1980 when at the age of 79, a lump returned in her lymph node. She continued to “fight the good fight” for another three years until she died at the age of 95. Grandmother was a true, living inspiration to everyone. She lived a total of 32 years after the detection of breast cancer.

Mainstreet Salon, Centerville, OH
As a salon owner for almost 18 years and working in an industry with so many women, breast cancer has affected me greatly. When cancer hits your clients, it hits you. I have experienced wig shopping and private Sunday afternoon haircuts with clients in the past. On October 1, 2009, I began my work day by posting signs for a pink month in the salon. That very day, my mother, a nail technician at Mainstreet, had found out that she had breast cancer. She’s the “mom” in the salon and is dearly loved by all. She had a needle biopsy the previous week and hadn’t told anyone. In October 2010, my mother has had a mastectomy, reconstruction and chemotherapy. Her prognosis is excellent! Judy, my mother, is our salon hero!

Studio 54, North Platte, NE
There are many heroes in our salon:
It’s the stylist that stays after salon hours to shave their client’s head in preparation for chemotherapy treatments.
It’s the stylist that offers free make-up classes at the hospital for anyone going through cancer treatments.
It’s the stylist that takes time from work to offer a ride to and from chemo treatments.
It’s the stylist who offers a hug, a prayer or just a smile when their friend really needs it.
It’s the stylist who offers a discount and free consultation on wigs to cancer patients.
It’s the salon that puts on a bake sales for their receptionist who was diagnosed with cancer.
It’s the salon that sells pink bows and gives the proceeds to their local cancer treatment center.
Most of all, it’s anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer. It’s the people who put on a smile when they least feel like it, give encouragement to those who love them, and find blessings in living each day to their fullest.
Because, when it comes to cancer…it’s our best friends, it’s our sisters, it’s our Mom’s, and it’s us.