Cold Cap Cuties: Cold Caps, Warm Hearts

It is often during life’s biggest challenges, such as being confronted with a life-alternating illness, that we are able to truly find strength and purpose. For Deb Marweg, Nancy Reich and Leslie Snyder, a common bond of yoga and compassion for a friend united their purpose. They met through classes at Deb’s yoga studio, Now and Zen, soon becoming fast friends, and when one of their beloved yoga teachers was diagnosed with cancer, the trio rallied to support her along with the rest of the community.
Faced with the prospect of losing her hair as she went through chemotherapy, their instructor was determined to do everything she could to avoid that. “Hair is one of those things often tied to your identity, and battling cancer is when you need that strength and ability to feel strong.” Deb said. Through their friend’s fight to maintain her hair as well as her identity as she battled cancer, the three friends heard about cold capping, also known as scalp cooling. Cold capping is a technique that cancer patients, both men and women, can use to freeze the hair follicles with the hope of preventing hair loss as a side effect of chemotherapy. Depending on the chemo treatment, it can be highly effective. However, the access to these cold caps is limited. There are two forms of cold caps, manual and automatic, but even with insurance coverage, the out-of-pocket fees can be exorbitant.

Deb, Nancy and Leslie saw how important retaining her hair was to their friend and how much of a positive impact it made on her mental health as she battled cancer. “We just kept talking about how to make cold caps available to more people,” Deb said. They began discussing hypothetical ideas to overcome that accessibility barrier, and soon those ideas began to move from dreams to reality. The trio reached out to Ciro D’Angelo at Arctic Cold Caps, a cold cap manufacturer. They told him about their vision and asked for his advice on acquiring caps for their budding nonprofit. He encouraged them to go forward with it, quoting them a reasonable price for a few manual cold caps.

The trio of friends held a fundraiser at the Now and Zen studio, hoping it would help them take a few steps toward getting their nonprofit off the ground. They raised the money within the day to cover the cost, and Cold Cap Cuties launched like a firework into the community. “We have the kindest students; it’s not just a fitness place, it’s a kind, sweet community,” Deb said, describing the atmosphere at Now and Zen and the support they’ve received from students and teachers alike. Cold Cap Cuties began lending manual cold caps to chemo patients who wanted them and seeing the positive effect they were having made them start to dream even bigger.

Manual cold capping is a very involved process; caps are kept on dry ice to maintain the necessary temperature of -45 degrees Fahrenheit and need to be switched every 20 minutes for hours before, during and after chemotherapy sessions. Again, the trio reached out to Ciro D’Angelo, asking about the process of acquiring automatic cold caps even though they were three times the price of manual caps. Due to his generosity and the generosity of their community, they were able to switch to automatic cold caps after fundraising for a few months. Now, Cold Cap Cuties has four automatic cold caps and hopes to expand in the future; there are fundraisers planned for spring 2026, and you can donate or contact them through their website, coldcapcuties.com. They continue to work with cancer patients who have received the approval of their oncologists and are under a compatible chemo regimen, lending out the machines and training partners in their use. You will never hear the words “it’s only hair” uttered. Cold Cap Cuties is there to help those who find their strength in taking control of whatever aspect of the process they can. By helping patients cold cap without financial hardship, they hope to enable patients to find ways to reclaim their agency in the face of a devastating diagnosis.

Working together to manage their nonprofit, Deb, Nancy and Leslie step in for each other when life gets complicated and tirelessly work to uplift one another. That same fierce love burns at the heart of Cold Cap Cuties. “We’re all connected, and we should be of service to each other,” Deb said. “What you put out into the world is important.” These three friends found their strength and purpose in each other, in their wellness practices and community and in their nonprofit. Their greatest hope for Cold Cap Cuties is to empower others to find that same strength and purpose, even in the midst of life’s hardest storms.

Learn more at coldcapcuties.com; reach out at (209) 200-4522 or coldcapcuties@gmail.com.