Beauty Bus helps hospital patients feel beautiful with free beauty treatments

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (KABC/NNS) - There's a special group helping hospital patients feel better without using medicine or medical treatments.

At Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, patient care comes with a human touch.

A group of certified estheticians and cosmetologists from the Beauty Bus Foundation visit hospitals and offer patients beauty treatments as a way to help them feel a little more human.

“When you are sick at a hospital you feel you look awful,” said Sister Maureen Craig with St. John’s Health Center. “You don't like your hair; you don't like anything about you really.”

Beauty Bus is making a difference, with volunteers spending one day a week making the patients feel better and look fabulous.

Mason Saldana is coming off eight rounds of chemotherapy and his treatment was far from easy. Things took a turn for the better once a friend told him about the Beauty Bus.

“They give free facials, free pedicures, free manicures, and if you want, you can get one - you'll love it!” Sladana said. “I felt like my face was more glowing, and more moist, more alive, more healthy.”

Wendy Marantz Levine with the Beauty Bus Foundation says it’s important for patients to get personal attention from someone other than a doctor.

“They can have this pampering touch that doesn't come from a doctor, doesn't come from a nurse, that doesn't hurt, that's not a shot,” Levine said. “That really is about giving them a moment to be outside of their disease and feel human again.”

The Beauty Bus Foundation has helped 15,000 patients in the Los Angeles County area.

For more information, visit beautybus.org.