Salon owner launches Oncology beauty course

Beauty therapist and salon owner, Louise O Loughlin, has launched an Oncology Training International (OTI) course in Ireland.

The three-day course aims to educate beauty professionals about which treatments they can safely offer to clients currently undergoing treatment for cancer. The course covers cancer therapies (surgery, radio therapy also drug therapies such as chemotherapy etc) and how the effects these can have on the skin and nails, and any subsequent reactions to ingredients. Therapists are taught which products they can or cannot use on clients. 

In addition, cancer patients are invited to a spa setting during an afternoon session, and attendees undertake a hands-on workshop where each student performs a treatment.

Louise, of Iguazu Beauty Therapy in Rush, Co. Dublin, came to introduce the OTI course after her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she wasn't sure which treatments were safe to offer her. She undertook an intensive course in Oncology Aesthetics in Italy, before launching the course herself in Ireland. Her goal is to have a trained therapist in each county in Ireland, believing that no one should have to travel far for such services.

OTI was founded by Morag Currin in Canada and is now available in 14 countries worldwide.