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Wednesday February 27, 2008

SUSAN BEAUSANG FIRST DISCOVERED THERE WAS A problem while in the shower. It was six years ago. She'd just pulled a handful of her own hair from her head. That handful was followed by several more.

The hair loss concerned her, but friends and family had insisted it was the result of stress. Doctors told her the same thing. But Beausang knew in her heart it "was not a normal amount of hair loss."

Finally, after another shower, she showed a pile of hair recently removed from her scalp to her husband, who burst into tears. "You're right," he said. "Something is wrong."

Then in her early 50s and living in Flourtown, Pa., Beausang had been enjoying a nearly retired lifestyle, participating in her favorite sports - golf, tennis, running. She had been a stock exchange broker and trader for 11 years in Philadelphia, and although she returned to school to study political science, Beausang had no intention of starting a second career.

"I was just enjoying life," said the now 59-year-old. "Then, one day alopecia came into my life."

After convincing family that something was seriously wrong, Beausang went and saw Dr. George Cotsarelis of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Cotsarelis studies alopecia and hair loss. He diagnosed Beausang with an extreme case of alopecia.

Alpoecia areata is a hair-loss disease caused when a person's immune system mistakenly begins attacking the body's hair follicles. Alopecia usually comes on suddenly and the disease can attack on different levels, from patchy to total hair loss.

As a naturally beautiful woman who was active in sports and wore little makeup, the loss hit Beausang hard. She found herself having to improvise eyelashes and eyebrows with makeup.

"I couldn't believe that word [bald] was going to be attached to me," she said, explaining that the hair loss was more than a vanity issue. It was a hit to her confidence.

"When people look at you, they look at your face and hair, and it defines you. I just didn't want to be known as the new bald woman in town," said Beausang, a New Jersey native who now splits her time between Florida and Plymouth Meeting.

Although friends were encouraging, Beausang was extremely self-conscious. The wigs she wore just made it worse. "Wigs are just very artificial," she said, and she hated how they looked and how they felt on her head.

Beausang was at a crossroads.

After visiting stores that specialized in scarves for cancer treatment patients, Beausang found only a few, less-than-attractive options.

"There was nothing fashionable. So I started to design what I knew I would want. I was just doing what was good for me."

Beausang, who studied fashion merchandising before becoming a stockbroker, chose fabrics that were both comfortable and fashionable (including rayon, silk and cashmere), and created scarves that fit her head.

Her scarves do not tie; scarves that do can become loose or undone. They were designed to resemble hair. In the back, the scarves come together in a looped elastic end, with the remainder of the material hanging down like a ponytail.

"You feel like you have hair," says Beausang, demonstrating by tossing it a bit, playing with it and even adjusting her ponytail with the matching scrunchie that comes with every scarf.

Beausang did not plan to sell her design, but women would approach her when she wore one to ask where she got hers. And thus BeauBeau was born.

Now she sells BeauBeau scarves at boutiques around the country, including the Faith & Hope boutiques at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and in Abington, Solutions at Pennsylvania Hospital, StylRama in King of Prussia and Yellow Daffodil in West Chester. Two years ago she began retailing online, which now accounts for half of Beausang's business.

"I never though it would turn into this full-time job," said Beausang.

The BeauBeau line also just expanded with the addition of a children's line, "headwarmers" and sports scarves.

The sport scarves have a special place for Beausang. They're an answer to her most embarrassing post-hair loss moment: losing her hat and scarf during a race. The hat and scarf just blew off.

"I was exposed and it was awful, absolutely awful," she said.

As for the headwarmers, Beausang says people don't realize what a body loses when it loses its hair.

"I never realized how much colder you are when you have no hair," she said.

The scarves have given Beausang more than a new career; she's been able to help other women feel more comfortable with themselves.

"My scarves have given me back my freedom," she said, though an escape from the disease is impossible. Strangers, upon seeing her, often think she has cancer.

"I didn't realize how eager people are to enter your personal space," she says. She's been told she will be prayed for, asked about her treatment and given things like movie tickets from people who believe she is undergoing cancer treatment.

Since her case is so extreme, her hair is unlikely to grow back. Beausang's eyelashes grew back in December but they could fall out again any day.

"I'm just really enjoying them right now," she says, laughing.

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