Bald Beauty Vlogger Aims to Help Cancer Patients [Video]
Forty-year-old London resident Andrea Pellegrini has a YouTube portal dedicated to makeup tutorials — but her channel, Baldly Beautiful, isn’t about cat liner tips and new beauty finds. Her videos tackle beauty issues cancer patients face, from dealing with pale skin and watering eyes to going bald. Pellegrini, a makeup artist who was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2014 and launched Baldly Beautiful in February 2015, told the Daily Mail, “It definitely helped me get through chemo; it was something to focus on and it helped the whole family as they all got involved.”
It’s a family project: Her 15-year-old daughter, Emily, edits the videos, and her husband was the one who encouraged her to share her makeup expertise with others. Pellegrini admitted that she was hesitant to start posting public videos with a shaved head, even while she was crying herself to sleep at night. “I shaved my head just before my second chemo, just as my hair started to come out,” she said. “I didn’t want to go through the whole process of waking up every morning and finding hair on the pillow, or having to go through the balding granddad head stage.” She joined a breast cancer network on Facebook, where women posted about their makeup problems, and the mother of two then offered to start a YouTube channel just for them. With support for her work growing before she published any videos, Pellegrini started experimenting with makeup looks that she could share.
“In terms of makeup, bright red, orange or pink lipstick always brightens up the face,” she explained in one video. “And a bit of pink blusher to brighten up sallow skin works wonders.” Pellegrini, who isn’t a fan of wigs or scarves, also suggests ready-made turbans as an alternative for covering up baldness. “With a turban, or if you want to go bald with no head covering, always wear a funky pair of earrings,” she also suggested. These are just a few of the tips that Pellegrini tried herself before sharing them with the eager online community of fellow cancer patients.
When she started Baldly Beautiful, her tumor was 3.5 centimeters. Once it shrank to 1.4 millimeters, Pellegrini had it removed. She tells the Daily Mail that she is now cancer free, but she will continue to share videos on topics that go beyond just cosmetics, such as diet and fitness. Pellegrini is also campaigning for better government-provided benefits for cancer patients in the United Kingdom — and her bold petition had more than 13,000 signatures at press time.
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