Cronulla resident and cancer survivor Elly Gerasimou was rapt to stumble across an alternative to wigs and head coverings when she underwent chemo last year.
Now she wants to share her discovery with other women also going through breast cancer treatment.
Mrs Gerasimou, who recently finished her treatment at St George Hospital and St George Private, came across pictures on Facebook last year of head paintings called henna crowns.
The relatively new concept has taken off in places like the US and UK, but is still largely unheard of in Australia. Henna crowns are intricate henna designs painted onto the heads of chemotherapy patients.
After seeing the designs online, Mrs Gerasimou rang around to find an artist who could do the art work.
“I rang around and couldn’t find anyone local who could do them. Then, finally, I tracked a woman down who could, based in Padstow. She came out to do one for me and it looked beautiful. She did a great job.”
She said it wasn’t just the look that she liked but the feeling of not having to hide her breast cancer treatment.
“I was so uncomfortable wearing the head wear and I remember looking through different options and wigs and just thinking ‘stuff it’. I had been through so much already.
“The henna crown gave me the confidence to go out with nothing on my head, and a lot of people commented and said how good it looked.
“It was really nice to feel like I had some control. You have a lot of not very nice things happening to you and it was good to be able to choose something and own it.”
She said when you go through the process of selecting wigs or head wear, while undergoing chemotherapy, the emphasis was often on disguising or hiding your cancer.
“I think it was better for me to own it and not be ashamed,” she said. “I want to get it out there and let women know this is an option for them and I found it a really empowering experience. And I think it was actually part of my healing.”
She said talking with other women last year, who were also going through treatment, most women had never heard of henna crowns.
Henna artist Kulsoom Siddiqui was the artist who did Mrs Gerasimou’s crown design. She said she made her own henna paste and the art work would often last for about a week to 10 days, and took about and hour or two to complete.
She said Mrs Gerasimou was her first henna crown client, and the concept was almost unheard of in Australia.
“It is not popular here at all … but it is big in the US and the UK,” she said. “Henna is traditionally carried out on the hands and the feet, and from my cultural background that is how we put the henna on. So the henna crown is a new concept.”
Ms Siddiqui’s business is called Henna by K. You can contact her on 0424 147 867.
