A woman gets ready for work the night before – and sleeps with her hair and eyebrows done.<br /><br />Jess Mullen, 27, has alopecia and lost her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes when they fell out aged 16.<br /><br />She was diagnosed with alopecia areata which quickly developed to alopecia universalis – and her hair has never grown back since.<br /><br />Jess says she didn’t leave the house for two years before she built up her confidence and started sharing her story online.<br /><br />Now she feels “amazing” and is able to leave the house without her wigs and make-up done.<br /><br />But Jess, who works in childcare, still feels more comfortable wearing wigs around the children she works with as she worries they will be “scared of her”.<br /><br />She spends half an hour putting on her wig and applying eyebrow transfers the night before – but applies any make-up in the morning.<br /><br />Jess, a childcare practitioner, from Greenwich, London, said: “It takes so long to get ready in the morning.<br /><br />“I started doing it the night before.<br /><br />“I put my eyebrows on and my wig on.<br /><br />“It normally takes about half an hour.<br /><br />“I feel it’s like second nature.”<br /><br />Jess first noticed a clump of her hair had fallen out after she finished her GCSEs in 2013 – but it was dismissed by doctors as a cause of having her hair up too tight in a bun.<br /><br />But a month later Jess lost all of her hair suddenly – including her eyebrows and eyelashes – and was diagnosed with alopecia.<br /><br />Jess said: “I was the kind of girl that loved my hair.<br /><br />“I was always setting the trend – dyeing it, cutting it into a bob.<br /><br />“It was traumatic to lose it.<br /><br />“There was two-year period where I didn’t go out.<br /><br />“Then I built up the courage to try and wig.”<br /><br />Jess said the wigs started to make her feel more confident – but she still wouldn’t leave the house without one.<br /><br />Gradually over time she realised she couldn’t change anything and began feeling able to leave the house without a wig and her eyebrows on.<br /><br />She said: “I got more confident.<br /><br />“I knew there was nothing I could do to change who I am.”<br /><br />Jess started an Instagram page in 2018 and connected with others like her.<br /><br />She said: “It made me feel more comfortable and more confident.<br /><br />“I can go out bald.<br /><br />“I love the person I am.”<br /><br />Despite this Jess still has days when she doesn’t feel as confident and tends to wear a wig for work.<br /><br />She said: “I worried the children were going to be scared.<br /><br />“But I have gone without a wig a few times and they have smiled and saw me for who I am.”<br /><br />Jess gets ready the night before to make sure she is looking glam in her wigs.<br /><br />She said: “I have a wardrobe filled with boxes about 50 to 80 wigs.<br /><br />“I’m able to change my hair colour whenever I want.”<br /><br />Jess wants other people to know they a not alone.<br /><br />She said: “You might feel like an alien, but you don’t have to feel like you’re on your own.<br /><br />“If you have a visual difference it’s OK to way you do – sad or anxious.<br /><br />“I am who I am – you can be like that too.”
