At Juvenile Hall, Personal Attention Revives Spirits

Feeling good about oneself is a soothing balm for most, especially women and girls. This is particularly true for those undergoing the corrosive effects of serving jail sentences, leaving abusive husbands or battling years of neglect and abuse.

A measure of self-esteem can begin with a facial or other pampering, according to a small but growing number of local beauty entrepreneurs who are using their know-how to reach out to girls at risk. They have found that girls and women at risk respond to a chance to make themselves look better.

That’s why, on Saturday, instead of doing their Christmas shopping, the three Jaqua sisters of Santa Barbara will travel to Los Angeles to visit the girls of Central Juvenile Hall. There, they’ll give a group of teens a morning of beauty, including facials, pedicures and makeup tips.

“The girls transform from this rigid, cold, hateful persona they throw off” to happy, chatting and sharing beauty tips with other girls, explainedJennifer Jaqua, 39, who made her first trip to the hall last year.

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Jennifer, the oldest of the sisters who own the Jaqua Girls skin-care line, said: “There’s something about taking care of yourself and taking notice of yourself in the company of other women. That’s empowerment.”

Supporting each other is one of the greatest lessons a girl in jail can learn, she said. At last year’s event, the sisters were struck by the fact that, “we literally are touching people that aren’t normally touched by other people. . . . They don’t usually allow people to touch them.”

The personal care approach may sound like a superficial cure to problems that come from a life of abuse or neglect, but Frederick Smith, the hall’s Excel program coordinator, said the visits are invaluable--especially during the holiday season when hall residents generally become depressed and even suicidal. Excel is an enrichment program that, among other things, brings in outside programs.

Typically, the girls stop taking care of themselves after being admitted to juvenile hall and begin to look, as Smith said, “institutionalized.”

“It’s very dehumanizing,” said Smith. “They all wear the same outfits, they all wear the same colored clothes.”

Jaqua agrees. “They need to feel like there’s some part of their life that’s not going down the toilet, that it is OK to take care of themselves, to pamper themselves.”

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Vera Brown, owner of Vera’s Retreat on the Glen in Los Angeles, has been one of the area’s more prodigious, if quiet, volunteers. At 80, the skin-care maven has set up many beauty programs for blind teens, orphans, delinquent girls and cancer patients.

A manicure or facial builds self-esteem, said Brown. “Self-esteem is the greatest healer for someone who’s been traumatized.”

Her lesson, especially to young delinquent girls, is to rub their hands together with lotion and then massage their own faces. “Look in the mirror and say: ‘I love you,’ ” Brown tells them.

“I’m not going to say to you that it cures all of their hurts,” Brown said, but it is the first step in pampering and loving oneself.

The need for beauty is also something the public generally understands.

Since last December when the Jenesse Center, a Los Angeles domestic violence shelter, first put out the call for cosmetics and skin-care products for its residents, it has been deluged with donations. The call apparently struck a chord in the community, said Karen Earl, the center’s executive director. “Every day, I open a box from somebody, from people who are wanting to provide . . . beauty products and pampering services.”

A battered woman is usually fleeing a life-threatening situation and facing myriad issues, including where to live and how to support herself and her family, said Bertha Bruner, the center’s program director. A beauty treatment can be an oasis, if only for a little while, she said.

“It’s like taking them out of the storm for the moment,” said Bruner.

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Smith of the Central Hall echoed these thoughts. The Excel program offers the hall residents many outreach opportunities, such as plays and writing seminars, and different girls react differently to each.

In the middle of the mud packs and foot baths, the Jaqua sisters may make a difference in one life. “There’s somebody out there that’s going to listen,” said Smith.

* Barbara Thomas can be reached by e-mail at barbara.thomas@latimes.com.