BEAUTY SALON FOR SPASTICS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28491, 22 January 1958, Page 2

BEAUTY SALON FOR SPASTICS

Special Classes In London

[By VICTORIA CBAPPELLEI LONDON.

Not long ago a small beauty salon was opened in a home at Croydon, on the outskirts of London, for girls and young women who are spastics. These girls are taught to control and use their limbs mostly by occupational therapy, and recently lessons in make-up were begun as an incentive to the patients.

The first few classes were taken by Mrs Eleanor Macdonald, who believes that because the beauty expert should know almost as much about the personality of her client as about her skin, these lessons can be vitally Important to young crippled women who will thus be taught to make the best of themselves.

Four months ago, the medical staff of a mental hospital in the English county of Essex was persuaded to open a beauty salon for the women patients. The superintendent physician was willing

to see whether beauty treatments would improve the women’s morale. It has been an unqualified success and members of the nursing staff, who themselves have been taking lessons, will in future run the salon for the patients.