STY-LIVES
What is STY-LIVES
Led by two medical students, with the support of Save Your Skin Foundation, Styling Hair & Saving Lives (STY-LIVES) aims to empower and educate hairstylists and barbers to detect suspicious skin lesions on the ears, face and scalp of their clients. Participating salons and barbershops are provided with training materials and resources and are taught how to detect suspicious spots. The purpose of the project is to help facilitate communication between the client and their healthcare provider, leading to earlier detection of potentially dangerous melanomas and skin cancers.
How to Participate?
-
All hair professionals in Canada are eligible to participate. To get started, click on the button below to register.
-
You will be contacted within 3 business days by a member of the STY-LIVES team to discuss next steps.
-
Some training materials and resources will be sent to you. Once you have received them and completed the short training, you will be ready to get started detecting lesions!
.png)
The Hair Heroes Challenge is back for its third year!
We're delighted to have partnered with the Ontario Professional Hairstylists Association for the third time to put on the Hair Heroes Challenge! The Hair Heroes Challenge is a social media challenge that encourages hairstylists and students to practice checking for potential skin cancer spots on their clients while giving them opportunity to win prizes!
​
Participating is easy:
​
-
Film a 60-second or less video showing you doing a scalp check on a client, peer or friend. If video isn't your thing no problem - you can post a photo!
-
Post it on your feed or story with the hashtag #HairHeroes2025
-
Tag @saveyourskinfdn and @ophassociation on social media
-
That's it! Winners will be selected based on the creativity and how they incorporate the learnings of STY-LIVES into their videos.
​​
Why should hairstylists get involved?
​
-
Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers.
-
1 in 6 Canadians born in the 1990s will get skin cancer in their lifetimes.
-
There are more new cases of skin cancer each year than the number of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancers COMBINED.
-
Skin cancers that are located on the scalp, neck, or face are associated with higher rates of recurrence and are often more aggressive.
-
Unfortunately, these high-risk areas are often difficult for patients to detect via self-examination especially when they are located on the scalp and back of the neck.
-
While performing the various tasks related to their job, hairdressers happen to inspect these high-risk skin areas all the time. One study found that the majority of hairdressers already examine their clients’ scalp for lesions, regardless of being asked to do so.
The sooner a skin cancer is detected, the earlier it can be treated and the fewer chances of it spreading or causing extensive damage or death.
Video Resources
Thank you to our sponsors for your support in growing this initiative!
