Maggy Francois, event planner and owner of Maggy Francois LLC, on overcoming breast cancer and looking good while doing it.
What can’t Maggy Francois do? Just a few things on her day-to-day schedule: balancing work as an event planner with her namesake company, educating high school students as a fashion design director for Fairfax County Public Schools, putting our area on the map as part of Glamour’s Popularizer 100 and selecting the D.C. participants for “America’s Next Top Model” each cycle. If you are exhausted from just reading that list, imagine how Francois feels. “How do I do it all? I surprise myself,” she says. “I’m still mastering how to do it every day. If you love what you do, you will find the time.”
Because Francois cannot be put in a box when it comes to her career, it is not surprising that she refused to let a breast cancer diagnosis over two years ago define and derail her life. She credits her prior work with breast cancer survivors and organizations with preparing her for the journey to come. Because so many showed her support during her fight, Francois in turn gives back more to her community, whether it is by providing advice to anyone who calls (“sitting in treatment alone is not healthy for anyone”) or planning events like the Pajama Glam for the Tigerlily Foundation.
Despite the battle her body was going through on the inside, Francois was determined not to identify as sick or let people treat her that way by always putting her best face forward. She now imparts the beauty tips she learned along the way on an online platform called Save Your Pretty, which allows survivors to share advice with women fighting different diseases. “From a pretty scarf to a pretty wig, even listening to music—all that is part of saving your pretty; when we look good, we feel good and we heal quicker. I felt beautiful every day,” she says. It may seem trivial to some, and Francois knows that lipstick can’t save lives, but it can help you confront adversity in style.
1. “These Mischo Beauty nail polishes are great because when people are going through different ailments sometimes your nail beds change color. What I found is [that] using creamy dark colors hides that. I actually never used polish before I had breast cancer, and now I love dark colors.”
2. “You know how they say when you get sick you [will] lose your appetite and weight? That was not the case with me because I started oil pulling. I got that tip from somebody. Take a teaspoon of coconut oil and swish in [your] mouth for a couple of minutes. It helped me with keeping my teeth white and eating.”
3. “We deal with dry skin, and I learned about Lush Brazen Honey when researching products that would save my pretty. It’s great; it moisturizes and exfoliates my skin and keeps me from having dry patches.”
4. “I don’t normally wear a lot of makeup. A good serum is important for keeping your skin nicely hydrated so your moisturizer can work properly. I use my Glow Tonic, then I put my serum on after.”
5. “A lot people don’t use tonics or toners to cleanse their face, but I think it helps to remove residue [after washing your face]. Also I had black spots and acne from treatment, and when I started using this they were gone. It’s been about a year and a half of using this. Everywhere I looked I tried to find bad reviews, and there were none.”
6. “It’s always good to take vitamins when you’re dealing with anything, and I had hair loss, so [Hairfinity] rapidly started growing my hair back. I would take one a day; I think it recommends two, but I didn’t want to overload my body. It grew my hair back so fast I didn’t even know it was gone. I started taking it two weeks after my last chemo.”
7. “My journals are a part of me because I document everything, and it was comforting to write about my journey and the people I met. Literally when I found out about my diagnosis I would email people telling them about my journey and asking if I could meet with them. I reached out to Oprah’s team and they flew me out to Houston for The Life You Want tour. Oprah taught me how to release myself through writing.”
8. “This scarf is actually from the Tigerlily Foundation. It is one of the first things [Maimah Karmo] gave me. I never wore a scarf until I got cancer. I wore them everywhere and no one knew I had it because I made it look stylish. I went to Fashion Week with one on, and my picture ended up in Ebony Magazine.”
(October 2015)
