Amanda O’Neill’s family knows what it is to fight cancer.

At the age of just 33, and only months after her daughter Myla was born, the former director of a recruitment company discovered she had breast cancer.

While she was having treatment, her father Stuart Wardell learned that he had bowel cancer. And her mum, Yvonne, who was already living with a rare form of brain cancer that had been diagnosed more than 20 years earlier, lost the battle against the disease.

Amanda, who lives in Flockton says: “At one point all three of us were in Pinderfields Hospital, on different floors.”

It seems almost incomprehensible that one family should bear so much tragedy and yet during the gruelling ordeal of treatment Amanda, now 37, drew inspiration from her mum.

She explained: “She always had a smile on her face and never got upset. That’s why I’ve tried to think positively and get on with it. I don’t want to be a sob story.”

In fact, not only has Amanda picked herself up and got on with life, but her experience had led to the founding of a small business enterprise retailing beauty and grooming products free from artificial chemicals. She has also become a representative for the charity CoppaFeel, which goes out into schools and the community promoting breast cancer awareness.

Although Amanda believed she had a healthy lifestyle, having cancer led her to examine more closely what she was eating and putting on her skin. After learning that she carries the BRCA 1 gene mutation — the same one that led actress Angelina Jolie to have a preventative double mastectomy — she began looking for cancer risk factors that she could control, seeking a healthier way of living for herself, her daughter and her husband James, a manager in the company that she once worked for.

These days they have a mostly organic, vegan diet — no dairy or meat — and they use natural-based grooming products.

She explained: “While I was going through my treatment I was introduced to The Haven in Leeds, which offers complementary holistic therapies. At the same time it was suggested to me that I should be careful about the products applied to my skin and that chemicals such as parabens have been linked with cancer. I did some research and the research that hit home to me was that 70% of breast tumours are found in the upper outer area under your armpit, where we use deodorants.

“I started looking into it and found alternative products. I set up a blog and began reviewing the products I was using because my friends kept asking me about them.”

At the present time the jury is still out on the links between cancer and parabens, with scientists sitting on both sides of the fence, but as Amanda points out: “For me if there’s that doubt at all over whether these chemicals can cause problems and there are alternatives then why would I not use them?”

Interest in her blog led to the setting up of www.myonpure.co.uk and she now has a thriving mail order business selling natural and organic skincare brands, mostly made by UK companies.

Her brother James Wardell, a designer, developed her website.

Amanda’s journey from a high pressure job with a FTSE 250 company to being a full-time mum and entrepreneur began just a few weeks after giving birth. In the autumn of 2010 she noticed a small lump under her armpit but thought that at her age it would probably turn out to be nothing.

It was husband James who persuaded her to go to the doctor.

In fact Amanda had a grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma. Her first thought after receiving the diagnosis was how she would tell her family. She explained: “My mother had brain cancer when I was 12 or 13, so I had known and seen the devastation it can cause.”

During the time she should have been enjoying maternity leave with her new daughter Amanda endured chemotherapy and radiation treatment. It was then that she decided she would take a career break.

Amanda O'Neill of Flockton with her daughter Myla (4).

“Having cancer puts life in perspective,” she says, “and you realise what’s important and how you want to spend your time. We were both guilty of working very, very hard to build a future, but it’s quality time with your family and friends that matters.”

Now that Myla has started school Amanda is looking at her career options once more, but having established her business, which she can run from home, she’s keen to see where it takes her.

Because carriers of the BRCA 1 gene have a high chance of breast cancer returning and developing ovarian cancer, Amanda has had preventative surgery, which dramatically reduces the risk. But she’s still vigilant. It’s one of the reasons why she has become involved with CoppaFeel.

She said: “I go into schools talking to sixth formers about it because it’s important that women develop the habit of checking themselves and listening to their bodies.”

For more information on the charity go to www.coppafeel.org

A small study by a UK university between 2005 and 2008 found that women with breast cancer had parabens, chemical preservatives, in their breast tissue and that n-propylparaben was found at significantly higher concentrations towards the armpit than in samples taken from the middle of the breast. However, the researchers did not use control samples from healthy women. The link between underarm deodorants and cancer could not be proven as several of the women, with detectable parabens, said they had never used the products.

Dr Laura Waters, Principal Enterprise Fellow in the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, conducts research that involves finding ways to introduce drugs through the skin. It is, she says, quite difficult to get substances to penetrate skin. She herself has no concerns over the use of parabens, but acknowledges that some members of the scientific community don’t agree with this view. Her advice is to avoid using grooming products on broken or damaged skin, where there is a risk of absorption and irritation.